That got a laugh—a sharp, bitter thing that curdled the air between us. “Oh, she told you? Did she mention she faked a pregnancy to trap me?”
The words slammed into me like a fist. My grip tightened on the doorframe, the wood digging into my palm as I fought to stay grounded. I saw red—but Callie’s voice, her tears, the way she’d looked at me like I was the first person she couldbreathearound in months… That anchored me.
“She wouldn’t lie about that,” I said, every syllable heavy with conviction.
Leo staggered back, then leaned into a smirk, drunk on his own delusions. “You really think she’s innocent? She’s just like me. Uses people. Tosses them when they stop being useful.”
My fist moved before I could think. A clean, brutal hit to his jaw.
He stumbled, eyes wide with surprise before fury twisted his face.
“Watch your mouth,” I growled, stepping forward until we were nose to nose. “You don’t get to talk about her. Not anymore.”
He sneered, wiping the blood from his lip. “What, you think you’re her savior? She didn’t want you before. What makes you think she does now?”
And that was it. The last thread snapped.
Because it wasn’t aboutme. It was abouther. And he didn’t get to rewrite her story.
I didn’t care if I bruised my knuckles. I didn’t care if he hit back. I’d hit him again if it meant protecting her from this hell she’d already survived once.
"You're pathetic," I snapped.
“Pathetic?” Leo’s laugh was sharp, scraping against my nerves like broken glass. But underneath the bravado, I caught it—that flicker of fear, the tremble in his stance. He was starting to understand he’d already lost. “You’re just jealous because she actually liked me first.”
I stepped closer, jaw tight. “Liked?” The word came out like a growl. “You think that’s love? Leaving her when she thought she might be pregnant? Running like a coward instead of standing by her?”
“I didn’t abandon her!” His voice cracked as he shouted, too loud for this quiet street. “I thought—! She didn’t give me a choice!”
The weight of it all—the blame, the history, the cracks he refused to admit to—settled between us like heavy snowfall, quiet but suffocating.
I stared him down, pulse pounding. “What happened between you two… it’s not mine to carry. But if you think you can show up drunk on her doorstep, spew garbage, and scare her back into your orbit?—”
“After what?” he barked, cutting me off. “She’s moved on! You think this little fling means anything?”
He waved toward the house—toward Callie—and something in me twisted. Not jealousy. Not anger. Something deeper. Protective. Furious.
“It means something to me,” I said, voice like iron.
He flinched, barely, but it was there. A crack in the armor.
And then I saw it—the desperate man beneath the smug exterior, the one grasping for control as the world moved on without him. A man who knew, somewhere deep down, that Callie wasn’t his to claim anymore.
“You think tearing her down will make you feel less like the coward you were?” I asked, my voice low and sharp. “You think spitting venom at me will erase what you did?”
Leo backed up half a step, eyes darting like a cornered animal. He opened his mouth—then closed it again, whatever insult he’d reached for dying on his tongue.
We stood there, suspended in silence. Distant music floated down from the square, a world still spinning while ours teetered at the edge of unraveling.
He hesitated at the edge of the porch, but I could see him gearing up for something—one last low blow to cling to whatever power he thought he still had.
“That girl in there?” Leo sneered, blood already drying on his lip. “She’s a needy little parasite. Always was. You’ll see it, eventually. Give her time, she’ll bleed you dry too.”
I didn’t think. I justmoved—fist flying through the cold air and connecting with the side of his face with a sickening crack. He staggered, but I didn’t stop there. We went down together, limbs crashing against the wood of the porch, fists landing wild and brutal. The red haze took over, and all I could see was every moment she cried because of him, every time she flinched when his name came up, every wound she’d carried alone.
He grunted as my knuckles met his ribs, but he swung back—sloppy, fueled by alcohol and desperation—and I welcomed the sting. Pain made it real. Made it sharp. We rolled in the snow and splinters, the porch railing creaking under the weight of it all.
“Cavil!”
