Your sister is frozen in the center of the room, cheeks white, eyes darting between the circle of faces that have gathered: you, Tom at your side, Barty, and Evan. You and Tom had found out weeks ago that your sister started seeing Marvolo behind Mattheo’s back. Despite everything, you thought you could spare her humiliation.

However, Mattheo doesn’t give either of you that courtesy. He steps forward until the distance is a dangerous thing. “So it wasn’t in my head. The excuses. The late nights. The way you kept pulling away whenever I tried to hold you.” He stops, inhales with a harsh little sound, and you watch his jaw go hard. “You said you were tired. Said you had to study. And I—I believed you.” He laughs once, a sound that is not humor. “But it was never the books, was it? Study sessions. Fcking Salazar, how didn’t I see it? That was him. Every fcking time it was him.”

The room is too loud with all the things unsaid. “You’d leave me waiting, thinking I was losing you to stress or pressure or some stupid fight, and all the while you were running straight into his bed. My brother! And I was stupid enough to believe you loved me. To think I was enough.”

Mattheo whirls around and looks at Tom. “And you knew?”

Tom steps closer. “You have every right to be angry. Do you think we wanted to keep this away from you? We hated it. But we... I was trying to protect you from Marvolo’s rot. And now that you’ve seen it yourself, maybe you can finally stop clinging to the foolish idea that he deserves to be called our brother.”

Mattheo turns away. “He’s going to regret ever f*cking me over. I’ll make sure of it,” he murmurs.

Tom’s eyes pin your sister in place. “And what about her?” he asks, but it is not a question meant to salvage anything. It’s a demand for accounting.

The weight of everything he loved and trusted has been twisted into something else. He stares at her like he is seeing her for the first time and then he says the thing you all had been bracing for.* “Fck her. And fck love too.”