Page 85 of My Brother's Billionaire Best Friends

I feel that. More than I want to admit. “I didn’t sit on it. I verified it. Verification takes time. I’m not about to make accusations against Vivian half-cocked. I combed through every holding structure three times. I didn’twantthis to be real, Gavin. But it is.”

Gavin looks at me like I’ve gutted him. And it’s not just betrayal. It’s grief. Like something in him is unraveling and he doesn’t know how to hold it in place. “You should’ve told me the second you knew.”

“I told you when I was sure,” I say.

He shakes his head. “You knew before tonight.”

I pause.

And that’s the only answer he needs. He steps back from me like I’m contagious. He mutters under his breath, “Jesus.”

Jack rakes a hand through his hair. “Gavin. Come on. You’re not actually mad at him.”

Gavin’s eyes are burning at me now. “No?” he says. “Because it sure feels like a knife in the back.”

The words land, cold and hard. I take a breath. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“But you did.”

Silence.

Jack looks between us, jaw working.

I try to speak again, but Gavin’s already turning away, hands on his hips, pacing in a tight line like he’s about to explode. And maybe he will. Because everything in him is cracked right now. He’s not just angry. He’s trying not to fall apart in front of the only people who’ve seen him broken before.

Jack watches him. I watch both of them. And for a second, everything in the room is heat and tension and unspoken grief.

No one says anything else. The worst part isn’t the yelling. It’s the silence after. When no one knows what to say next, because everything that could have been said was said too loud, too fast, and too damn personal.

Gavin’s back to pacing, but slower now. Like his body still hasn’t figured out how to calm down. Jack’s near the catering carts, arms crossed, jaw flexing like he’s chewing on restraint. Neither of them looks at me. Not directly.

I’m not sure if it’s because they’re still pissed, or because they feel how close we all came to something that couldn’t be walked back. It wasn’t a fight. It was a fracture. And we don’t know how deep it runs yet.

I lean against one of the columns near the edge of the ballroom, trying not to relive that moment when Gavin looked me in the eye and told me I stabbed him in the back.

It wasn’t true. But it wasn’t nothing either.

I held back. I waited. I ran the numbers, built the proof, checked it three times. And I waited to drop it until it was clean. I thought I was protecting him. If there was a mistake somewhere along the line, I didn’t want to permanently damage his relationship with Vivian.

Now I’m not sure if that makes me smart—or just cowardly.

“You still think she didn’t mean for this to happen?” Jack says suddenly, voice quieter now, but still sharp. “She owns thirty percent of the firm trying to kill yours. That’s not a passive investment.”

“I know.” It’s the first thing Gavin’s said in a while.

Jack studies him. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know.”

None of us say anything to that. Not because it’s the wrong answer—but because it’s the only honest one.

Vivian gave me my first shot. She put a roof over my head when I didn’t have one. She didn’t ask questions. Just gave me a job and expected me to prove I could keep it.

I did. I proved it a thousand times over. And still—I didn’t see this coming. Or maybe I didn’t want to. “She’s not going to stop. Not until her goals are met. We need to know what they are.”

Gavin rubs a hand down his face, weariness pulling at his posture now. Like the adrenaline has finally burned out, and what’s left is ash. “I need to talk to her.”

“You won’t get a straight answer,” Jack warns.