Gavin let out a heavy sigh and sank into one of the chairs at the island. “I don’t know, Del. Liv just might. She has a vindictive streak a mile wide.”

Mack narrowed his eyes. What kind of bullshit was that?

Gavin leaned on his elbows. “Look, I love my sister-in-law, but she drives me crazy. Sometimes I don’t even understand how she and Thea could possibly be related. Thea is kind and nurturing, and Liv is sarcastic and cranky.”

Mack’s hands curled into fists as his blood pressure spiked.

“I mean, I admire you for trying to get past all her bullshit, Mack. Because that girl . . .” Gavin shook his head and let out a hoo-boy. “She makes it awfully hard to love her.”

Mack had heard enough and shot to his feet. “Gavin, out of respect for our friendship, I am going to give you exactly one second to take that back before I break your fucking face.”

Gavin cocked an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“That is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Liv is the easiest person to love I’ve ever known. She’s funny and smart and kind and brave, and if you spent any time actually getting to know her, you’d see that her sarcasm is just a way to push people away before she gets hurt. It’s all a front for a mushy heart that’s afraid of being broken. If you can’t see that, you don’t deserve to have her in your life.”

The guys all exchanged another one of those annoying all-knowing looks. Gavin sat back in his chair and tilted his head. “So why exactly aren’t you fighting for her, then?”

And that’s when Mack realized he’d been played. Sonuvabitch. “You didn’t actually mean any of what you just said, did you?”

Gavin grinned. “Not a word.”

A blood vessel seemed to burst in Mack’s temple. “Get out of my house. All of you.”

He spun and stomped to the opposite counter where his phone was still dead and black. Mack planted his hands on the edge of the granite and squeezed until his knuckles turned white, until the flesh of his palms stung.

“Dude, for someone who has spent years lecturing us on how to adapt the manuals to our own lives and relationships, you sure suck at taking your own advice,” Malcolm said behind him.

Mack flipped off the room over his shoulder.

There was a scrape of wood against the kitchen tile followed by Gavin’s voice. “What did you tell me when I said I couldn’t understand Chase’s actions in The Protector?”

Mack squeezed the counter tighter. “I don’t want to talk about the goddamned book.”

“You said I was missing the subtext.”

“It’s a fucking book!”

A fist lightly bounced on his shoulder. “You’re missing the subtext of your own actions, Mack,” Gavin said.

Mack shrugged him off. “She ended it, Gavin. Not me.”

“Did she, though?” Malcolm asked, his feet scuffing across the floor as he, too, approached. “Or did you just walk away without a fight?”

Mack stiffened, his chest tight from a sudden sense of being caged in—not from his friends but from a truth he didn’t want to face. “She told me it was over.”

“You said yourself that Liv pushes people away to protect herself,” Gavin said quietly.

“You knew she would react defensively,” said Del, who now joined their small huddle. “That she would put her walls back up.”

“You knew that, and yet you did exactly what she expected of you,” Malcolm said.

Mack stared at his phone and willed it back to life, but the screen remained dark. Maybe that was for the best, because what if it powered up and he saw zero messages from Liv? Ignorance really was bliss. In so many ways. What he wouldn’t give to be ignorant of this feeling, this agonizing pain, this soul-sucking fear that the guys were right.

The vise around his chest tightened again.

“You let Liv push you away instead of staying and fighting for her,” Gavin said. “Why?”

Mack closed his eyes. Fear is a powerful motivator.

“Come on, man,” Del said. “Talk to us.”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t form the words.

“Mack—”

“Because she’s better off without me.” It came out quietly. Maybe because he was saying it more to himself than to them. Maybe because he simply needed to say it out loud. To acknowledge it. Own it. Live with it. Once and for all.

“Shit,” Gavin breathed. “I guess we found the subtext.”

“Why would you think that, Mack?” Del asked.

Mack opened his eyes but saw nothing.

“Look at us.” That was from Malcolm, quiet and commanding.

Mack shook his head. He couldn’t face them right now. They’d take one look in his eyes and see right through him. The real him. See him for the fraud that he was. Nothing but a scared fourteen-year-old kid who hid in a closet while his father beat his mother. And then they would reject him too.

“Why would Liv be better off without the man she loves?” Del asked.

“Because she loved an illusion.” Shit. What was wrong with his voice? He could barely talk. “She loved a made-up man crafted from the pages of too many romance novels.”

“No. You were more real with Liv than we’ve ever seen you be with a woman,” Del said. “She fell in love with the real you.”

“Maybe that’s what really scares you,” Malcolm continued.

“I—” His voice officially failed.

“Mack,” Malcolm said softly, his fingers squeezing his shoulder with comforting certainty. “Tell us about your father.”

Mack closed his eyes again and tried to swallow, but once again something hard had taken up residence in his throat. “I’m so afraid that part of him lives in me. I think that’s why I changed my name.”

Jesus. The truth made him dizzy. He gripped the counter harder to stay upright. “I changed my name because I’m terrified that his blood runs through me. What if there’s a part of me somewhere that’s just like him?”

“Mack,” Malcolm said. “You are not your father.”

The arrow-sharp precision of Malcolm’s words pierced what little steel remained around his bruised, battered heart.

“And you are not what your father did.”

Something dripped from Mack’s chin. Ah, fuck. He was crying. Goddammit.

“The fact that you started reading romance novels to learn how to be a better man than him shows that you already were a better man than he could ever dream of being.”

Gavin came closer. “You’ve been living with some kind of undercover identity for so long that you’ve forgotten who you really are—a good, decent man.”

“Fuck,” Mack growled. “Fuck!”

Mack pounded his fist on the counter, but then Malcolm wrapped two giant arms around him from behind. And then Del hugged him, and then Gavin, and suddenly even the Russian was there, and it became a great big manly hug huddle with Mack in the middle.

His friends held him up as all the shit he’d been bottling up since he was fourteen came flying out in a torrent of sobs that he couldn’t have stopped if he tried. And they let him cry, let him cling to them.

Malcolm pressed his forehead to the back of Mack’s neck. “Let it go, man. Let it go. We got you as long as you need.”

He did need them. So much. Because his knees shook, and his legs barely functioned. Mack lost sense of time as his chest released all the built-up pressure of a lifetime of secrets and remorse, pain and regret.

Until the pleasant ding-dong of his doorbell interrupted, followed immediately by an impatient knock.

Great. Who the fuck . . . Wait. Maybe it was Liv. Mack untangled himself from his friends.

“I will get it,” the Russian said before Mack could stop him.

He raced back thirty seconds later, eyes bulging with panic. “Code red. Code red.”

Code red? What the fuck did that mean?

A diminutive, pissed-off woman appeared in the kitchen.

Oh, fuck. Code-fucking-red.

A collective gulp filled the tense silence as Thea Scott crossed her arms and glared.

“Um, hi, honey,” Gavin said. “What are you—”

“Don’t honey me,” Thea snapped.

Gavin shut up.

Thea fired her missile-like stare squarely at Mack. “Now, see, this really pisses me off. I come over here all riled up, ready to call you some really creative names for breaking my sister’s heart, maybe even kick you in the balls, and instead you have the audacity to stand there looking like that.” She waved her hands at his general state of pathetic loserdom. “How am I supposed to make you feel like shit when you’re already there?”

Mack gripped the back of his neck. “Thea—

”

“Stop talking.”

He snapped his mouth shut.

She slammed her hands on her hips. “I swear to God, you and Liv are going to be the death of me!”

Mack’s heart sputtered. “What-what’s wrong with Liv? Is she okay?”

“I told you to shut up.”

His friends’ loyalty had found its limits. They all headed toward the back door, except for Gavin, who hovered like he wasn’t sure which would get him in more trouble—staying or going.

Thea threw her arms out to block them from leaving. “No one’s going anywhere. You’re all to blame for this.”

Gavin inched forward cautiously, taking one for the team. “To blame for what?”

Thea pursed her lips. “My sister is about to go after Royce.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Mack heard a buzzing sound in his ears. “I—what did you say?”

Thea made another frustrated noise. “Hello? The cookbook release? She’s going after him.”

Today was the day of the cookbook release. Holy shit. He’d been drunk and depressed for so long that he hadn’t even added up the days. His mouth went dry. “She’s going after him alone?”