Virgin Dot Com Novel

[Jasmine's POV] Late night bleeds into early morning, and most guests have scattered into the darkness. The venue feels hollowed out-champagne glasses abandoned on tables, chairs pushed back at odd angles, evidence of celebration without the celebrants. I'm helping clean up because I need something to do with my hands, something to focus on besides the fractures spreading through my life. Leo's been drinking. Not sparkling water with lime, not the careful abstinence he's maintained for five years. Real drinking.

Whiskey neat, multiple glasses, more than usual for someone in recovery which is to say more than none. Maya's concerned. I watch her try to coax him toward their honeymoon suite, gentle hands on his arm, worry carved into her expression. He shrugs her off with the carelessness of someone who's stopped caring about consequences. He spots me with the three brothers-we're standing together because it's habit, because despite everything we still orbit each other-and something snaps in his expression. Rage replaces the gentle drunk haze, sharpens his features into something I don't recognize.

"Need to talk to you." He grabs my arm roughly, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "Now." I follow him outside because he's my brother, because something's very wrong, because refusing feels impossible when he's looking at me with eyes that are both furious and devastated. The terrace is cold, autumn air biting through my dress, and I'm shivering before he even speaks. I can smell the whiskey on his breath when he turns to face me. After five years sober, he's drinking at his own wedding. The wrongness of it crawls under my skin, sets off alarm bells I'm too tired to properly process.

"Leo, how much have you had?" He laughs. The sound is bitter, caustic, nothing like the joy from earlier. "Not enough to stop seeing what's happening to you." His eyes are unfocused, pupils blown wide, but the anger cutting through the alcohol haze is sharp as broken glass. He sways slightly, catches himself against the railing. "My sister." He gestures at me with the hand holding his glass, whiskey sloshing dangerously close to the rim. "My brilliant, talented sister who used to know her worth.

Now playing house with three men who can't even commit to being in the same room as her." The words hit like physical blows. Each one finds soft tissue, vulnerable places I've been trying to protect. "Leo-" "You know what people were saying tonight?" His words slur, running together at the edges. "About you? About the girls?" My stomach drops. Dread pools cold and heavy in my chest. "What people?" "Everyone." He takes another drink, swallows hard. "They think you're a whore, Jas. Passing your daughters around to three different fathers like some kind of-" Footsteps behind me.

The brothers have followed, and from the sudden tension crackling through the air, they heard the last part. All of it. "What the fuck did you just call her?" Asher's voice is lethal. Leo turns, stumbles slightly, catches himself. Drunk but not backing down. "The truth. Your whole situation is a joke." Asher crosses the terrace in three strides. Grabs Leo by the collar, slams him against the stone wall with force that makes me gasp. The sound of impact echoes-brutal, decisive, final. "Say it again." Asher's face is inches from Leo's, fury radiating from every line of his body.

"I fucking dare you." Leo, drunk and reckless, meets his eyes without flinching. "The truth? Your whole situation is a joke. Those girls deserve better than being raised by a woman who can't choose and three men who can't commit." Asher's fist connects with Leo's jaw before I can scream. The crack is sickeningly loud-bone on bone, the wet sound of flesh splitting. Leo goes down hard, crumples against the stone like a puppet with cut strings. "No!" The word tears from my throat. Liam appears from nowhere, hauls Asher back with both hands locked on his shoulders.

Finn drops to his knees beside Leo, checks for consciousness with hands that shake despite his practiced calm. Blood wells from Leo's split lip, dark and viscous in the dim light. Asher's knuckles are bleeding too, skin torn where they connected with bone. I stand frozen. Caught between my brother bleeding on the terrace and my... what? My family? My mistake? The labels fracture in my mind, none of them fitting, all of them true. "Leo?" Finn's voice is urgent. "Can you hear me?" Leo groans. Conscious, then. Relief and horror war in my chest. "Maya!" Someone calls, and suddenly she's there.

Takes in the scene with one sweep of her eyes-her husband bleeding, Asher held back by Liam, me frozen in the middle, useless and complicit. "What did you do?" Her voice encompasses all of us. Not just Asher, but me, all of them, everyone who contributed to this moment. "Maya, I-" I start, but she cuts me off with a raised hand. "Just go." Her voice is flat. Dead. "All of you. This is my wedding day." The words land with devastating finality. She kneels beside Leo, cups his face with gentle hands, and doesn't look at us again. Dismissed.

Banished from a celebration we've contaminated with our dysfunction. The drive home is silent except for the girls' soft breathing in their car seats. They're asleep, unaware that everything just shattered. Unaware their uncle is bleeding because of us, because we can't keep our damage contained. I'm wedged between Liam and Asher in the back seat. Finn drives with white knuckles, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the road with laser focus. Nobody speaks. The silence is suffocating, thick with everything we're not saying. I can't look at any of them.

Can't meet Liam's eyes in the rearview mirror when I feel his gaze. Can't turn toward Asher beside me, his bloodied knuckles resting on his thigh. Can't acknowledge Finn's tension radiating from the driver's seat. Leo's words echo in the space between my skull and my thoughts. Whore. Joke. Deserve better. They loop endlessly, a soundtrack I can't escape. The worst part isn't the violence. Isn't Leo bleeding or Maya's devastated face or even the fact that we've ruined their wedding day.

The worst part is the question forming in the hollow of my chest, growing with each repetition of those ugly words. Are they true? Am I exactly what Leo said-a woman who can't choose, passing her daughters between three men who can't commit? Is this whole structure just elaborate justification for my inability to be satisfied with one person, one love, one simple life? The girls shift in their sleep. Zoe murmurs something unintelligible, settles again. They're so innocent, so untouched by the ugliness we're creating around them. But for how long?

How long before they understand what other people think? Before someone calls their mother a whore to their faces? Asher's hand moves. Reaches for mine. I pull away before his fingers can close around mine, and the rejection sits heavy between us. He doesn't try again. Liam's breath catches. I know that sound-the inhale before tears, before breaking. But he doesn't break. Just sits silent beside me, another presence I can't comfort, can't reach, can't fix. Finn pulls into the driveway. The house looms dark and silent, waiting to swallow us back into its carefully constructed lie.

We unload the girls without speaking, carry them to their beds with the practiced choreography of people who've done this a thousand times. I stand in their doorway after tucking them in. Watch them sleep with the kind of innocence we're destroying one decision at a time. Chloe's arm flung over her head, Zoe curled into a protective ball. They deserve better. The thought is poison. Once admitted, it spreads, infects everything. What if Leo's right? What if everything we've built is just selfishness disguised as progressive love?

What if we're sacrificing their stability for our inability to conform? Behind me, footsteps. One of them-I don't turn to check who. They stand in the doorway with me, both of us watching the girls sleep. United in this moment even as everything else crumbles. "Jazz-" Liam's voice. Low, broken. "Don't." I can't hear apologies or explanations or justifications. Can't process anything beyond the question consuming me from the inside out. Are they true? Leo's words. Whore. Joke. Deserve better. Are they true? Virgin Dot Com