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The casual, dismissive bite of his tone sliced straight into the raw wound I’d carried my entire life. Dumb muscle. The fist. The blunt instrument.

Something snapped inside me.

Before Vidar could tap the screen again, I crossed the room in two strides. I grabbed Vidar by the collar of his tailored jacket, yanked him over the edge of the table, and slammed him flat onto the hardwood floor.

Vidar’s breath exploded out of him. His dark eyes widened in utter shock. Magnus straightened, his heavy Alpha aura flaring as he took a step forward. But then he paused. My eldest brother took in the furious focus in my posture before stepping back and folding his arms, clearly deciding to let us hash it out.

I twisted Vidar’s right arm behind his back, driving my knee into the center of his spine and pinning him flat against the floor. I hooked my wrist beneath his elbow, pulling the bone taut until the joint locked out completely.

"What the fuck is your deal, Gunnar?" Vidar choked out, gritting his teeth against the pressure.

"Right now, I have your radius and ulna under hundreds of pounds of torque. Your shoulder joint is one inch away from total dislocation. If I apply five more pounds of pressure, your arm breaks in two places."

Vidar went completely still under my weight.

"You trust that I won't break it, don't you?" I demanded, my voice rough and shaking with built-up rage. "You trust that because we're blood, I have your back. But you don't trust that my brain works. You don't think my IQ is as high as yours just because I don't sit behind a spreadsheet."

"You can't stand spreadsheets."

"But I know how to read them," I growled.

"What the fuck is this?" Vidar snarled right back. "You need me to tell you you're pretty and that your ass doesn't look big in those sweatpants? Because it does."

"I'm not stupid."

"You continuing to put pressure on my arm, knowing I'm going to kick your ass when I get up, says otherwise."

"You can't kick my ass if I break your leg."

"Do you want to run the spreadsheets?" Vidar managed to sound exasperated and bored, even though I had him in a submissive position. "Is punching things too hard for you now?"

"I can punch things. I can run the numbers. And I can logic out a plan of attack. So stop treating me like I'm the hired muscle. I have a fucking brain."

Vidar let out a strained breath against the floorboards. "You stopped showing an interest in the numbers side years ago. You chose the physical side. It’s not like we ever sat down and had a heart-to-heart about your career choices."

I held him for one more agonizing second, then released his arm and stood up, stepping back.

Vidar pushed himself up off the floor, dusting off his suit jacket and rubbing his shoulder, his jaw tight.

"That's exactly my fucking point."

Vidar frowned.

"You think intelligence is spreadsheets. Numbers. Sitting behind a desk, moving money around."

"Yeah." Vidar's brows rose, as though that was the end of it.

"You trust me to interrogate someone. Why?"

Vidar sighed. "Why don't you tell me, since clearly this is a heart to heart."

"Because I know the human body. I know how much pressure a joint can take before it fails. I know how long someone can lose oxygen before there's permanent damage. I know what pain makes somebody panic and what pain makes them shut down. I know when a man's pulse changes because he's scared and when it changes because he's lying. You trust me to make those decisions every fucking time you send me into a room with somebody. You trust me with their lives. You trust me with yours." I pointed toward the arm he was still rubbing. "But put a tablet on the table and suddenly I'm too stupid to be part of the conversation."

"I never said you were stupid."

"Just that you're smarter than me."

"Yeah." Again, with the brow raise like that was the end of it. But Vidar added on. "But you're not stupid. Do you need me to, like, validate you or something?"