EPISODE 18- Starting Now
Marcus POV
The gym at six AM smells like chlorine, bleach, and desperation. My kind of place. The rhythmic thud of my fists against the heavy bag is the only conversation I need. Left, right, left hook. The impact vibrates up my arms, a clean, punishing feedback.
My phone buzzes on the floor next to my water bottle. I ignore it until the round ends, shoulders heaving, sweat dripping from my chin.
It's a burner. The screen shows a single word from an encrypted client.
Status?
I take a swig of water, the cool liquid doing nothing to douse the old, familiar burn in my gut. Status. The girl, Layla Adams, is back on campus. Rattled. The photo did its job. The father, Gregory, has his leverage. The son… the son is a problem brewing.
My thumb hovers over the keypad. My real phone, the one with the cracked screen case, is in my locker. On it, buried in years-old messages, is a thread with a different name. Ethan. Messages that were once just stupid shit—plans to go fishing at the old quarry, arguments about who was better, Jordan or LeBron, condolences when my mom finally lost her fight. Sentimental garbage.
All of it was before the summer of my senior year of high school. Before his family's annual retreat to the Hamptons, and my sister, Leah, just home from her first year at college, decided to visit me at the Marshall's guest house.
I see it in flashes, even now, when I let my guard down. Leah, with our mother's smile and a new, careless confidence. Ethan, tanned and loose-limbed from a summer of privilege, looked at her like she was a puzzle he'd just solved. The way she'd laugh, too loud, when he was around.
I told her he was a user. Told her the Marshall charm was a commodity, not a character trait. She'd rolled her eyes. "You're just jealous he's your friend and not mine."
It wasn't jealousy. It was knowing. I knew the blueprint. The calculated warmth, the intense focus that made you feel like the only person in the world. It was his father's technique, polished for a younger generation. A tool for acquisition.
I found them in the pool house. Not fucking. Nothing so crude. They were on a lounger, her head on his chest, his fingers tracing patterns on her bare arm. She was wearing his t-shirt. The look on her face… it was utter, quiet devastation. And his? He looked… bored. Like he'd finished reading a mildly interesting book and was already thinking about the next one.
He saw me. His eyes met mine over her head. No guilt. No apology. Just a faint, challenging lift of his brow. And?
Leah left two days later. She didn't cry. She just… deflated. She stopped talking about him. Stopped talking much at all. When I tried to bring it up, she'd just say, "It was nothing, Marcus. It was just a summer thing."
But it wasn't nothing. It was the moment I saw the product of Gregory Marshall's assembly line up close. The moment I understood that for people like them, hearts weren't things to be won, but assets to be briefly held, assessed for value, and discarded.
I never confronted him. What was the point? He'd have given me that lazy, half-smile and said something like, "We had fun. It ran its course." The truth, but sterile. Soulless.
The loyalty I have now isn't to him. It's to the direct deposit that hits my account every month, the one that pays for Leah's therapy and the apartment that's not crawling with mold. My job isn't to be Ethan's friend. It's to be his father's contingency plan. To clean up messes. To apply pressure.
And this Layla situation is a Category 5 mess brewing.
I type back on the burner.
> Asset is contained. Subject is non-compliant. Monitoring.
I toss the phone back down. It's not my job to care about the girl with the captivating eyes. Or about the boy behind the smile who might actually, for the first time, be feeling something real. My job is to ensure the narrative holds. To calibrate.
If that means breaking something Ethan actually cares about? Well. He should have learned from his own playbook. Everything has a price. And everyone is negotiable.
I slam my fist into the bag one last time, a final, definitive crack. The past is a ghost. It doesn't throw punches. But I do.
*
Ethan POV
The Clarendon Club at lunchtime is a sepia-toned prison. Dark wood, hushed tones, the clink of fine china. It smells of old money and older secrets. I'm sitting across from my father, Gregory Marshall, and every instinct is screaming to flip the fucking table.
He cuts into his filet mignon with surgical precision. "You look tired, Ethan."
"I'm fine."
"The circles under your eyes suggest otherwise." He doesn't look up. "A weekend of… indiscretion will do that. Drains the resources."
My knuckles are white around my water glass. The photo. He knows. Of course he knows. The anonymous senders report to him. "It wasn't an indiscretion."
That makes him look up. His piercing eyes, the same blue as mine but frozen over, settle on me. "No? What was it, then? A romantic getaway? How quaint." He takes a sip of mineral water. "The Gala is in three days, Ethan. Veronica is expecting you at her fitting at four. You will be there. You will be charming. You will be photographed with her on your arm, looking like the future we've all invested in."
"I'm not going."
The silence that follows is so absolute I can hear the grandfather clock tick in the foyer. He sets his fork down. Slowly.
"I see." He leans back, steepling his fingers. The picture of calm. It's the most dangerous thing about him. "The cabin. That was your first rebellion. Juvenile, but I allowed it. A pressure valve. This, however…" He gestures vaguely at me. "This petulance is not becoming. It is a direct challenge. To me. To the family."
"It's not a challenge. It's a choice." The words feel stupid, childish, even as I say them. But they're the only ones I have that are truly mine.
"You don't get choices, Ethan. You get curated options." He leans forward, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "That girl. Layla. She is a symptom. A flare-up of adolescent rebellion. She is from a world of coupons and ceiling fans, not boardrooms and bloodlines. She will break under the pressure of our world. And she will break you in the process. Is that what you want? To be rendered useless by a passing infatuation?"
Every word is a scalpel, designed to separate, to isolate. To make me feel insane for feeling anything real.
"You don't know her," I say, my voice low and strained.
"I don't need to. I know her type. Drawn to the shine, unprepared for the heat." He picks up his fork again, the conversation clearly closed. "The fitting is at four. You will be there. And you will end this… dalliance. Cleanly. Or I will."
The threat isn't shouted. It's simply stated. A fact of nature. Gravity. Death. My father will destroy Layla.
The steak tastes like ash. The club feels like a vacuum, sucking all the air, all the fight, out of me. He talks about mergers, about the quarterly report, about the seating chart for the Gala. I answer in monosyllables.
My mind isn't here. It's in a dusty study lounge, on the feel of her around me, the taste of her surrender. "I will burn his world to the ground before I let him touch you." I meant it. But facing him… it's like facing a glacier. My fury is a matchstick against millenia of ice.
As the lunch finally, mercifully ends, he stands, straightening his cufflinks. "One more thing, Ethan. Marcus mentioned your… history with his sister came up."
I go very still. Leah. A pang of something—guilt, regret, a dull ache—hits me square in the chest.
"A useful reminder," my father continues, smoothing his tie. "Of the collateral damage that occurs when you confuse proximity for purpose. Don't make the same mistake twice. It's bad for business."
He walks away, leaving me standing there, the ghost of a girl I used to know haunting the space between us, a warning etched in a past I can't change.
*
Layla POV
My dorm room smells like microwave popcorn and regret. Chloe is at a study group, and Mia, my roommate, is… well, Mia is a mystery.
She's been gone all weekend, too. Her side of the room is unnaturally tidy, her bed made with military corners. A single Post-It on her mirror reads, "Family thing. Back late Sunday." No details. That's Mia. A burst of glossy-haired energy that disappears into a personal black hole whenever her family's name is invoked. The Thorne family. As in, Veronica Thorne's younger cousin.
I've been sitting on my bed, philosophy textbook open and unread, for an hour. My body is a live wire. Every nerve ending is still sensitized from yesterday, from Ethan's hands, his mouth, the relentless, claiming rhythm of him. The soreness between my legs is a constant, delicious reminder. But the cold dread from the photo is a counterpoint, a bass line of terror beneath the melody of remembered pleasure.
The door swings open, and Mia breezes in, dropping a designer duffel bag with a thud. She looks… drained. Her usually bright eyes are shadowed, her lively smile absent.
"Hey," she says, her voice flat.
"Hey. You okay?"
She shrugs, kicking off her heels. "Just the usual weekend fun at Thornhaven. Lots of smiling. Lots of 'how's school?' Lots of subtle reminders about who pays for what." She flops onto her bed, staring at the ceiling. "You were gone, too. Chloe said you went away."
"Yeah." I close my book. "I needed a break."
She turns her head, a flicker of her old curiosity in her eyes. "With the Marshall heir?"
I don't answer. My silence is confirmation enough.
She lets out a low whistle. "Damn, Layla. Playing with fire." She sits up, hugging her knees. "Look, I like you. You're real. Which is a rare fucking commodity in my world. So as your roommate, and as someone who has to attend the illustrious Marshall-Thorne Gala this Friday as a glorified potted plant, let me give you some unsolicited advice."
I brace myself.
"It's not just him," she says, her voice losing its playful edge. "It's the whole… ecosystem. My cousin, Veronica? She's not some villain. She's a product. Beautiful, polished, strategic. Her 'relationship' with Ethan is a line on a merger & acquisitions spreadsheet. And she's good at her job. Trust me, I've seen her in action. Ethan defying his father for you? It's not romantic. It's a breach of contract. And in that world, breaches have penalties."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying they won't fight you in the hallways. They won't call you names. They'll just… make your life impossible. Starting with the things that matter to you." Her gaze flicks to my philosophy textbook. "Like your scholarship. Professor Carter is my aunt's close friend. She's on the disciplinary board. The 'responsible use of social media' email wasn't a coincidence."
The pieces click together with an awful, final clarity. The photo wasn't just a threat. It was evidence. For them. "Why are you telling me this?"
Mia looks away, picking at her quilt. "Because I'm tired of being a potted plant. And because watching you two… it's the most real thing I've seen in that scene in a long time. It's also the most doomed." She meets my eyes again. "Just be careful. My family… they have a way of getting what they want. And right now, what they want is the story of Ethan and Veronica. Anything else is a plot hole they'll edit out."
She gets up, grabbing her shower caddy. "I'm gonna go wash the Thornhaven stink off."
After she leaves, the room feels heavier. My phone lights up. It's him.
> Ethan: Can you get away? Now.
My heart leaps into my throat. Yes. God, yes.
> Me: Where?
> Ethan: The place with the terrible coffee. 20 minutes.
The campus diner off the beaten path. Our place. A public place, but not their public.
I'm moving before I even think, pulling on a hoodie over my leggings, shoving my feet into sneakers. Mia's warnings are a buzz in my ears, but they're drowned out by the roaring need to see him, to touch him, to feel real against all the manufactured plots.
I slip out of the dorm, head down, moving with a purpose I haven't felt since we left the cabin. The autumn air is crisp, biting. It feels like freedom. Like a secret.
The diner is half-empty, smelling of stale grease and coffee. I spot him immediately in a back booth, shrouded in shadow. He's staring out the window, his profile tense, the circles under his eyes stark. He looks like he hasn't slept. He looks like he's been fighting a war.
I slide into the booth across from him. He turns, and the moment his eyes meet mine, the mask shatters. The controlled heir is gone. In his place is the raw, weary boy from the cabin. The one who belongs to me.
"Hey," I whisper.
He doesn't speak. He just reaches across the Formica table, his hand covering mine. His grip is tight, almost painful. His skin is warm. Real.
"My father," he starts, then stops, his jaw clenching. "He knows. About the photo. About everything."
"I know." I turn my hand over, lacing our fingers together. "Mia… my roommate… she's Veronica's cousin. She basically warned me off."
A flash of anger in his eyes. "Of course she is." He looks down at our joined hands, his thumb tracing circles on my palm. The sensation is a direct line to my core, which tightens in immediate, aching response. "He threatened you. Not directly. But he made it clear. End it, or he ends your future."
The words should paralyze me. Instead, they ignite a slow-burning fury in my chest. "So what do we do?"
He looks up, and his gaze is fierce, desperate. "I told him I'm not going to the Gala."
My breath catches. "And?"
"And he implied that would be the trigger. For whatever comes next." He leans forward, his voice dropping to a husky, intimate rasp that makes my skin prickle. "I don't give a fuck about the Gala. I don't give a fuck about Veronica Thorne. I only care about this. About us. About the way you feel around me. The sounds you make. The taste of you."
His words are a physical touch. Heat floods my cheeks, pools low in my belly. The diner fades. The threat fades. There's only the intensity in his blue eyes, the rough pad of his thumb on my wrist, the memory of his body moving in mine.
"He thinks it's a fluke," he continues, his gaze dropping to my mouth. "A teenage rebellion. He doesn't understand that this… this is the only real thing I've ever had. I won't let him take it."
"How?" My voice is breathy.
A slow, dangerous smile touches his lips. It's not the lazy, arrogant one. This is something new. Something determined. "By not hiding. By not being a secret he can expose." He stands up, pulling me up with him. He tosses a fifty on the table, far too much for two untouched coffees. "Come with me."
"Where?"
"Somewhere we don't have to whisper."
He leads me out of the diner, his hand firmly in mine. He doesn't look around to see if we're watched. He walks with a purpose, pulling me toward the faculty parking lot. Toward a sleek, dark car I don't recognize.
"Ethan, where are we going?"
He opens the passenger door for me. "A place where the only headlines are the ones we make."
He gets in, starts the engine. The car purrs to life, a low, powerful sound. He looks over at me, and the storm in his eyes has quieted to a single, focused intensity. On me.
"I'm done letting him write our story," he says, putting the car in drive. "Starting now."
—