Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Learning how to lie came only after I realized nobody wanted the truth. Why make things harder by giving it to them?
At ten-thousand feet, Alistair’s card changes the meaning of that lesson.
The back of it is a form, a “quiz,” dressed up in elegant type with thirty-some rows and three columns: Giving | Receiving | Boundary. The list is exhaustive enough to feel like surveillance, and then there are the ones that have more to do with our time on the island than kinks at all.
First things first: Choose a safe word.
I’d have shouted it last night if I’d known it was that easy, but Evie would tell me to keep my mouth shut until we get our story. Marcus’s last names are first to mind, but “Wilder” is too on-the-nose and “Philips” is just plain dumb. I write First Amendment and pretend my hand isn’t shaking.
Next comes the dizzying list. Marking everything as a boundary would feel righteous, maybe even true if I knew anything about the man beneath my performance. It would also get me thrown out of the game.
Progress steadies my hand. At least for now, the thrill of succeeding—of still being here, still undercover—outweighs my growing humiliation.
One ride in his limo has told me more about his inner circle than Evie or I ever dreamed.
Jake’s a likely witness. Maybe he won’t be the only one.
And this card is evidence, something I can photograph, leak, hold up to the light.
Even with Alistair’s name absent, the omission is far from innocent.
I can already see the headline: BLACKWOOD’S KINK LIST. Billionaire’s rules for power and pleasure.
But I’ll need to survive the weekend to earn that ending.
Stay in role. Stay in bounds.
And that means filling out this notecard.
So I start checking boxes, one line at a time, and draft Marcus Wilder in ink.
Mostly, I use context clues from what all the guys have listed on the front.
Brad’s the only one with a single boundary, and most everybody’s put the words I don’t understand as off-limits.
Anything that smells like lasting harm, I mark as a Boundary.
It’s almost easy until one line snags me. My pen stalls on Muscle Worship in plain print, ridiculous and harmless. Stupid nerves gather hot in my stomach. Turbulence. Champagne. I check Giving and Receiving and keep moving.
In a few strokes, Marcus Wilder comes into focus. He’s fine with feathers, riding crops, ice cubes, bondage, blindfolds, alcohol, and drugs, because nobody else boundaried any of those. He’s sex-positive, but has his boundaries and only one more than Dae.
It’s a new set of lies, neat enough to pass inspection. And beneath that performance, Marcus Philips peeks through and wilts.
What the actual fuck am I getting myself into?
I clench the card tighter, like I can brand all the boxes I’ve checked into my identity.
Just give them what they want.
The jet hums, and the adrenaline that’s been carrying me without sleep finally crashes. Engine noise thickens until the sound turns into something else—drawers opening, drawers slamming, again and again.
I was ten years old when I learned people don’t want the truth.
Cross-legged on the carpet, I try to stay quiet while doing my homework. The TV murmurs in the background, volume low, tuned to some static-dusted nature documentary I’m not really watching.
My dad is in the kitchen, opening drawers and slamming them shut. His nightly ritual since Mom died includes checking spatulas by handle length, ensuring mugs are turned so their logos face forward, and aligning knives like surgical tools. One thing off? Reset the whole affair.
“Marcus!” he barks. “Where’s the red sponge?”
I freeze. “I think… the bathroom?”
Crash. Ceramic shatters, and my pencil stops mid-word.
“Do you think,” he shouts, “or do you know?”
I don’t answer fast enough. His footsteps come heavy down the hallway.
My whole body braces for the hit, even though his usually only leave bruises people can’t see.
This time is no different. He smiles when he sees me cowering.
His violence is quiet like that: razor-sharp words and ever-shifting rules.
He grips my workbook and shakes it. “You have to keep the system,” he hisses. “If the system breaks, we lose her again. You want to kill your mother twice?”
I shake my head, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. Crying makes it worse.
Two days later, I work up the courage to go to the guidance counselor. The beige room has one small window and smells like old perfume that tickles my nose. She watches me through crooked glasses, pencil poised, in what I imagine is genuine concern.
By the time I finish, I’m breathless. The hard part is over—telling someone who can help.
She sets her pencil down. She hasn’t written a single word.
“Poor Marcus,” she says, a phrase I’ve heard from enough mouths to know it carries more sympathy for my father than for me. “Do you want to be helped, hugged, or hurt?”
“Wh—?” I stutter, shocked by the bluntness of her choose-your-own-adventure. “Are those my only options?” Her nod is permission for my response to spew like venom. “I’m already being hurt,” I say. “I want him to be the one who hurts.”
My tongue turns cold, revolted by the ugly honesty of what I said, worried what an adult will think of a boy saying that about his own father.
But she’s the one who is supposed to help, and her face doesn’t say I did anything wrong.
She stands, walks around her desk, kneels, and wraps her arms around me.
“Well, now you have been—heard,” she says, careful on the word, like she’s correcting my homework. “And you get a hug for free. But… your dad’s going through a lot too.”
I go still in her arms. I’d misunderstood. She hadn’t asked if I wanted to be hurt. She’d asked if I wanted to be heard, and then refused to listen.
“He needs you to be strong for him. You’re a good boy, Marcus. Can you help him hold it together? Just for a while?”
My truth didn’t matter. Nobody wanted to hear it. They wanted to feel good. The counselor, my father, everyone.
So I let them and became someone new.
Someone who never left the sponge in the wrong place. Who kept smiling when his stomach ached from tension. Who said, “I’m fine,” even when the walls were closing in.
The cabin pressure changes, and I wake to clear the squeeze between my ears.
The paper in my fist creases deeper with every bump of turbulence, demanding I stuff a list of impossible new lies under my skin and into my new identity. The cabin shakes with our descent. Out the window, the island comes into view, a lush green surrounded by a crescent of white sand.
Dae leans over to look, grabbing my hand and squeezing in giddy anticipation. It’s nothing like the dread coiling tighter inside me. The wheels hit the runway with a thud that snaps the cabin awake, straight into cheering and champagne.
I swallow my nausea and smooth the notecard with my thumb, recommitting to the only thing that’s ever saved me: performance with a purpose.
Expose him.