Chapter 1
MARCUS LOCKWOOD
Two months ago
“So, who is Dr. Marcus Lockwood?”
Charles Pompeo doesn’t bother with pleasantries. He perches on a surgical stool, elbows braced, eyes bright with calculation, his silver hair perfectly combed. The producers begged for authenticity, so here we are, under the glare of theater lights in my private operating room.
I lean back in my chair, letting the silence work for me. “Harvard-trained surgeon. Simple as that.”
“But not every Harvard surgeon builds theaters like these. Not every surgeon oversees a national network of clinics, launches beauty lines, and clears hundreds of millions.”
“True. Most stop at surgery. But I run a business too.” I keep my expression even, unrattled by the cameras or by his fascination with my revenue stream.
They dusted me with the barest makeup to blunt the glare of the lights, but I don’t disguise myself.
I don’t need to. The lines at the edges of my face are earned.
I’m thirty-eight, and I look thirty-eight, the kind of thirty-eight that makes younger men resentful and makes women take a second look.
“You make it sound like a side hustle.”
“That’s because, for me, it is,” I say.
The fucker has no idea how deep I run. My life is a layered anatomy.
Surgery is always my first art. The visible empire is a convenient distraction, its money redirected into the parts of society that medicine ignores.
Beneath it, there’s something no camera can expose.
Because to most of the world, it doesn’t exist. For the select few, it’s everything.
Masks. Traps. Fantasies turned to flesh and sound.
And Pompeo, sitting right in front of me, has no clue he’s breathing the same air as it.
He appraises me, and I can already see the checklist lining up behind his eyes.
Next in rotation will be the controversy around the proposed hospital in the Bronx.
Mine. I acquired the land legally. Some families were displaced, yes, and they were generously compensated and rehomed at my expense.
But the world prefers its successful men as villains—the death threats, the vandalism of my properties—and Pompeo knows how to feed that appetite.
Gates, Zuckerberg, Branson. He has dragged all of them over the coals on national television in his so-called “A Day in the Life of” series.
“We’ll come back to business. For now, let’s talk about beauty,” he says. “Earlier today, we filmed at your Chelsea clinic with Miss Verity. She looks extraordinary, doesn’t she?”
He calls it all-access. What it really is, in fact, is access on my terms. Cameras where I allow them, patients I select, consent carefully documented, and outcomes impossible to deny.
“She does,” I say.
“What is it about beauty that draws you in?”
“You’re asking the wrong question. Beauty draws everyone in. I just make sure my work doesn’t lie about it.”
“That’s the line every plastic surgeon feeds their clients.”
“Lines are for people who need scripts, Charles.” My gaze pins him. “I don’t.”
“And yet you only take certain patients. Convenient transformations. Publicity guaranteed.”
“Publicity is for influencers. The transformations you’re talking about are between my patients and me.”
“You claim you perform surgeries where the results are natural?”
“The beauty industry worships symmetry. That’s often its downfall.
Symmetry can flatter, but left unchecked, it flattens character.
Real beauty needs a disruption, a point of imbalance that makes it stay human.
That’s why I choose my patients carefully.
If someone comes to me demanding their own blueprint, I’m not afraid to say no. ”
He arches a brow. “So you’d look someone in the face and tell them their dream procedure is…ugly?”
“If you were the surgeon, you’d call it ugly, which is probably why no one’s ever asked you to sculpt anything but your questions. I don’t insult people, Charles. Plastic surgery is an art of wise choices, mine and theirs. That’s the difference.”
Pompeo drums a finger against his thigh. “Dr. Lockwood, let’s talk about choices. You perform surgeries for disadvantaged children at community hospitals. You expect me to believe you’re doing all that for free? You’re a businessman, by your own admission.”
Here we go. The slow crawl toward the kill shot he thinks he’s lining up. It’s public knowledge that I plan to develop the Bronx hospital to provide better facilities and shorten the waiting lists for those same children.
I cross one leg over the other, the fabric pulling against the scar that runs down my shin. It’s a mark of what I survived. “No. I built the empire first. That’s how you fund the impossible. Money makes it possible. You think hospitals run on applause?”
His mouth tightens before he tosses a folder onto the tray between us. Photographs spill out, showing limbs twisted and bones bowed. It’s anonymous, but he times it for maximum effect, knowing the cameras are zooming in on me.
I give the images a cursory glance, then return my eyes to him. “Medical records as props? You’re slipping, Charles.”
He chuckles, thin and self-satisfied. “I’m not the only one who thinks you’re a showman, Dr. Lockwood.”
“And yet here you are, in my theater, balanced on my stool. Careful there. Sit wrong, and you might look more like the patient I would naturally deselect.”
His smirk falters. “As you said, you choose your patients carefully.”
“Not in the way you mean.”
“You choose the ones who give the most impact. The before-and-afters that are worth a headline.”
“I never rave about my patients. You sound like a bad psychiatrist, trying to provoke and hoping I’ll confess to something I’ve never done.”
He laughs, his fingers skimming hair that holds its shape.
Come on, Charles. Say the Bronx Hospital. I dare you.
He goes another way. “You’ve worked with some of the most beautiful women in the world. Actresses, models, even royalty. What’s that like for a surgeon?”
Tabloid tactics. Predictable.
“I’m aware of the circle I move in. But at the end of the day, they’re talented women who treat their faces and bodies the way athletes treat their muscles, as tools of their profession. I respect their commitment more than their beauty. Beauty fades, but standards don’t.”
Unsatisfied, he tilts his head, going for the jugular. “So tell us, Dr. Lockwood…why are you still single?”
The answer is too complex for a broadcast, and Pompeo would only exploit it. It’s a choice, born from something carved into me long before this interview.
Pompeo registers the hesitation, though I’ve prepared for this question. He’s not the first to ask.
Just then, the theater doors fling open. Sabine Tisdale, my PA, steps in. She’s been with me since I was Dr. No-Client. If she’s stayed this long through the endless nights and the failures, I must be doing something right.
She leans in. “Mr. Lockwood, we have a situation. Sammy Hughes.”
I nod once. That’s all she needs.
“This interview is over.” I rise, the stool scraping back. “Please vacate the theater.”
The cameraman unhooks his rig in a heartbeat, swinging it onto his shoulder for a candid shot. Pompeo’s grin widens. His eyes gleam with the greed of a man who feeds on pain. “All access, Dr. Lockwood. You agreed. You’re obligated—”
“Fuck obligation.” My tone lands heavier than the curse. “Everyone out.”
The producer lurches forward. “Doctor, think of the Children’s Foundation. The condition for the donation—”
“Out,” I state firmly before I hit the corridor and take the fastest line to the holding bay. “Get them out,” I tell Sabine without looking back.
Just ahead, Sammy’s mother is struggling to keep his hands away from his face. His cry carries down the hall.
Pompeo raises his voice, and the producer pleads, but Sabine handles them with the same take-no-shit calm she’s shown me for years. They’re gone within moments, their noise trailing down the corridor. I don’t give it another thought.
I crouch to Sammy’s level. His dark lashes are wet, his face is flushed, and the stitches at the edge of his cheek are torn.
“It hurts! Make it stop!” he screams.
“Hey, Sammy.” My voice softens. He’d had a tumor removed, and the work was done well by a friend of mine. My job was to refine the aftermath and restore the lines of his face. “What happened, buddy?”
The dressing is half pulled away, with the sutures torn open. The skin is bleeding, and the careful closure I’d done is now messy and exposed.
He winces, his eyes darting to his mother. “I was playing with my friend.”
His mother’s face crumples. “He fell face-first, whatever they were doing. And then the boys decided to ‘investigate.’ They were afraid they’d get into trouble, so they opened the bandage themselves. They’re eight! How could they think that was a good idea?”
“Mrs. Hughes.” I wait until her eyes meet mine. “He’ll be all right. I’ll take him back in and close the wound properly. Sammy will be fine. This is what I do every day. He’ll look like the boy you know. Any scar will be barely visible.”
She nods.
My head nurse appears at my side.
“Topical lidocaine, please. Then set up for local,” I say.
“Already on it, Dr. Lockwood,” she replies, laying out the supplies.
“Okay, Sammy, let’s make this stop hurting.”
I open a sterile packet of topical anesthetic and smooth a thin layer along the intact skin near the tear. It buys me a minute, buys him trust.
“You’ll feel a quick pinch,” I tell him. “Then the pain eases.”
He whimpers, but Mrs. Hughes holds his shoulders gently. I inject slowly, pausing when he tenses. Soon the medication drains the panic from his face, leaving only small, ragged hiccups.
“Mrs. Hughes, I’ll need you to wait in the waiting room. Sammy’s going to be fine.”
She nods. My head nurse guides her out just as a circulating nurse appears in the doorway to signal that the theater is ready.
Sammy is wheeled from the bay…and that’s when the TV circus rears back up.
“Make sure you get the mother on camera. That's the shot,” the producer jeers from down the corridor, swooping back in out of nowhere.
The nurses close ranks around the bed, shielding Sammy from the prying lens. I move straight for the producer, planting myself in the corridor as if I could bar the whole damn thing with my body. He stiffens as I close the distance, though the cameraman keeps filming, hungry for sparks.
“This boy is not a show,” I bite out, flattening my palm over the lens. I know the network will blur his face, trim the angles, and package the footage clean enough to air without crossing a line. But it doesn’t make this acceptable.
Sabine’s patience snaps. She drives them back with the authority of a woman who has thrown out more interlopers than she can count.
Pompeo leans toward his producer, whispering, a grin stretching across his face. I don’t like it, but I let it go. For now.
I return to Mrs. Hughes and lower my voice to calm her. “Sorry about that. Some people have no concept of privacy—or decency.”
The team is already in motion. The anesthetist jogs past, his mask pulled up, and the scrub nurse slips through the OR doors ahead of me.
In the scrub room, I wash my nails, fingers, and forearms. The scrub nurse then gowns and gloves me. Taking a breath, I step into the theater, still uneasy from whatever Pompeo whispered into his producer’s ear.
And my hunch is never wrong here.
Because I spot a red light blinking in the corner, half-hidden behind a chair.
“Bastard,” I murmur. It’s positioned too low to capture anything useful, so it’s likely planted to catch my voice. They’re hoping I say something contradictory. Something they can use for maximum drama.
I reach under, rip the compact cinema camera free, and march into the corridor. Pompeo and his crew are still loitering outside.
“This yours?” I bark, and before the producer can answer, I hurl the camera. It smashes against the wall inches from his head, the shards scattering across the floor.
“You think you can sneak into my theater? Exploit a child under my care?” Rage strips my voice bare. “Security!”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Lockwood,” Sabine says.
I shake my head. It’s not her fault. Monsters of this caliber are mine to deal with.
Within moments, my guards arrive and seize the crew. Pompeo pitches his voice high, trying to spin it. “Assault! This is on record—”
“Good.” I step closer, my eyes locked on him. “Play it back while you’re being escorted out.”
The producer curses, spitting threats of lawsuits.
“Clear them out,” I command.
Back in the scrub room, I begin again. Wash. Gown. Gloves. My anger is rinsed away until only focus remains.
Sammy is already on the table with a drape pulled across his chest. “You were pissed,” he mumbles, his consonants muddled from the numbness, a loopy laugh catching on the end. The local anesthesia has dulled both his pain and his filter.
“On your behalf, buddy. Now let’s get you patched up.”
I nod to the anesthetist, steadying Sammy with a hand beneath his shoulder.
“You’re gonna be fine,” I tell him as his eyelids grow heavy.
And as the scalpel meets his skin, I know the world will spin its own story about me. But I don’t care. My only story is the boy in front of me. And he will not carry this scar.