Chapter 14 Marcus
MARCUS
Theo Lockwood’s house sits two blocks from The Trap. He’s lived here since his twenties, and after he and Adriana adopted me, it became my home too, until college.
“Marcus, come sit with me,” he says.
He’s in his favorite armchair, angled toward the morning light, holding what is no doubt a Viennese Melange. The garden stretches with orderly hedges, old stone paths, and the same trees I used to circle for hours when I was a kid.
I used to imagine a dog running across that grass.
Or a horse. Or even a rabbit. Anything with breath, fur, and companionship.
But Adriana was allergic to anything animal, right down to dander in the breeze.
Theo knew I was bored out of my mind, and like any father improvising with what he had, he took me out instead.
Bars he owned, bars he liked. By twelve years old, I’d tasted more varieties of booze than most adults.
He meant well. He always did. His version of love was exposure, showing me the world, even if it wasn’t built for children.
He built a small bar empire in his prime. Eight venues from the Hudson Valley to Manhattan. Most of them are memories now, sold off one by one when he decided to retire. Only The Velvet Trap remains, and Theo still treats it like a living thing.
He lights a cigarette while I stay standing. I don’t try to stop him anymore. At his age, he’s earned his vices.
“Wasn’t it your birthday last week?” he asks, giving me the same measured smile he’s worn my whole life.
“It was last month.”
“Oh, happy belated birthday.”
“Thank you.”
The truth is, he’s never been the type to remember birthdays.
The same with his wife, Adriana. They probably never even saw my original birth certificate.
It didn’t matter. When you grow up without a concept of what a birthday should mean, the loss doesn’t register.
What counted were the things they did give me.
Like Adriana pressing a hot compress to my shin and soaking my feet in warm salt water when the pain flared.
She wasn’t the hugging type. She wasn’t the mother who could decipher a child by their cry alone.
But physical relief was its own form of devotion.
And together, she and Theo made sure I grew up like a normal boy, not the oddity my biological mother abandoned.
He eyes me. “And how’s the Game?”
“Fine. The rumor that it’s ending only makes the waiting list longer.”
He chuckles. “And you? Stung by roses and never recovered?”
“Oh, I recovered,” I say. “I just haven’t felt that recovery deserves a knock-back.”
Theo leans back, nostalgia easing into his features.
“I still wouldn’t have done what you’ve done,” he says.
“Risk invites more of itself. The boldest move I ever made was watering down wine. My margins depended on it.” He chuckles.
“Though sometimes I think they noticed and chose to look the other way. Good company will do that.”
“Theo, tell me.” I finally take the other armchair. “Who knew about my leg?”
He studies me, his cigarette poised between his fingers. “You really want to talk about that?”
“Yes.”
“Just Adriana and me. The surgeon, Dr. Grant. I’m not sure about the nurses, but Grant died last year. You know that.”
I nod. “Mm.”
“And if I’m not mistaken,” he goes on, drawing in smoke, “you told the Hunt boys at some point.”
“Theo,” I say, “did you know about the trapdoor in the east cellar?”
He laughs, a genuine, warm sound that lands wrong in my chest. “Of course. Last time I showed you, you were like Indiana Jones. Couldn’t wait to crawl into it. Why bring it up now?”
A pinprick of heat spikes behind my ribs.
“When was this?”
Now he really stares at me. “A couple of weeks ago. You told me you wanted to discuss renovation ideas.”
Theo is sick. He’s been sick for years, but this?
“You took someone to The Trap without telling me?”
His eyes widen, genuine confusion flaring. “It was you, Marcus. You.”
Silence folds over the room.
“Theo,” I say slowly, “what did you do?”
“What’s this? A memory test? My lungs may be on their way out, but my brain is still intact.” He taps his temple. “We walked around. Security was cleared, same as always when you’re present.”
My neck slackens. Of course security was cleared. Theo has access to The Gallows. He hasn’t visited in years, but the permissions remain.
So who walked beside him two weeks ago?
Who looked enough like me to fool him?
A joke?
A mask?
Or something far more premeditated?
“What do you know about my mother?” My voice is quiet, edged. “My biological family. Are they alive? Do I have siblings?”
Theo’s face changes. “I don’t know, Marcus. We found you outside our door.”
It’s the answer he always gives. Annoying as shit. But I don’t push when the coughing starts.
I’m on my feet instantly, helping him sit forward and steadying his hand until the coughing subsides. He waves me off with a breathless smile, insisting he’s fine.
My phone vibrates.
“Marcus,” Liam says. “Van Nuys. West Strip, Hangar 22.”
I end the call.
Theo’s revelation has blown the case wide open. Still, his mental state makes it impossible to accept it without verification.
But if someone has been impersonating me inside my own walls, then it isn’t a breach. It’s a message.
And McBride—
McBride is exactly the kind of man who would lace a threat inside a sick joke.
I adjust the seat, somewhere between upright and reclined. The footrest slides forward. There are no neighboring knees, no tray tables snapping open. This is the comfort you pay for when no one else is on board.
The New York skyline has just dropped out of view.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to make you more comfortable,” the stewardess says.
Her eyes stay on me, stretching the subtext until it’s barely sub. She’s new, so maybe she doesn’t realize I don’t entertain this kind of offer. Or maybe she does and thinks she’ll be the exception. Back when I thought every mutual attraction was a gift, yeah, I might’ve indulged. But not anymore.
And I’m not about to let someone suck my dick minutes before I interrogate a man who once called himself my friend.
Or at all, especially not someone who isn’t—
Not the time to think about Iris.
I look at her badge. “Miss Aldrige.”
“Call me Sylvia.” Her lipstick’s so thick that it looks like it moves before her mouth does. Her fingers hover near my collar.
I sit up, my hand rising between us. I don’t even give her the courtesy of a smile. But I note her name. She won’t be on my roster again.
“Miss Aldrige, orange juice. No ice.”
Her smile stutters. “Right away, Mr. Lockwood.”
She turns, her posture a fraction tighter as she walks down the aisle.
When we land at Van Nuys, Max escorts me across the tarmac to the private hangar.
McBride is already there, blindfolded, his wrists bound behind him, and perched on a crate under the Hunts’ watch. Liam gives the rope a long pull, lifting him off the surface.
He kicks uselessly, gasping. “No…no! Who’s there? Why am I here?”
“It’s me, old friend,” I say.
His head jerks toward my voice. “Lockwood? Lockwood. Is that you?”
I step closer. “So you’re into arson now. Interesting pivot.”
“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe this will help your memory.”
I signal the Hunts. A soft hiss starts somewhere beneath him.
I strike a match.
McBride feels what I want him to feel. Heat rising. The smell of something beginning to burn. His breath fractures.
“No—no—please…what is that? What are you doing?”
“Rings a bell?” I say lightly.
“I don’t know what you think I did!” he screams. “I swear, Marcus, please!”
“I won’t hesitate to watch you burn,” I say, my voice level. “I haven’t forgotten what you destroyed before. And now you want to drag me under again?”
It isn’t The Trap I’m seeing.
Part of me knows Iris may not be clear of this. She could still be tied to it. But another part, the part that carried her from that attic while smoke clawed at her skin, would watch this man suffer for every second she hung there alone.
“I don’t! I swear—” His legs twitch violently. The heat is licking at him now. “I don’t know what this is about!”
“Think again.”
A beat. Then another.
“Oh—wait—wait…it’s about Sali, isn’t it? I didn’t know you had a stake in that warehouse.”
I don’t, and that detail almost argues in his favor.
“I’m sorry. Marcus, I’m sorry.”
I can read an honest man, and I can read a fool. At the moment, he’s managing to be both.
“Sali is the least of your concerns,” I say. “Try harder.”
“I swear! I don’t know anything else!”
A low hiss starts somewhere beneath him. It’s subtle, but enough to make McBride tense in the ropes. Heat begins to rise in uneven waves, brushing the bottoms of his feet. The scent of burning drifts upward.
“What is that?” he trembles.
I crouch, letting the flare of the match catch his blindfolded attention. The glow reflects off the concrete.
“No! Marcus! For old time’s sake, please, I don’t know what you want me to say!”
I hold his fear for one more breath.
Then I nod at Liam.
He releases the rope while Max steps in, killing the equipment in quick succession. The hiss shuts off, the burning scent thins, and the heat collapses back into cold air. McBride collapses onto the ground, coughing, sobbing, and kicking at a heat that isn’t there.
I remove his blindfold.
The cold-burn smoke torch gutters out, its harmless plume fading the way it does at the end of a fire-training drill. Beneath the crate, the hidden space heaters click off, leaving only bare concrete and McBride trembling, still convinced his feet should be charred.
“Well, that was just a stunt,” I say. “Now look me in the eye, McBride. What property did you torch last?”
“N–nothing. I swear.”
I grab his left leg and straighten it out in front of him. He jolts.
I pick up a length of pipe.
“What if I broke your shin bone right here?” I say. “Right now.”
Liam and Max freeze. Their eyes widen, not because they doubt I’ll do it, but because they know I will if it gets me the truth.
“Would that jog your memory?” I probe as my grip tightens.
“No—Marcus—no, I haven’t done anything to you, man. Not since I backed out of Avelis. I swear.”
His terror is too real.
Max replaces the blindfold as Liam catches my arm and pulls me toward the far end of the hangar, away from McBride’s trembling breaths.
“What the hell was that?” Liam asks.
“A lesson.”
“Breaking his bone? That’s your lesson?”
“It told me what I needed. It’s not him,” I say.
Liam exhales hard. “So, what now?”
“Now she’s the only one who can give me more. Iris.”
His mouth flattens into a hard line. Then he says, “Marcus, I’m telling you this as your friend. You’re crossing wires between what you feel and what you know.”
The dark figure flashes in my mind again. He had my build, and if I’m being hypercritical, I’d say my gait, too.
And Theo’s revelation this morning: someone walking The Trap wearing me.
“It’s time to make Iris Vaughn useful,” I say. “I’m inviting her to the Game.”
Liam stares. “Your plan is to seduce her into confessing? You’re insane. Or in love. Probably both.”
“She practically wanted to kiss me the second she saw me.”
“Right. Definitely in love,” Liam says.
“On her part,” I counter. “I can get what I need out of her.”
And hell, I know exactly what I’d take.
My mouth on her neck, her back arching for me, her legs opening because she wants to be claimed.
“Cocky,” Liam mutters.
“Confident,” I correct him. “I’m changing the Game. Let her choose the players.”
“What?” he says.
“Give her our core roster. Whoever she wants.”
Max joins us, catching the tail end. “Doc, if she doesn’t choose you?”
“She will.”