Chapter 36 Jade
JADE
The cabin feels too quiet without Phoenix in it.
I stand at the kitchen counter, waiting for the kettle to boil, and try to sort through the chaos in my head.
The call with my mom keeps replaying on a loop—her anger, her fear, the way she hung up without saying goodbye.
I've never heard her sound like that before.
So cold. So certain that I'm making a mistake.
Maybe I am.
The kettle starts to hum, and I pull a mug from the cabinet, dropping in a chamomile tea bag to calm my nerves.
I need to go back to Boston.
The realization settles over me like a weight. I've been gone for weeks now. My freelance clients are probably wondering if I've fallen off the face of the earth. I have deadlines I've been ignoring, emails I haven't answered, a life I've put completely on pause for a man I just met.
But what happens when I go back?
Phoenix lives in California. I live in Boston.
We haven't talked about what this is, what we are, whether there's even a future beyond this cabin.
Are we together? Dating? In a relationship?
The words feel too small for what's happened between us, and also too big.
We've known each other for weeks, but it feels like years.
I want to be with him, that much I know for certain. But I have no idea how that would even work. Long distance? One of us moving? The logistics seem impossible, and I’m not even sure if I want to bring it up and burst our little bubble.
Real life is going to intrude eventually. It always does.
The kettle whistles, and I pour the boiling water over the tea bag, watching the liquid turn golden brown. Steam rises in curls, fogging the window above the sink.
Outside, I hear the crunch of tires on snow.
My whole body relaxes at the sound. Phoenix is back. I didn't realize how much I missed him even on this little trip away. The questions about Boston and the future can wait. Right now, I just want to wrap myself around him and pretend the outside world doesn't exist for a little while longer.
I leave the tea steeping and move toward the door.
A knock at the door stops me mid-step.
Phoenix wouldn't knock. He'd just walk in.
Maybe his hands are full. Groceries. That has to be it.
I open the door with a smile already forming on my lips, but then it drops.
It's Marcus.
He looks nothing like the polished, confident man I met at the investor dinner.
His sandy brown hair, which was styled to perfection, is disheveled and oily.
His jaw is shadowed with stubble, his expensive wool coat wrinkled and damp with snow.
But it's his eyes that make my stomach drop.
Those blue eyes that charmed the Teos over champagne and small talk now hold something wild. Something unhinged.
"So this is where you two have been hiding." His voice is pleasant enough, but there's an edge underneath that makes my skin crawl.
Every instinct screams at me to slam the door in his face. But this is Phoenix's business partner. His colleague. Maybe even his friend, for all I know.
"Phoenix isn't here," I say, keeping my hand on the door. "He went into town for supplies.”
“That’s okay." Marcus smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "I wanted to come by and…clear the air. Just the two of us.”
Something about the way he says it makes my skin prickle. But what am I supposed to do? Refuse to let him in? Phoenix will be back soon. And maybe this is my chance to smooth things over, to apologize for the dinner, to fix some of the damage I caused.
Against my better judgment, I step aside.
"Come in. It's freezing out there.”
He steps past me into the cabin, and I close the door behind him. The click of the latch sounds strangely final.
Marcus moves further into the cabin, his gaze sweeping over the space. The rumpled bed with its tangled sheets. The two coffee mugs in the sink. My clothes mixed with Phoenix's on the chair by the fire. He takes it all in, his expression unreadable.
"Cozy," he says. "I have to admit, I didn't picture Phoenix as the cabin-in-the-woods type. But I suppose people do strange things when they're... infatuated."
I stay near the door, arms crossed over my chest. "Can I get you some tea? Coffee? The kettle just boiled."
"No. Thank you." He turns to face me, and something in his posture shifts. The pleasant mask slipping, just a little. "I didn't come here for refreshments, Jade."
"Then why did you come?"
He doesn't answer right away. Instead, he walks to the window and looks out at the snow-covered trees, his hands clasped behind his back like a professor about to deliver a lecture.
"Do you have any idea what you cost me?" His voice is calm and conversational. That makes it worse. "What you cost Phoenix? What you cost everyone involved in that deal?"
"Marcus, I—"
"Months of work." He turns from the window, and now I can see it—the rage simmering just beneath the surface. "Months of meetings and negotiations and careful planning. The Teos were ready to sign. We were days away from closing the biggest deal of our careers. And then you had to open your mouth."
"The deal was already falling apart," I say, my voice smaller than I want it to be. "Phoenix said—"
"The deal was FINE." The words snap out of him like a whip, and I flinch. "Everything was fine until you decided to make a scene. Until you humiliated Phoenix in front of everyone. Until you humiliated ME."
"He lied to me. You both did."
"So what?" Marcus throws his hands up. "Everyone lies. That's how the world works. You smile, you shake hands, you tell people what they fucking want to hear. Phoenix understood that. He was playing the game perfectly until you came along."
He's moving toward me now, slow and deliberate. I back up instinctively, my hip bumping against the kitchen counter.
"I'm sorry the deal fell through," I say, trying to keep my voice steady. "But that's between you and Phoenix. It has nothing to do with me."
"Nothing to do with you?" He laughs. ”You're the reason he lost focus and threw away everything we built. He was so busy playing house with you that he forgot what actually matters.”
This isn’t going well. Marcus is between me and the door now, and I don't remember him moving there. I take a deep breath.
"I think you should leave." I try to make my voice firm. It comes out shaky instead.
Marcus tilts his head, narrowing his eyes and studying me. "Leave? I just got here." He takes a step toward me.
"Phoenix will be back soon.”
"Will he?" Another step. "Those mountain roads are treacherous. Could take him hours. Anything could happen between now and then.”
My heart is slamming against my ribs. I edge backward, my hip bumping the kitchen counter. The knife block is behind me. If I can just—
"Don't." His voice drops, all pretense of friendliness gone. "Whatever you're thinking, don’t."
He moves fast. Faster than I expected.
His hand closes around my upper arm and he yanks me away from the counter, then shoves me hard against the wall. My head cracks against the wood and pain explodes behind my eyes, white-hot and blinding.
I claw at his face, my nails raking down his cheek. I feel skin tear beneath my fingers, see blood bloom in the scratches. He swears and his grip loosens just enough for me to twist away.
I run for the door.
His hand catches my hair and yanks me backward. I scream as I crash to the floor, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact. Before I can scramble up, he's on top of me, his weight pinning me down, his knees on either side of my hips.
"I didn't want it to be like this," he says, breathing hard. Blood drips from the scratches on his cheek onto my shirt. "I came here to talk. To make you understand. But you just couldn't make it easy, could you?"
I keep fighting. Bucking my hips, swinging at his face, screaming as loud as I can even though I know there's no one around to hear. He catches my wrists and slams them against the floor above my head.
"Stop. Fighting.”
He pins both my wrists with one hand and reaches into his coat pocket with the other, pulling out a zip tie.
He came prepared.
This wasn't a spontaneous visit. This wasn't him coming to "clear the air." He planned this. He drove up here with zip ties in his pocket and knocked on my door knowing exactly what he was going to do.
“No—please—“
He flips me onto my stomach, wrenching my arms behind my back. I thrash and twist, but he's got his knee planted between my shoulder blades, pressing me into the floor until I can barely breathe.
He loops the zip tie around my wrists and yanks it tight. The plastic bites into my skin, sharper and more unforgiving than any rope. I pull against it desperately, but with my hands behind me, there's no leverage, no way to fight. The tie only digs deeper, cutting into my flesh.
"There." He's panting now, his face flushed, the scratches on his cheek swelling. "That's better.”
He flips me back over, and the weight of my body pressing down on my bound hands sends pain shooting up my arms. He grabs the front of my sweater and drags me across the floor.
I kick at him, my bare feet connecting with his shins, his thighs, but he doesn't slow down.
He just keeps pulling until we're in front of the fireplace and he can throw me down on the rug.
The heat from the flames is too close against my back. The stone hearth is inches from my head. And Marcus is standing over me, straightening his coat like we've just concluded a business meeting.
"Phoenix thinks he can take whatever he wants," he says, his voice eerily calm again. "Money. Deals. Women. He thinks there are no consequences for people like him."
"Please." I hate how scared I sound. "Marcus, please don't do this."
"Don't do what?" He crouches beside me, tilting his head. "I'm just evening the score. He took something from me, so I take something from him. That's fair, isn't it?"
"This isn't fair. This is—"
"This is exactly what he deserves." He grabs the collar of my shirt and pulls. The fabric tears with a sound that makes my stomach lurch, exposing my bra, the bare skin of my stomach. "And you're going to help me teach him a lesson."
I scream again, thrashing against the plastic ties, but they won’t give. Tears stream down my face as I beg, plead, say anything I can think of to make him stop.
"He'll kill you." The words tear out of me. "When Phoenix finds out what you did, he'll kill you.”
Something flickers across Marcus's face. Doubt? Fear? But whatever it is, it vanishes as quickly as it appears, replaced by something harder. Colder. Resolved.
"He'll have to find me first." His hand reaches for the waistband of my leggings. "And by the time he does, I'll be long gone and you'll just be the hysterical girl making accusations no one will believe.”
His fingers hook into the elastic.
"No—" I twist violently, bucking against him, but with my hands bound behind my back, I have nothing. No leverage. No way to fight. "Please, God, no—“
He yanks my leggings down over my hips, my thighs, the fabric burning against my skin. The cold air hits my bare legs and I've never felt so exposed, so vulnerable, so completely powerless.
This is happening. This is really happening.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to go somewhere else. Try to float up out of my body, detach from what's being done to me. I think of Phoenix. Of his arms around me. Of the way he whispers my name in the dark. I try to hold onto that, to wrap it around myself like armor.
But I can't escape. I'm here. Face down on the floor. Half-naked. Helpless.
"Please." I'm sobbing into the rug, the words torn from somewhere deep inside me, jagged and broken. "Please don't do this. I'll do anything. I won't tell anyone. Just please—please stop—“
His weight shifts off me and I hear him stand. Hear him moving behind me where I can't see. The not knowing is almost worse than anything else.
I hear the clink of his belt buckle.
I hear the rasp of leather sliding through the loops.
Then his hand fists in my hair, yanking my head back, and his other hand clamps over my mouth. His palm is clammy against my lips. I can smell his sweat, his cologne, the copper tang of blood from the scratches on his face.
"Shh." His voice is almost gentle, and that's the worst part. The tenderness. Like he's comforting a child. "Don't make this harder than it needs to be.”
I bite down. Hard. As hard as I can.
His blood floods my mouth, hot and metallic.
Marcus screams and rips his hand away. "You fucking bitch—“
His fist slams into my stomach.
The air explodes out of me. I can't breathe.
Can't think. Can't do anything but curl into myself, gasping, choking, the world shrinking to nothing but the white-hot pain radiating through my abdomen.
I try to scream but there's no air left in my lungs.
Just a broken wheeze. Just silence when I need sound the most.
Marcus grabs my hair again, wrenching my head back.
"Try that again," he snarls, his breath hot against my ear, "and I'll make this so much worse for you.”
Tears stream down my face. I'm still gasping, still trying to pull air into my lungs, my body refusing to cooperate. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision.