The house was quiet when Ethan slipped in through the side door, the same way he had left that afternoon. His ribs still ached from the courtyard beating, his knuckles scabbed and purple. He had spent the evening walking the train tracks behind the subdivision, replaying everything on a loop until the rage felt like a second heartbeat.
He heard them before he saw them.
Deep male laughter rolling out of the living room like smoke. Two voices he knew too well.
Ethan dropped his backpack silently and moved along the hallway wall, staying in the shadows. The living room archway gave him a perfect angle.
Marcus was already there, sprawled across the leather sectional in nothing but gray sweatpants, the drawstring loose, his thick thighs spread wide. Cole leaned against the bar cart, shirt unbuttoned, pouring Hennessy into two crystal tumblers that belonged to Ethan's father. Between them, the coffee table had been pushed aside, making a wide empty space on the Persian rug.
"She texted me five minutes ago," Cole said, smirking. "Said she's putting on something special. Told her to wear the red set I bought her."
Marcus took the glass, drank half in one swallow. "Good. I want that MILF bitch crawling tonight. Gonna open her up so wide she'll feel us for a week."
Cole laughed. "You still want first hole or you letting me take that ass while you wreck the pussy?"
"Doesn't matter," Marcus said, palming the obscene bulge straining his sweats. "Long as we both in her at the same time. I want her screaming on both our dicks when she realizes her little boy's bully is balls-deep in Mommy."
That was when Ethan stepped into the light.
Marcus saw him first. His grin spread slow, shark-like.
"Well, well. Look who came home early." He stood up, all six-foot-four of him, rolling his shoulders. "You lost, little man?"
Ethan's voice came out flat. "Get out of my house."
Cole snorted. "Kid, go back to your room and jerk off to anime. Grown folks got plans."
Marcus took one step forward, towering. "Matter of fact, stay. Watch from the stairs like earlier. I'mma fuck your mom so good tonight she gonna call me Daddy from now on. Hell, maybe I'll adopt your ass just so I can ground you when she's riding my dick."
Something inside Ethan snapped clean in half.
He charged.
He was fast for a skinny kid, but Marcus was faster. A huge hand clamped around Ethan's throat mid-lunge and lifted him clear off the floor. Ethan's feet kicked uselessly. Marcus laughed, shook him like a doll, then hurled him across the room.
Ethan hit the floor hard, rolled, came up bleeding from the lip. He launched himself again. Marcus met him with a fist the size of a cinder block straight to the gut. Air exploded from Ethan's lungs. He folded, gasping, but forced himself upright.
Again.
And again.
Every time he got up, Marcus hit him harder—hook to the ribs, backhand across the face, elbow that split Ethan's eyebrow. Blood poured hot down his cheek, into his mouth. The room tilted and blurred, but Ethan kept rising, legs shaking, fists clenched, because stopping meant letting the words win.
Cole just watched, sipping his drink, amused.
Marcus grew bored with the game. He feinted left, then snapped a short, vicious jab straight into Ethan's chin. Ethan's head rocked back. Momentum carried him two stumbling steps—directly into the sharp corner of the heavy oak console table.
The edge caught him just above the temple with a sickening crack.
Ethan dropped like someone cut his strings. The rug rushed up to meet him. The world went black at the edges and then all the way black.
He never felt himself hit the floor.
From very far away he heard his mother scream.
"ETHAN!"
Bare feet slapping hardwood, the rustle of silk. Vanessa flew down the stairs in a crimson lace teddy and matching garter belt, hair loose, lipstick bright. She dropped to her knees beside her son, hands fluttering over his face, his chest, searching for damage.
"Baby—baby, can you hear me? Oh God—"
Marcus was already moving. He snatched his hoodie from the couch, yanked it on, and bolted for the front door. It slammed behind him hard enough to rattle the windows.
Cole stayed where he was, swirling the last of his Hennessy. "Relax, V. It's just a little boys' scuffle. He'll wake up with a headache and a lesson."
Vanessa's head snapped up. Tears streaked her mascara, but her voice turned ice-cold. "You said no one would get hurt."
Cole shrugged. "Not my fault your kid's got a death wish." He checked his watch. "Come on. We're late. That rapper's party in the Hills isn't gonna wait. You still want those pictures with him or not?"
Vanessa looked down at Ethan—his face already swelling, blood matting his hair, chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths. She pressed two trembling fingers to his neck, found the pulse, weak but steady.
She leaned close to his ear, voice barely a whisper.
"I'm calling an ambulance, baby. I promise. Mommy has to go for just a little bit, okay? I'll be right back, I swear."
Cole jingled the keys to his Porsche. "Vanessa. Red carpet's waiting."
She stood up slowly, smoothed the lace over her hips with shaking hands, and stepped over her unconscious son like he was just another spilled drink on the rug.
Cole slung an arm around her waist as they walked out, pulling the door shut behind them.
The house went perfectly still.
Ethan lay on his side in a widening pool of his own blood, the crimson lace of his mother's stiletto prints leading away from him toward the night she didn't want to miss.