Chapter 22: Suspicious

Third POV

Chaos had ensued in Marco’s house. The good kind of chaos, though. Tony was the primary culprit, stupidly drunk, followed by Elia, who was mildly wasted, and James, who was just a little tipsy. Marco, on the other hand, could hold his liquor.

"Marco Chen," Tony called out, his head popping up abruptly from the floor where he had been lying. "I have a question."

Marco, seated on the sofa with James beside him, ignored him.

Undeterred, Tony asked, "Did you fuck Fabio?"

Marco choked on his drink, letting out a cough and a muffled "whoa" before smacking the back of Tony’s head. "There’s a child here, asshole."

Elia, who was also lying on the floor, sat up and glared at Marco, his eyes heavy-lidded and half-closed. "I’m not a child."

Tony giggled at Elia before continuing. "What I actually want to know is who fucked who. Fabio does not look like the kind of guy who would bend for you. Who was on top?"

Marco shut his eyes in exasperation, but his traitorous lips were already twitching. He had to bite his lower lip to keep from smiling. What was supposed to say?

’You know, we kind of fucked each other.’ Marco would rather die than let Tony know that he, Marco, had bottomed for someone.

"Why are you so interested in my sex life? Wanna talk about yours instead?" Marco winked at Tony suggestively.

Tony groaned and fell back to the floor, raising one hand in a quiet sign of surrender.

"Who is... Fabio?" Elia asked, hiccuping.

"None of your business," Marco retorted not sparing the boy a glance.

Tony shot up again, grinning even harder. "He’s a man."

Elia laughed, and Tony joined in. "You are stupid."

Tony laughed harder, nodding his head. "He is a handsome man. Handsome and loaded. I think..." Tony paused, leaning in to whisper directly into Elia’s ear. "...Marco hooked up with him."

Except his stage whisper was loud enough for both Marco and James to hear clearly.

Elia’s mouth dropped open in feigned surprise, and he pressed his fingers over his lips before turning to Marco. "Was it the same person who dropped you off yesterday? The one driving the Porsche?"

Marco sipped his drink, deliberately ignoring the two drunks.

"Huh? Yesterday?" Tony asked, his attention snapping back to Marco with renewed curiosity. "Wasn’t it last week you hooked up with Fabio? Who dropped you off yesterday? Did you finally become a gigolo and you are ashamed to admit it?"

Marco huffed out a long exhale. "Christ, will you both stop being nosy bitches? A friend dropped me off, okay?"

Even to his own ears, the lie sounded ridiculous. A friend, huh? A friend you had spent the entire night turning over, doing him over and over again. More like a friend with immense benefits.

But they didn’t need to know that, Marco thought.

Elia went on his knees, grabbing his own waist with both hands. "You were out the whole night. I bet my entire luck you had sex with that person."

That was the exact moment Marco wanted to sell his own brother. "And so?"

Tony tried to kneel too, but ended up tumbling onto James’s knees. He blinked up at James, who was already looking down at him.

"Jimmmmy," Tony slurred, pulling himself up until half his body was sprawled comfortably across James’s lap.

James, who had been silent and unreactive this entire time, smiled faintly and patted Tony’s head.

Elia’s lips parted slightly before he huffed and slumped back down in a sulk. "Marco has Fabio. Tony has James. What about me?" he whined, stretching his entire body out on the rug. "The person I want still doesn’t want me."

Marco stood from the sofa and sat down on the floor right beside Elia. "You never told me who that man is." His voice dropped, becoming unusually soft as he lowered his head closer to his brother’s.

Elia smiled, a specific image clearly crossing his mind. The smile grew wider as he recalled the events of that night.

"He is... cold, hard to please, and he always ignores me..." Elia murmured. "But it only makes me like him even more."

Marco’s lips stretched into a smile, but anyone with half a brain could look at his eyes and tell he was utterly unamused.

"Do I know him? If you want, I can help you talk to him," Marco whispered, lying down on the mat beside Elia.

Elia giggled, burying his face in his hands. "I even tried to seduce him."

That was the final straw. Marco’s feigned smile vanished. He shot up instantly, straddled Elia’s back, and hooked an arm loosely around his brother’s neck, placing him in a light chokehold.

"If you don’t tell me his name, I’ll kill you right now," Marco warned.

Elia’s face flushed red with fury as his hands grabbed at Marco’s arm, trying to fight him off. "Get off me, motherfucker!" Elia cried out, even trying as much as to bite Marco.

"Get off him, motherfucker!" Tony joined the fray, preparing to launch himself at the two brothers, but James caught him effortlessly, pinning Tony firmly between his thighs. "Get off me, motherfucker!" Tony yelled, shifting his target.

The chaos had not even reached its peak when Marco’s phone began to ring. He sighed, releasing Elia and stepping back.

"We are not done," Marco warned, standing up and snatching his phone from the table.

Elia lay on the mat playing dead, while Tony continued squirming against James, who had now pulled Tony fully into his lap.

Stepping away from the noise, Marco moved toward the window. His eyes locked onto the phone screen. It wasn’t a call; it was a live feed from the CCTV cameras outside the garage, that had detected movement.

Two shadowy figures were prowling outside, looking up and down the property. Marco’s eyes narrowed. The playful guy from a second ago was gone, instantly replaced by a deep, chilling calmness- an intense focus that promised violence rather than panic.

He quickly dialed Orso’s number. The second it connected, Marco kept it brief: "They are here."

"I’ll be there," Orso replied instantly.

"Be careful," Marco added before hanging up.

Forcing a relaxed smile back onto his face, Marco turned to the group. "Hey," he called out. James was the only one sober enough to pay attention. "There’s a little trouble. Well, not exactly little, because we kind of need... to hide."

"What kind of trouble? Did you kill someone and the cops are after you?" James asked with a chuckle, missing the dead-serious undertone in Marco’s voice.

"No, not that," Marco replied, hauling Elia up from the floor. "It’s some debt collectors. I borrowed a large sum of money and haven’t been able to pay it back."

James blinked, his amusement fading as he scrutinized Marco’s face. "How much did you borrow for them to hunt you down in the middle of the night?"

Marco gulped. He did not answer immediately.

"Let’s hide first. I’ll explain later."

Marco threw Elia over his shoulder while James easily hoisted Tony up, and they moved toward the basement. The hidden entrance was in Marco’s room. Precisely, a trapdoor that was under his bed.

Once they were settled in the dim underground room, James was the first to speak.

"I should be asking questions. Lots of them, actually."

Marco clutched his phone tightly, staring blankly at its dark back cover.

"Two years ago, I borrowed twenty million to pay for my mom’s hospital bills. She died anyway. These loan sharks... they’re ruthless. They kill whoever misses the final agreement date. Elia and I had to flee our hometown because I had no way to get that kind of money. They’ve been hunting us ever since."

Marco spoke flatly, never once looking up at James.

James nodded slowly, his eyes laced with worry as he gazed at Marco. "They won’t accept a payment plan anymore?"

"No." Marco’s grip on his phone tightened until his knuckles turned white. "They just... want to capture us."

"What do we do? Is there any way out of this?"

Marco remained silent for a long moment before slowly shaking his head. "They won’t rest until they have what they want."

A heavy silence took over the small room. On the narrow cot in the corner, Elia was lying quietly. His eyes were cracked open just a sliver. A single tear slipped down his cheek in the darkness, and he wiped it away fast before anyone could notice.

An hour crept by. Tony and Elia were dead to the world, deeply asleep, while Marco and James sat vigil on the cold ground beside the bed.

Suddenly, Marco’s phone lit up the dark room with a text notification.

[Orso: Taken care of.]

Marco read the three words over and over before finally shutting the screen off.

"They’re gone," he said, pushing himself to his feet.

James did not ask any more questions.

Together, they picked up the two sleepers and carried them back upstairs.