Chapter 7: The Rot Behind the Marble
Across the city, the crystal chandeliers were losing their shine. Marcus’s new life with his young wife, Chloe, and his mother was a gilded cage of resentment. Chloe was obsessed with status, spending Marcus’s money faster than he could make it. His mother, Eleanor, criticized everything. The baby they had paraded around was now a lonely four-year-old girl named Lily, raised mostly by a rotating door of nannies. Marcus sat in his sprawling, silent study late at night, swirling expensive scotch, haunted by a quiet emptiness he couldn't drink away.
