Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 302

I’d already contemplated having someone killed before, but not like this. I wasn’t just entertaining the idea—I was fucking planning it.

Would Chloe kill him if I told her to? I paid her enough. How would she do it? With her gun? A piece of glass off the floor? A random paper clip? What about She-Hulk over there? Would she be able to stop Chloe before my bodyguard finished the job? How much time would I buy her to kill this guy if I threw myself in front of the giantess? How long would it take her to tear me in half? That’d be enough time for Tyler to die, right?

On second thought, maybe this wasn’t the best time to kill Tyler. Psalter probably knew ten different people who could get the job done. I’d even pay to have him killed in a very specific, very graphic way. Tear his head off, perhaps? However it happened, I’d want him killed slowly… maybe in a weird way. Someone could nail him to a wall with a nail gun while he was still alive.

Quentin… Tyler… whoever took another sip of his drink, still smirking at me. “What’s the matter? Nothing to say? Goddamn… you really had it bad for her, didn’t you?”

“Did she know?” I asked.

“Did she know what?” Tyler said, swirling his drink in the tumbler.

“Did she know we were brothers?”

Tyler simply stared back at me, playing with his drink like some fucking villain. Finally, he said, “She knew.”

I felt myself swallow like there was a bag of marbles in my throat.

“She felt guilty at first,” Tyler continued, staring at his glass. “She told me more than once that she thought you should know, but I talked her out of it. It’s not like she owed you an explanation. You waited too long to make your move… like a coward.”

He cut his eyes up at me, a mocking glint shining from under his thick eyebrows. “Honestly, I think she’s relieved she went with me. She never outright said it, but more than once, she said you were getting clingy and smothering her.”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. I’d given Natalie so much space—you could argue too much. I hadn’t put up a fight for Natalie after she’d returned from the wedding, and more than once, I’d regretted taking that route. At the time, I thought she just needed space. A lot of change had hit her. She’d lost her boss, been promoted, and suddenly became romantically entangled with someone who had been a friend for a year. On top of that, it was her employer… someone who had become one of the wealthiest men in New York overnight. I didn’t want to pressure or overwhelm her.

The last word I would have described my behavior was ‘clingy.’

“Oh, and that stunt you pulled yesterday?” He tutted at me. “So desperate. She called you a loser.’”

“Liar,” I said.

Tyler shrugged his shoulders and took another sip of his drink. “I didn’t say it. She did.”

“That doesn’t sound like Natalie at all,” I said. “I gave her an entire planet’s worth of space to make up her own mind, and she chose you. She told me about the wedding, and I let her make up her own mind without putting up a fight because I respect her enough to make the best decision for her. I also know Natalie well enough to know she appreciated that. She wouldn’t have called me a loser, even after yesterday.”

He watched me without confirming or denying what I said, and despite my second-guessing, I tried to keep my face as stone-like as possible. Finally, he snorted, shook his head, and gave me a congratulatory smirk. “Jesus, man. I thought I nearly had you for a minute. Fine.” He threw back the rest of the alcohol and began fidgeting with the tumbler. “Yeah, Natalie could tell she broke your heart. She didn’t regret choosing me but may have felt a little guilty.”

Regardless of how small that kernel of good news was, it felt like a tiny blossom of heat in my chest that I desperately clung to. ‘She felt guilty.’ At that moment, those were some of the most beautiful words I could hear.

Catching Tyler’s lie created cracks in the rest of his story as the seconds ticked by. The look in Natalie’s eyes… the confusion… they all started to paint a different picture.

“She didn’t know we were brothers, either, did she?”

“Nah, man,” Tyler said. I guess he decided keeping up any part of the lie wasn’t worth it. “She didn’t know we had anything to do with each other.”

“She’s not dumb. She would have put it together when you told her your last name,” I said.

“Probably,” he said. “It’s why I used my mom’s last name. Fuck the Gerrards. Dad’s been dead forever, Gramps hates me, Nina’s a bitch, and everyone else is either in jail or not on speaking terms. I’ve never felt like a Gerrard and don’t want anything to do with them.”

“Then why are you talking to me? Why’d you go after Natalie?” I asked.

“Why did I go after Natalie?” Tyler asked, repeating the question as if it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. “Have you seen her?”

“There’s no way you can expect me to believe you guys just randomly met at a wedding,” I said.

Tyler sighed and returned to the bar to pour himself another drink—twice as much this time. “The moment I found out about you, I hired a man to dig into everything.” He took a sip, turned, and leaned back against the bar. “Brother, I know more about you than your own mom. I know where you banked before the inheritance. I know you and Jessica Kemp dated for several months before she ended things with you to date some guy named Shawn. I have a pretty good idea of what you’re doing with that Barbara chick. Shit, man… I know your fucking porn habits.”

“So when I learned you were into Natalie, but you weren’t dating yet, I did some digging and found out about the wedding she was attending. I got the wedding planner’s name, bought him off, and added myself to the guest list. I showed up with an expensive present, gave them all the ol’ Tyler charm, and zeroed in on Natalie. It was cute how much we had in common thanks to my PI, and next thing I know, she’s back in my room with her clothes all over my floor.”

Tyler ended his little villain monologue with a satisfied smile and another sip of his drink.

“Wait… you’re seriously telling me you investigated my whole life, found out who I was potentially dating, and started dating them before I made my move?” I asked, clarifying the crazy.

“Yeah,” he said, grinning as if giving me the punchline to an uncommonly good joke.

“What the fuck? Why? Who has that kind of time?”

“I do!” he shouted, pointing at his chest. It was so abrupt that I jumped in my own skin. “Me! I have that kind of time! I don’t have a fucking job, I’ve got the money to spend, and I hate you enough to dedicate the last few weeks to making your life a living fucking hell! I’ll spend the next year doing it if I have to. Years, even! Natalie’s just the beginning.”

“But why?” I asked again.

“Come on, Marcus! The money!”

“It seems to me like you have enough,” I said. His stupid stunt to make my life hell had probably set him back tens of thousands or even more. Anyone willing to spend that kind of money on something so petulant had to be wealthy.

“For stealing your girl, sure,” Tyler said. “Nothing on your level, though. I can buy a mansion. You can buy an island! I can buy a business. You can buy a fucking country! When Gramps kicked it, I thought this would be my time! Hell, even a fraction of the money would have been a game-changer, but no… I didn’t get shit. None of us did. You got the whole thing, and we’re stuck with goddamn table scraps! I’m bored, and I’m fucking done playing in the little leagues!”

“So, when my lawyers couldn’t figure out a way around the will and told me I was shit out of luck, I decided if I couldn’t have the money, I’d take whatever else of yours I could get my hands on.”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “Did it ever cross your mind that you could have just talked to me? We’re brothers! I know you don’t want anything to do with Gerrards, but I would have—”

“Oh, fuck no! You are not a Gerrard!” Tyler cut in. “That’s the fucking thing… you’re some stranger who’s never had anything to do with this family, and I’m not sure whether that’s worse than you being part of the family.”

“Either way,” I said, “None of this is necessary.”

“Give me the money,” Tyler said pointedly.

I blinked. “What? No.”

“Give me half the money,” Tyler said. “You can keep the other half. We’d both still be the wealthiest people on the planet. Fuck everyone else.”