All Chapters of PINNED BY MY STEPFATHER (MxM): Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Chapter 42Derek’s POVMarcus closed the door behind us with a quiet click that seemed to seal the room off from the rest of the apartment. The only light came from the small lamp on the nightstand, casting a warm pool across the bed and leaving the corners in shadow. I stayed near the door at first, arms crossed, waiting. He moved to the edge of the bed and sat down, elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped. For a long moment neither of us spoke. The ordinary sounds of the building filtered through, the distant hum of the elevator, a television turned low somewhere on the floor below, but inside the room the quiet felt thick.“Start from the beginning,” I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. “Portland. The fire. All of it.”Marcus looked at his hands for several seconds before he answered. “Five years ago I was working security for a private firm in Por

Chapter 44Derek’s POVMarcus was already on his feet when I pushed the door open. The lamp on the nightstand was still on, the same low light from the night before. He didn’t look surprised to see me. He looked like he had been waiting for the knock, or for the moment I stopped waiting for permission. I closed the door behind me and held the phone out so the newest message was clear between us.He still hasn’t told you the part that matters. The money wasn’t the only thing he took from that warehouse. Ask him about the drive. Ask him what he buried on the way out of Portland.Marcus read it in silence. His face stayed carefully controlled, but something in the set of his shoulders shifted, a small tightening that said the words had landed where they were meant to. He didn’t ask me to sit this time. He just nodded once toward the chair by the desk and waited until I took it before he spoke.“The money was only part of it,” he said. His voice was lower than usual, stripped of the

Chapter 46Derek’s POVThe light under Mom’s door was a thin, steady line in the dark hallway. My phone was still in my hand, the message opened on the screen. The words sat there like something that couldn’t be unread.Derek, I just got a message from someone who says they know Marcus. They said there’s something I need to know about his past. They sent a photo. I don’t understand what I’m looking at. Can you come to my room?I stood in the living room longer than I needed to. The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. Outside a car passed on the street, its headlights briefly washing across the ceiling.Marcus was still gone, dealing with the source of the threats. I was alone with whatever waited behind that door.I walked down the hall and knocked once.“Come in.”Mom was sitting up in bed, the bedside lamp on, her phone in both hands. 

Chapter 48Derek’s POVThe next few days settled into a new kind of tension that lived under every ordinary moment. Mom didn’t bring up Portland again at breakfast, but the questions sat behind her eyes every time she looked at Marcus across the table. She was quieter than usual when she asked about his day. He answered with the same careful evenness he always used, but the space between their words felt wider. I moved through the apartment like someone trying not to step on a crack that kept widening under the surface.The anonymous messages stayed silent. Marcus said the source had been handled. I wanted to believe him. Part of me did. The other part kept waiting for a phone to light up with something worse. Every unknown number that came through made my stomach drop before I saw it was spam or a campus alert. The silence itself had become another kind of pre

 Chapter 50Derek’s POVMorning came the way it always did, with the pale light pushing through the blinds and the ordinary sounds of the apartment starting up around me. I slept on the couch again. The throw blanket was tangled around my legs. My phone sat on the coffee table where I had left it the night before, still dark. No new messages from Lena. No unknown numbers. The silence felt temporary.Marcus was already in the kitchen when I got up. Coffee was made. He handed me a mug without speaking and leaned against the counter, watching me over the rim of his own. The tension from the night before was still sitting between us, quiet but present.“She’s coming today,” he said.“I know.”“If she pushes too hard, shut it down. Don’t give her anything she can use.”I nodded. The words were easy to agree to