Marcus Cole 13 Reasons Why Novels & Stories

I take a deep breath to stop my shaky hands and pick up my phone. Before I can do anything Cole comes through the door looking pissed. "If Marcus wasn't already handling it I'd have slapped him," he says as he walks over to give me a hug. I wince when he presses my whip marks but I enjoy the hug. "He didn't hear me say it," I tell Cole but he scoffs. "That's not an excuse. He should be listening for safe words," he says with a pissed off expression. "Do you have all your stuff? You're staying with us tonight while Marcus figures out what to do."

Petra and Maren had Marcus between them. Marcus Cole was forty-two years old and looked older in the way that people look older when years have been spent in conditions that don't account for ordinary human aging. He had Maren's coloring the same pale skin, the same quality of stillness and he was moving up the stairs one step at a time with the careful concentration of someone relearning a skill they hadn't needed in fourteen years. He didn't speak again after the single word in the chamber, but he was present in a way that mattered his eyes clear, his hand gripping Maren's forearm with a steadiness that communicated awareness more completely than anything verbal.

"What? What will he do?" Cole looked at me with genuine fear. "Marcus doesn't just collect debts, he makes examples out of people who try to run from him. Two years ago, a girl owed him money. She tried to hide, he found her and…" He stopped. "Let's just say she never came back to school." Nausea rose in my throat. "We have to help Sage. We have to stop this."

“Still sulking, brother? Don’t tell me Yasmin’s death is actually bothering you. Thought she meant nothing to you.” My grip tightened on the glass, and I turned to glare at him. My voice was low, venomous. “I didn’t come here to think about her.” Marcus raised an eyebrow, unfazed by my warning. “You’re not fooling me, Cole. You’ve been a ghost yourself ever since she died. You won’t even come home.” He leaned back, crossing his arms. “Didn’t you always say you wanted her gone? That she was nothing more than a tool for you to inherit Dad’s company?”

I asked, growing increasingly more concerned. "We don't know what happened, but Chase found them. Agent Marks was found dead at the scene." "WHAT?!" I unknowingly shouted, altering Jessica and waking Maverick from his sleep. Maverick began to cry, and Jessica picked him up, holding him in a tight hug. She looked over at me, but I didn't miss the concerned expression on her face. I could tell that she knew that something was wrong, and was desperate to find out what had happened. I switched the phone over to speaker phone, knowing that Jessica desperately wanted to know what had happened. Thankfully, Maverick was too young to understand what was going on.

"He's outside. I wanted to speak to you first." "Speak," she said. "Richard Cole has spent six years in London managing his brother's European business interests," Marcus said. "He came back fourteen months ago when those interests were concluded. He had no intention of contacting you. He read the article. He understood something." He looked at her directly. "He told me that reading the article made him understand what his brother had and had not valued, and that understanding it made him feel a specific kind of responsibility that he could not account for logically but could not dismiss."