Chapter 7 - The Arrest
Ethan didn't turn himself in.
Despite his father’s weeping orders, despite his lawyers’ warnings that Mateo held every card, Ethan’s lifelong arrogance staged one final, desperate rebellion.
At two in the afternoon, Ethan slipped out of the side exit of Marlowe Tower and had his driver take him toward the executive airfield in Teterboro. He had a private passport, his mother’s villa in Monaco, and enough foreign credit to disappear until the storm blew over.
He thought he was clever. He thought money could always buy an exit.
When his black Escalade pulled up to the private hangar gate, four unmarked black utility vehicles cut off the road ahead. Two state trooper cruisers pulled in tight behind his rear bumper.
The driver slammed on the brakes.
Before Ethan could even unbuckle his seatbelt, the rear doors were yanked open. State troopers and city detectives stood outside, their hands resting on their holsters.
"Ethan Marlowe?" Detective Hayes, a veteran investigator with thirty years on the force, stepped forward.
"Do you know who I am?!" Ethan shrieked, backing into the far side of the leather seat. "Call my father! You can't detain me without my attorney present!"
"Step out of the vehicle, Mr. Marlowe," Hayes said calmly. "We have an active warrant for your arrest."
"On what charges?!"
"Aggravated battery, criminal restraint, tampering with evidence, and felony harassment," Hayes replied, pulling out a pair of steel handcuffs. "Your friend Tyler just spent the last three hours singing like a canary in an interrogation room downtown. He handed over the original unedited footage, the text chains, and your flight itinerary."
Ethan’s face went completely blank. "Tyler... told you?"
"Tyler took a plea deal fifteen minutes ago to avoid prison time," Hayes said, reaching into the vehicle, grabbing Ethan by his arm, and pulling him out onto the tarmac.
Ethan struggled, his designer shoes scuffing against the gravel. "No! Get off me! You can't touch me! Dad!"
Hayes spun him around, shoved him firmly against the hood of the SUV, and wrenched his hands behind his back.
*Click. Click.*
The cold steel locked around his wrists.
"You have the right to remain silent," Hayes recited into Ethan’s ear. "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law."
News helicopters, tipped off by the airport control logs, hovered overhead, their long lenses catching every second of the arrest in high-definition video. Within minutes, the footage of Ethan Marlowe being shoved into the back of a police cruiser was being broadcast live across every news network in the nation.
He wasn't sitting in a VIP lounge. He wasn't laughing at a banquet table.
May you like
He was in the back of a patrol car, sobbing against the security glass, facing twenty years in state prison.
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