Chapter173 The Final Break

Ethan’s POV The ballroom was still tense from Marcus’s outburst. Even now, the last echoes of his demand for five million dollars still hung in the air, as if no one quite believed he had dared to say it. I watched Marcus’s face as people murmured all around him, his eyes darting from guest to guest, searching for someone who might understand, someone who might support him. But he found nothing. The only thing reflected in the faces around him was shock and quiet disgust. For a long time, I had felt a kind of pity for Marcus. I knew what it was like to want to protect your family, to try and hold onto whatever respect you could get in a world that chewed people up and spat them out. But after everything I’d seen tonight, after hearing how he’d treated Katelyn, after seeing how quickly he shifted from pretending to be hurt to begging for cash, just because she had found a better life, there was nothing left in me except contempt. It was obvious to everyone in the room that Marcus wasn’t