The digital clock on Marcus's desk read 9:56 AM.
The Burbank lot outside his window was completely normal. PAs were driving golf carts between soundstages, people were walking to the commissary for breakfast burritos, and the California sun was beating down on the asphalt. Inside Marcus's office, however, the air felt thick.
For months, the entire entertainment world had known that Daniel Miller was engaged to both Margot Robbie and Florence Pugh. It wasn't a secret. The rings had been on their fingers, they had walked red carpets together, and they had never shied away from the reality of their relationship. But the burning question that kept tabloid editors up at night was how they were actually going to pull it off. You couldn't just walk into a courthouse in California and ask for a three-way marriage license. Bigamy laws were incredibly strict, and any attempt to circumvent them through a traditional wedding would invite a massive legal nightmare.
People had theorized everything from a purely symbolic ceremony to moving out of the country entirely.
Marcus stared at his monitor. The press release was queued up. It had been drafted by David, the studio's lead corporate attorney, and vetted by three independent law firms in Nevada. It wasn't a romantic announcement. It was a cold, hard, bulletproof legal reality.
9:59 AM.
Marcus took a sip of his coffee. It had gone cold, but he didn't care. He pulled his mouse over the publish button on the studio's social media management dashboard. The software was linked directly to the official Miller Studios accounts, as well as Daniel, Margot, and Florence's personal pages.
10:00 AM.
Marcus clicked the mouse.
The statement went live instantly. It was a single image of plain white text on a black background.
It stated that Daniel Miller, Margot Robbie, and Florence Pugh had officially entered into an irrevocable Nevada Domestic Asset Protection Trust, legally binding them as a single domestic unit. The trust granted them equal joint-survivorship rights, comprehensive shared medical power of attorney, and fully intertwined their financial and legal estates. It concluded by stating they had celebrated their union in a private ceremony surrounded by family and close friends, and would not be taking any press inquiries on the matter.
Marcus leaned back in his chair, took his hand off the mouse, and waited.
For about four minutes, his office phone didn't ring. It was the calm before the tsunami. People were reading the statement, blinking, reading it again, and furiously Googling Nevada trust laws.
Then, the mainline on Marcus's desk lit up. It was a reporter from Variety. Marcus watched the little red light blink.
Two seconds later, line two lit up. The Hollywood Reporter.
Then line three. TMZ.
Line four. People Magazine.
Within sixty seconds, the entire phone console was a solid wall of blinking red lights. The main switchboard down in the lobby was getting absolutely hammered. Marcus picked up his desk phone, dialed the receptionist, and kept his voice completely flat.
"Route everything to the press voicemail," Marcus told her. "Do not transfer a single call to my office. If anyone shows up at the front gate claiming they have an interview scheduled, turn them away."
"You got it, Marcus," the receptionist said, sounding slightly panicked. "Uh, there's a news helicopter hovering over the parking structure right now."
"Let them hover," Marcus said, hanging up.
He pulled out his cell phone and opened Twitter. The app actually lagged for a few seconds before the timeline loaded. When it finally did, it was moving so fast he could barely read the text. The term "Domestic Asset Protection Trust (DAPT)" was already the number one worldwide trend, sitting right above "Daniel Miller" and "Nevada Loophole."
The internet was fundamentally broken.
Over on Reddit, the r/popculturechat and r/movies subreddits were experiencing record-breaking traffic. The threads were absolute chaos, a mix of pure shock, legal analysis, and unfiltered American internet humor.
PopCultureAddict: Wait, so they didn't actually get married in a church? They formed a corporate entity?
LegalEagle99: It's a Nevada Chapter 166 self-settled spendthrift trust. They basically used a billionaire asset protection structure to legally merge their lives. Since you can't have a three-way marriage license, they bypassed family court entirely and used corporate law to grant each other marital rights. Power of attorney, inheritance, medical proxies. It's actually genius. They married each other through a legal loophole.
MovieGuy23: Bro became Captain America and then assembled a literal legal fortress to marry two A-list actresses. This is the biggest flex in the history of Hollywood. I can't even get a text back from my ex T^T.
CinephileQueen: I just want to know what the wedding looked like. You know they bought out a whole island for sure. And zero pictures leaked! Not one! TMZ is probably crying and throwing up right now.
Marcus scrolled through the comments, a slight smile forming on his face. The PR strategy was working flawlessly. By dumping the legal mechanics onto the internet with zero emotional fluff, they had completely starved the tabloids of any dramatic narrative. There were no messy quotes to misinterpret, no grainy paparazzi photos to dissect, and no room for debate. It was a done deal.
The entertainment sites were struggling to keep up.
Deadline pushed an article with the headline: Miller Studios Head Daniel Miller Secures Unconventional Marriage Via Nevada Trust.
The article spent three paragraphs trying to explain the legal mechanics before giving up and just listing all the upcoming movies Daniel, Margot, and Florence were involved in.
Marcus locked his phone and tossed it onto his desk. He had done his job. The narrative was set, the movie trailer from yesterday was still doing massive numbers, and post-production on Shutter Island was officially wrapped and in the can. Now, all he had to do was keep the studio from burning down until the boss got back.
Halfway across the world, the Maldives was completely untouched by the digital explosion.
The sun was high in the sky, reflecting off the impossibly clear water. The private island was quiet, save for the sound of waves hitting the reef and the occasional laugh from someone at the beach bar.
Tom was walking down the wooden boardwalk that connected the overwater villas. He was wearing an unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt over his swim trunks, carrying two bottles of sparkling water. He wasn't walking aimlessly. He was on patrol.
He spotted his target sitting on a lounge chair near the edge of the sand, nursing a cup of coffee.
Mark Ruffalo was looking out at the ocean, enjoying the breeze. He looked completely relaxed, which immediately made Tom suspicious.
Tom walked over and sat down on the edge of the adjacent lounge chair, handing Ruffalo one of the water bottles.
"Morning, Mark," Tom said casually.
"Hey, Tom," Ruffalo smiled, taking the water. "Beautiful morning. I think I finally got the Boston cold out of my bones."
"Glad to hear it," Tom said. He leaned back, crossing his arms. "Turn out your pockets, Mark."
Ruffalo blinked, looking mildly offended. "What? Why?"
"Because you have a notorious track record of accidentally livestreaming top-secret premieres and leaving your phone on during highly classified studio events," Tom stated, his tone completely deadpan. "I collected all the phones last night before the reception. I saw you packing your beach bag this morning. I need to make sure you didn't stash a burner phone in there."
"Tom, I am a grown man," Ruffalo protested, though he looked slightly guilty. "I wouldn't ruin Daniel's wedding announcement."
"You wouldn't do it on purpose, Mark," Tom corrected him. "But you're a liability. You might decide to take a picture of a seagull and accidentally post a selfie with the brides in the background. Pockets. Now."
Ruffalo sighed, reached into his board shorts, and pulled out an old, cracked iPhone. He handed it over.
"I was just going to use it for music," Ruffalo mumbled defensively.
"I'll give it back when we get to Van Nuys," Tom said, slipping the phone into his own pocket. "I appreciate your cooperation. Go enjoy the buffet."
Tom left Ruffalo grumbling on the beach and continued his walk down the boardwalk toward the largest villa at the end of the pier.
He knocked twice on the heavy wooden door.
"It's open," Daniel's voice called out from inside.
Tom pushed the door open and walked into the massive, sun-drenched living area. The back doors were completely open, leading out to a private deck that overlooked the reef.
Daniel, Margot, and Florence were sitting around a small glass table on the deck, eating breakfast. They looked entirely normal. Daniel was wearing a plain white t-shirt and swim trunks. Margot had her hair tied up in a messy bun, wearing an oversized button-down shirt, eating a piece of toast. Florence was in a bright yellow sundress, pouring a cup of coffee.
There was no tension, no anxiety, no Hollywood posturing. Just three people enjoying a quiet morning.
Tom walked out onto the deck, leaned against the railing, and crossed his arms.
"Well," Tom announced, looking at them. "The bomb dropped about an hour ago."
Daniel looked up from his plate. "And?"
"And the internet is completely short-circuiting," Tom grinned. "Twitter crashed for twelve minutes, they should really fix that shit. The trades are trying to explain Nevada trust law to teenagers. TMZ has a helicopter circling the Burbank lot because they have absolutely nothing else to do. It's a total media circus."
Margot took a bite of her toast, chewing slowly. "Did anyone figure out where we are?"
"Not a chance," Tom said. "The airspace is locked, the staff is vetted, and I just confiscated Ruffalo's backup phone, so we are completely off the grid. You guys are ghosts."
Florence laughed, leaning back in her chair. "Good. Let them scramble. I'm going paddleboarding."
"Enjoy the peace while it lasts," Tom advised, pushing off the railing. "Because when we land in LA next week, it's going to be a zoo. But for now, let's have fun."
Tom turned and walked back through the villa, leaving them to their breakfast.
Daniel looked at Margot and Florence. They both had the simple gold bands on their fingers. It felt strange, in the best possible way, to know that the relationship they had been carrying was finally out in the open, and the world had no power to change it.
"Paddleboarding sounds good," Daniel said, picking up his coffee cup.
The rest of the week on the island passed in a blur of sun, salt water, and zero responsibilities. The guests slowly filtered out, taking their respective private flights back to their lives. By the end of the week, it was just the three of them, packing their bags in the quiet villa.
The bubble had to pop eventually.
Fourteen hours later, the heavy tires of their chartered Gulfstream touched down on the tarmac at the Van Nuys private terminal in Los Angeles.
The scene outside the plane was exactly what Tom had predicted, only worse.
Word had leaked through the aviation tracking networks about their arrival time. The chain-link fences surrounding the private terminal were completely mobbed. There had to be over a hundred paparazzi crammed against the perimeter, holding massive telephoto lenses. Two news helicopters were hovering aggressively in the distance, kept at bay only by the strict air traffic control regulations of the airport.
Daniel stood in the aisle of the jet, looking out the small oval window at the flashing lights bouncing off the tarmac.
He turned around. Margot and Florence were standing behind him. They were dressed in comfortable, casual travel clothes—jeans, sweaters, sunglasses. They didn't look nervous. They had been in this industry long enough to know how the machine worked. You couldn't hide from it forever, and trying to sneak out the back door only made you look guilty.
"Ready?" Daniel asked, his voice calm.
"Let's get it over with," Margot said, adjusting her sunglasses.
"Just keep moving," Florence added, picking up her leather tote bag.
The cabin door opened, and the stairs unfolded.
The noise hit them the second they stepped out of the plane. It was a wall of sound—shutters clicking like machine-gun fire, reporters screaming their names over the roar of the jet engines, camera flashes strobing aggressively in the hazy Los Angeles afternoon.
Daniel walked down the stairs first. The security detail, a tight unit of massive, highly trained professionals, immediately formed a wedge around the base of the stairs.
Margot and Florence followed right behind him.
They didn't duck their heads. They didn't hide their faces behind their bags.
Daniel reached out, grabbing Margot's hand with his left, and Florence's hand with his right. They interlocked their fingers. The simple gold bands on all three of their hands caught the harsh light of the camera flashes.
They walked across the tarmac as a single, unified front.
"Daniel! How does the trust work?" a reporter screamed from the fence line, leaning precariously over a concrete barrier. "Are you guys legally married?"
"Margot! Florence! Give us a smile! Did you guys wear white?" another photographer yelled.
They didn't slow down, and they didn't look at the cameras. Daniel kept his eyes fixed on the three armored black SUVs idling about fifty yards away. He gave a single, polite nod in the general direction of the press, completely unbothered by the chaos, and kept walking.
They reached the middle SUV. The security lead pulled the heavy door open. Florence climbed in first, then Margot, then Daniel.
The door slammed shut, cutting off the noise instantly.
The driver put the car in gear, and the motorcade pulled away from the terminal, leaving the paparazzi scrambling in their wake.
Inside the SUV, the tinted windows blocked out the flashes. The air conditioning was humming quietly.
Daniel let out a long exhale, sinking back into the leather seat. He looked at Margot and Florence, who were both taking off their sunglasses.
"Well, that was fun," Florence joked, tossing her glasses into her bag.
"They got their picture of the rings," Margot noted, looking out the tinted window at the shrinking crowd at the airport. "That should feed them for at least a week."
"Let them eat," Daniel said quietly.
The drive from Van Nuys to Bel Air took about forty minutes in the heavy afternoon traffic. The motorcade navigated the winding, tree-lined streets of the neighborhood, finally turning up the long, private driveway of their estate.
The massive wrought-iron gates swung open, letting the SUVs pass before aggressively shutting behind them, locking the world out.
The cars pulled up to the front of the modern, sprawling house.
They got out, grabbing their bags from the trunk, and walked through the front door.
The house was cool, quiet, and exactly how they had left it. The hardwood floors were clean, the massive windows looked out over the private canyon, and there wasn't a single camera in sight.
Daniel dropped his duffel bag in the hallway. He walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge and grabbing a bottle of water.
Margot walked up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her chin on his shoulder. Florence walked into the kitchen a second later, kicking her shoes off and hopping up onto one of the barstools.
"So," Florence said, resting her elbows on the marble counter. "What now?"
Daniel twisted the cap off the water bottle. It was a good question.
For the last two years, they had been running at full speed. Daniel had wrapped post-production on Shutter Island, effectively putting the movie to bed. Margot had ridden the massive wave of I, Tonya through the awards circuit. They had fought the legal battles, signed the trust documents, and survived the media fallout.
There was nothing left to hide, and no immediate fires to put out.
"Now?" Daniel said, turning around and leaning against the counter, looking at his family. "Now we take a week off. No scripts. No studio calls. No Tom bothering us about release dates."
"A whole week?" Margot smiled, looking up at him. "Do you even know how to sit still for a week?"
"Well, Goggins won't let me sit still," Daniel said.
He looked around the quiet, beautiful kitchen. The internet was probably still burning down, the tabloids were definitely printing terrible articles, and Hollywood was still churning outside their gates. But inside the walls of the Bel Air estate, none of that mattered.
They were home.
------
A/N: Read ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/AmaanS