Chapter 6 - THE BUSINESS OF ETHAN
Brooke Ellis did not meet them in a studio.
She met them in a lawyer's conference room.
That told Ethan enough.
Lauren came.
An attorney named Melissa Grant came for Ethan's interests.
Michael was invited.
He did not attend.
Brooke brought records.
Not all.
Enough.
Ethan Strong Media LLC.
Revenue over three years:
Advertising.
Sponsorships.
Licensing.
Affiliate links.
Brand deals.
Total gross:
$486,000.
Ethan stared at the number.
Lauren looked just as shocked.
“Michael made half a million dollars?”
Brooke corrected:
“The business grossed that.”
Expenses mattered.
Editing.
Equipment.
Management.
Taxes.
Production contractors.
Travel.
Health insurance.
Mortgage arrears from Rebecca's final illness.
By the time costs were removed, Michael's personal draws were far lower.
Still substantial.
Ethan asked:
“Did I get paid?”
Melissa answered before Brooke could.
“That's one of the things we're determining.”
The LLC records showed a savings account labeled:
Ethan Education / Future
Balance:
$34,700.
Michael had funded it irregularly.
No fixed percentage.
No independent trustee.
No formal child-performance account because their state had not required one for this kind of family social-media content during most of the channel's growth.
Legally messy.
Morally simpler.
Ethan had generated a large part of the value.
He had no meaningful control.
Brooke said:
“Your mother cared about that.”
Ethan looked up.
“How much?”
Brooke paused.
“A lot by the end.”
By the end.
Again.
Rebecca had originally helped build the account.
That fact needed to stay.
She wrote captions.
Approved sponsorships.
Filmed Michael.
Filmed Ethan.
During treatment, the channel paid bills.
One cancer-center fundraiser Rebecca promoted generated more than eighty thousand dollars for patient assistance.
Not all exploitation.
Not all bad.
Then the numbers changed after Rebecca died.
Family cooking videos:
Moderate views.
Grief updates:
High.
Ethan crying:
Very high.
School humiliation or embarrassment:
Highest completion rate.
Michael saw the analytics.
Brooke saw him see them.
“He started pushing.”
“What does that mean?”
Lauren asked.
Brooke looked at Ethan.
“I don't want to discuss detailed examples in front of him without his attorney deciding what's appropriate.”
Melissa nodded.
Good.
Ethan hated that too.
But good.
They sent him out with Lauren for fifteen minutes.
When he returned, Melissa summarized.
No explicit violence before today.
No evidence Michael paid anyone to injure Ethan before Ryan.
But there were at least four events Brooke suspected had been manipulated.
The missed bus.
A ruined birthday cake.
A camping rain incident.
A video where Ethan believed he lost his mother's old watch.
Ethan froze.
“The watch?”
Lauren looked at him.
“What watch?”
“Mom's.”
Michael had given Ethan Rebecca's cheap silver Timex after the funeral.
A year later Ethan couldn't find it.
Michael filmed him searching.
Ethan cried.
The watch appeared inside an old jacket pocket.
The clip went viral.
Brooke looked miserable.
“Michael told me afterward he moved it.”
Ethan stood.
“No.”
Lauren reached for him.
He moved away.
“No.”
Brooke continued carefully.
“He said he wanted a genuine reaction, and he knew he'd return it.”
“That was Mom's.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
Brooke stopped.
Ethan's voice rose.
“He let me think I lost the last thing she wore every day.”
Brooke looked down.
“I told him to delete the video.”
“He didn't.”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I quit two months later.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“Two months.”
Brooke took that.
“Yes.”
“Why not that day?”
“Because the account employed three people.”
Ethan stared.
“Because I thought I could stop worse things if I stayed.”
Lauren looked at her.
“And did you?”
“Sometimes.”
Specific.
Brooke blocked two proposed concepts.
One involved having a stranger take Ethan's bike temporarily.
Another involved telling Ethan Michael might sell Rebecca's wedding ring.
She refused to coordinate them.
Michael called her controlling.
They split.
Brooke looked at Ethan.
“I should have left sooner.”
He did not answer.
Then Melissa asked:
“Who sent Michael the creator tutorial Ryan received?”
Brooke frowned.
“I don't know.”
“It had your name on the file.”
Brooke looked confused.
“I made training decks. Not that clip.”
They showed her.
She watched.
Her expression changed.
“That isn't mine.”
The video used her old logo.
Her old formatting.
But the voice belonged to a male creator coach.
Brooke had never distributed it.
Somebody had repackaged aggressive creator advice under her brand.
Michael either knew that—
or wanted Ryan to believe an industry professional had approved the method.
May you like
Ethan looked at the screen.
Even his father's excuses had production design.
