Page 128 of Feed Your Fiends

“How much are the contributions? If it’s for a good cause—”

“Look at this place. Save your money for a better cause like your sex club empire.”

Hale’s expression darkens. “We’re an entertainment house. That’s all.”

“Call it what you will. Just how you’re following in your mother’s…legacy,I expect Stassi to do the same in a manner that is becoming of a Beaumont.” He eyes the powder on the table again. “I don’t want her caught up inyourworld.”

“My world?” Hale mutters.

“The two don’t overlap.” Alistair stares. “They can’t. Not after school ends and everyone goes to their rightful places.”

Hale’s lip twitches. “Why are you here, then? Inmyworld, offering me gifts?”

“Let me speak more plainly so you can understand it.”

Hale’s jaw ticks.

“Take my money as an early graduation gift. A graduation, a severance from Stassi. Fix your club, continue in your mother’s trajectory, but leave Stassi out of it.”

“You want to pay me to stay away from your daughter?”

“Stassi’s persistent. She’s going through a phase. You appeal to her. I saw it that night of the party. I want you to end it.”

“Nothing is going on, to begin with. I haven’t crossed the line with Stassi. I know what sort of girl she is, what sort of family she comes from. Zedd and I have been best friends since we were eleven. I know I’d need your approval if—”

“And let me say here and now that you’re never going to get it, Pierrot.” He spits the surname. “You and Zedd never bothered me. Boys will be boys. We all have that fucktard friend in school who’s good for partying, but we outgrow him eventually. No harm done. But leave the girls out of it. Dick around with the fatherless whores you pay to run this place, not my daughter.”

I freeze because Alistair’s eyes landed on me on the second to last sentence.Elle.My eyes snap to Zedd, but his expression remains impassive.

“Take the money, Hale,” Zedd says. “You need it. It’s a win-win. Stassi isn’t your type. She’s a bored little rich girl that you’ll be bored with before university anyway. Take the money, set her loose.”

Hale straightens. “I don’t need a payout to know that I’m not good enough for Stassi—”

“I’m glad we agree,” Alistair says.

“Not yet.”

“Hale,” Zedd interjects.

“You’re a little too late with the offer. The roof’s already fixed thanks to Gant, and I’m not accepting any more donations.”

Alistair looks at me incredulously. “You invested in this place?”

“That’s what business partners do,” I say, swinging my arm around Hale’s shoulder.

“I thought Bart would’ve taught you better.”

“I guess every family’s values are different.”

“Clearly.”

“Including ours,” I say, spreading my arm around Rie Rie’s shoulders as she reemerges, mop in hand.

“Ours?” Hale whispers.

“I consider the horsemen and everyone that comes along with them my family.”

“Maybe you should reconsider,” Alistair says. “You’re an Auclair.”

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