Page 157 of Feed Your Fiends

“At least she never tried to kill you.”

He looks at me then, his eyes boring into me. “I never wanted Mari dead. I never stopped wanting her. Even decades later.”

“And yet you never divorced her sister,” I say in disbelief, not that it’d make things right.

“I tried,” he whispers. “I can’t. Delphine is unstable. I was terrified of what she’d do.”

“To little old you?” I snort.

He shakes his head again. “To Marisol.”

My stomach drops. “What?”

“When we got married, I swore to her that I’d never speak to Marisol again. It seemed easy enough, she’d cut me off for years at that point. I figured she didn’t care about me either way, so I agreed, and I kept my promise for years until…” he drifts off, suddenly finding the left corner fascinating.

“Until she fucked your brother?”

He nods slowly, a humourless laugh escaping his lips. “I guess everyone knows about that. Their sex tape was leaked after all.”

“Sylo never told you that I was the one that leaked it?”

His eyes snap to mine. “You did? Why?”

“I wanted my mother to see how unfaithful my father was.”

“No…”

“Yes.”

“You’re Jarett’s daughter?”

“That’s beside the point. You say you didn’t want to kill her, then why did you show up at the ballet studio on the night of the leak? To dance with her?”

“I didn’t go to the studio because of the leak. I’d already seen the video a week before. Marisol had sent it to me from a number I couldn’t respond to. It could only message me, taunt me. Bart knows if you don’t believe me. He took my phone when he kidnapped me.”

Wait, if Marisol sent him the video herself, then it wasn’t me who caused this domino effect. A weight, ever so slight, lifts from my chest.

“But if Marisol hadn’t spoken to you for all these years, why did she suddenly crave revenge?”

“Delphine enrolled Silas into Beaulieu while Marisol was still working there. She tried everything for the board to reject his audition, but Silas was a prodigy like Gant. They wouldn’t go for it, so she quit and started her own company. But Silas was still in school with Gant. I don’t doubt Marisol wanted him to transfer, but Gant was,is,at the top. So she left it. Well, no, she didn’t. She knew what Delphine was doing, hoping Sylo and Gant would become close so she could worm her way back into Marisol’s life to cause more chaos.”

“But why? She got her revenge. You, her son.”

“Nothing’s ever enough for Delphine. It’s why she wants Gant under her wing. It’s why she’s out there in the dining room in a backless dress and emerald jewellery, just like Mari used to wear.”

I freeze. Like Mari?

“She…she wants Bart now too?”

“And Gant.”

“But….you, Sylo…”

“Now that Marisol’s gone, I’m no longer an object of affection. She won’t even kiss me.”

“That’s…vile.”

“They both were. Because Delphine pulled that stunt with Sylo by enrolling him into Beaulieu, Marisol wanted the last laugh. She knew if she fucked Jarett it’d get a rise out of me for more than a few reasons. One is the obvious. Of course, I’d be jealous, but two, is because I’d never even told Mari I had a brother. We were separated into different orphanages because Jarett was afailure to thrive.They thought he held me back, and they were right. When I was with Jarett, IwasJarett. I had excuses for everything.”

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