Page 82 of Feed Your Fiends

“Silas shares more with me than just his cum. He told me how much he missed hisfirstson. I told him he should go visit him in Hungary for his birthday over the summer.”

There it is, a flicker of acknowledgement in her eyes. So am I right?

My father is an only child…Sylo had said.

He lived at an orphanage…Delphine had said.

Was he split up from Jarett at some point? Why would he lie that he’s an only child? Then I think of how embarrassing Jarett is, of how hard Silas must have worked to gain Marisol Pelletier’s favour. The Pelletiers, who never met Madame’s first and only love.

Save for Delphine…who stole it?

“Pillow talk,” I say. “Silas tells me all of his secrets.”

“Liar,” she hisses.

“He loved your sister. He had a baby with her,” I whisper. “And you stole him from her the moment she was hitched to Bart.”

Her shoulders rise, her face growing redder by the second.

Does she know that Silas killed Marisol that night? Was it an accident, or merely revenge for Marisol fucking his brother?

“He settled for you because he couldn’t have her and you…you wanted to hurt her, didn’t you? Because she never forgave you. Because she kept punishing you—”

A stinging slap whips across my face and sends me stumbling into the cabinets, my side ramming into the counter that knocks the air clean out of my lungs.

“Shut the fuck up!You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you have no proof. Silas and I love each other. We’re happy, and Gant wants to be happy too. You claim to care about him, so let him have his new family because the old one is dead.”

Her footsteps fade before returning a second later. She rams something between my lips. A fat envelope.

“Take the money and go away. It’ll save Gant the heartbreak later.”

The heartbreak of knowing his half-brother is also his cousin?

I finger the thickness of the envelope.

“Ican,” I say coldly. “But come now, Delphine. You’re so good at knowing what’s cheap.” I gesture to my outfit. “Surely you know this isn’t enough. Get another envelope, and you won’t see me for Christmas, as stuffed as the turkey your staff will prepare.” I rub my lower belly again.

Elle

‘All clear.’ That’s what the doctor said yesterday before my physiotherapy appointment with Hazel. We’ve been working together twice a day, and I can’t fathom the pricing, even now that I have one hundred and thirty thousand sitting prettily in my account. I still couldn’t fathom that either, all those zeros. It feels so heavy, so undeserving as I stare at the six figures, waiting for them to vanish.

But why?Why can’t I just accept things? Why can’t I be entitled like the blue-bloods that surround me?

Still, I’m making progress because I’m taking whatever I’m offered without questioning it, at least out loud. I’m accepting the medical care, the therapy, the lavish full-course meals, the luxury skin and hair care products Gant rubs on me every night, and the pretty panties he rolls up my hips all at his expense. And why should I feel guilty about that?

Maybe because you plan to cash out with even more once you leave,my inner voice coos.

I’m still not sure how to do that once Rin gets the documents proving that Silas owns that vintage car and that he’d repaired the fender two years ago. My head’s still spinning, trying to make sense of everything. Silas is the father of Madame’s son, Gant’s secret brother.NotJarett like Bart and Gant think.

Delphine and Silas got together to make Marisol jealous. To shatter her heart and rub it in her face. I guess it runs in the family, shattering people. Gant surely took a few lessons, but what about Silas? Was he that jealous of Marisol sleeping with Jarett nearly two decades later? If what Delphine said is true, I assume Marisol loved Silas and that Silas loved her, but that’s just it: helovedher. Then there’s Bart, who never loved her at all.

Bart… Bart Auclair is the one offering the reward. He’s Gant’s father yet, reaching him seems damn near impossible. He feels like a phantom, haunting the lair, haunting Gant, but he’s never around, just traces of him like his commissioned artwork in the theatre.

Revulsion rolls through me. How could I meet someone so unapologetically cruel to his own child?

You should know. You lived with Jarett, and you need to meet him again because he may have more answers…But I can’t think of Jarett now. One father is enough to concentrate on at a time.

I meant it when I told Gant I didn’t want to meet any of the Auclairs. Could I go through Bart’s assistant anonymously? He’s a busy man. Surely he has a whole team ready to handle something like this, but it’s a delicate matter. He would want to meet in person. That aside, hiding behind his team would be cowardly.

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