Page 16 of Feed Your Fiends

I don’t answer her. I can’t hear her say it.

“Maybe that’s why I kept my mouth shut, your haziness aside.” She shrugs. “I needed the silence for my beauty sleep. We have a long week ahead of us.”

Us.

“I still don’t see why there’s an us.” Nor do I see why I need to split the reward money for finding the driver who killed Marisol Auclair with Rin.

Yes, I’d been so stupid that the prize money Stassi spoke about on day one at Beaulieu never registered before Rin brought it up again. But still, she hadn’t helped me find the driver even if she warned me not to tell Gant.

‘Don’t play your last card until you’ve assessed the risk and understood the potential reward. Don’t go running your mouth to Gant just yet. This isn’t about love or loyalty,’Rin had said the night of the play.

Sylo’s father and Gant’s uncle appear on my last playing card like the Joker, his lips spread unnaturally wide, a cruel gleam in his crystal eyes. The same grey eyes that dismissed me after running me over like rubbish in the same vintage car that killed Madame Marisol. A deep green car with a silver ornament of a woman holding a disc between her palms. Not a Rolls-Royce like Gant thinks, but a what?

“You don’t see why I’m needed?” Rin balks. “Doyouhave a contact in the vehicular licence and registration office to prove who owns that car?”

I don’t have a lot of things Rin has at her polished fingertips. Or formerly polished fingertips. She’s due for a retouch on her ballet slipper pink gel polish—not that I’m one to talk. I’ve never even had a gel manicure before.

“That’s what I thought,” she says, slipping from the bed. “We have to be strategic. The Auclairs aren’t going to hand over three hundred grand without concrete evidence. You open your mouth without it, and they’ll confirm it on their own, cutting you out completely.Proof.We need undeniable proof that ties up all loose ends, not just for the Auclairs but for the public if it comes to that. That car’s registration is only the tip of the iceberg. We need testimony and confessions, and we need them from someone only Gant has access to. The killer.”

His uncle.My uncle.

But Rin doesn’t know about my familial connection. Not that my tie to Jarett’s brother is anything that I could use. If he’d brushed Jarett away for all these years, what makes me think the billionaire real estate tycoon, Silas Parrish, would give me the time of day? But his nephew Gant…maybe he’d give him, and hisgirlfriend,the time of day…

Rin’s plan to play nice with Gant to get the information that we need puts my teeth on edge. How could I pretend that everything’s fine in a few days? How could I just pretend to be his girlfriend again?

You’ve done it before,my inner voice says.You knew it wasn’t real before the rigged ballet slippers. It’s not so different now.

It is. He’d sabotaged me.

He told you that he would, and you still folded for him. You can do it again.

But I hadn’t loved him then, and that makes all the difference now.

“And because we need that access, you have to play nice with him by week’s end. We have to get into that penthouse—”

His penthouse?

I nearly choke on my spit. “I’m not staying with him! I don’t need to live with him to pretend.”

“It’s probably loaded with clues Gant hasn’t told you about. Clues that we can use to piece together the whole mystery start to finish.”

As if rich people keep family secrets scrawled across parchment paper for all to see on their expensive furniture! Does she think I can sneak into vaults and crack safe codes?

“To get the reward, we just need the driver,” I grit.

“You’re so short-sighted,” Rin snaps, pounding her fist into her palm. “We need collateral in case the Auclairs renege or are tempted to bump up their initial offer once they know all the dirt we have on them. They can buy it for a prettier penny, or we’ll sell it to the press, who’ll payanything. Trust me. This town fucking hates the Auclairs just as much as they worship them.”

The press? She means Beaussip, her favourite news outlet that’s been extremely quiet over the break. But Beaussip is a school gossip site. They can’t pay more than the Auclairs… Right?

“Blackmail?” I ask, suddenly hoarse.

“Don’t get onto that damn high horse again. What happened to wanting blood?” Rin says, tossing a lock from her bloodthirsty eyes. “You don’t know families like the Auclairs the way I do. They’re the last people you should feel guilty about blackmailing. Now, come on, we have to leave before Gant shows up. And take off my damn coat.”

I eye the tiny trench coat that I’d wrapped around my body last night before squinting at her. Her frizzing hair, which was pin straight and glossy a week ago, is frazzled and dull as is her skin, which is normally glowing.

“Rin,” I say as she drops onto the futon with a plunk to put on her boots. “Why are you here? You don’t need to sleep over to strategise with me. Besides, like you said, I was out of it anyway. We could’ve chatted over the phone while you went to South Korea with your sisters to visit your family.”

No, she couldn’t have. We both know that although I’m lost as to the ‘why, ’ not that she’ll tell me. She has no problem being in my business, but hers is strictly off-limits.

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