Page 11 of Bully for Sale
“Heath will have two heirs soon. I’m content with what he’s given me in trust, but we both know that if my father gets his hands on it—and if he’s not making money from those Tenmeter and Maddox contracts—then he will, my accounts will be drained in no time.”
“You have to tell your father no, Ned.”
“Then how will he live?”
“Angrily.”
“How willwelive?”
“Tightly.”
Ned sighed.
Lidell wasn’t a heartless man, but he was terrible with money. He suffered poor judgement and even worse luck. He wasn’t a likeable man by most standards either. It was astounding he’d been able to keep the Tenmeter and Maddox contracts as long as he had.
Ned didn’t think he was being egotistical to think his father keeping the Tenmeter contracts was due, in no small part, to Ned’s “friendship” with Braden, and the association that brought with Braden’s extended family. Every time he went to Braden’s house, his younger omega brother, Ashden, was all over him with smiles and attention. He’d made his desire for Ned very clear, but Ned had never encouraged Ashden to act on them. Everyone knew Ashden wanted Ned for himself. There’d even been hints from Mr. Song, Braden and Ashden’s omega parent, that since Ashden would be provided with a good-sized trust, they were in no need of asking a high purchase price for his first heat, making him someone Ned could not only afford to marry, but would financially benefit from marrying.
He remembered Mr. Song whispering in his ear, “We like you, Ned. You’ve been such a good friend to Braden.”
If being a good friend to Braden meant not talking him out of bad choices, letting him sniff Bright’s powder, and fucking omegas next to him at stupid high school orgies, then, yeah, he’d been a great friend. If it meant helping Braden to become a better person, then he’d completely failed at that.
But Mr. Song and Mr. Tenmeter didn’t seem to notice the difference. They held the Ashden-shaped keys to the kingdom before Ned’s face, smiled, and shook them with all kinds of hints about what else they could do for Ned’s father, for Ned himself.
Ashden was gorgeous, of course, but Ned wasn’t interested in a closer association with the Tenmeter family. The idea of breeding with them was horrific. What if his son turned out like Braden? It would be beyond his ability to stand. But Braden basically considered Ned his brother-in-law, due to Ashden’s interest, and told him that his father considered Ned as good as his future son-in-law.
Between his father’s need for their contracts and the Tenmeter temper when they didn’t get their way, Ned felt trapped in the friendship with Braden, and Braden, he knew, was trapped with Finch. Their fathers were among the most important men in Wellport.
If only Ned could confide everything to his Uncle Heath. He was smarter and more powerful than either of them and could help Ned untangle this mess. But Uncle Heath was still angry about Lidell’s financial buffoonery, as well as other ugly family business, and Heath refused to help Ned’s father any further. Heath and Ned had mended their differences when Ned had spent the summer with him, but with the condition that Ned never ask him for another dime on his father’s behalf ever again.
So Ned hadn’t.
Instead, he’d floundered and gotten himself all tied up in some pretty dark things. Even after the summer with Heath, he’d stayed mixed up with dark elements. Nothing quite as bad as what had gotten him kicked out of his last school, but bad enough that he knew he wasn’t a good enough person to put an end to it all.
Ned hoped his uncle never found out about half of it. He never wanted to lose Heath’s favor again, like he had after he’d behaved so terribly over the birth of Michael, Heath’s alpha son. His father, Lidell, had acted like an asshole, and Ned had been a frightened, entitled shit. He could see that now. Funny how hindsight only showed his regrets.
And if Heath found out about the recent Bright’s powder excursions, the sex parties he still attended (though he never indulged—everyone else was so high or drunk or busy getting their nut that no one noticed him slipping away to a dark corner to read a book), and now the attack on George Fersee’s son? Well, Ned had no doubt he’d be out of favor again.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. And he couldn’t find a way free.
But, Lidell was right in one important way: without the full backing of Clearwater wealth behind him, Ned would need to sustain other connections to make his way in the world. Or find a wealthy omega mate to marry—like Ashden or Finch’s older brother, Roald.
Or like Ezer.
If he could just get the boy to look at him without all that hatred in his eyes.
Ned groaned, and Earl, who’d sat patiently as Ned stewed, sighed. “Well?”
“I loathe Braden and Finch. I had to just stand back and watch them bully some omega they want to fuck—” Not ‘some omega’, Ezer. “But the omega wants nothing to do with them.” It was as close to the truth as he could come.
“What kind of bullying?”
“Calling him names, roughing him up. Trying to scare him.”
“And they think this is going to make the boy want to spread for them?”
“No. I don’t know. I think they like scaring him. I think they’re just bad people, Earl.”
“It certainly sounds like it. But you knew this already.”
