Elle
“You know, Gant offered you to me,” he says, sitting on the edge of the bed and even with his diminished height, his head isn’t far below mine. With the bathroom steam drifting behind him, it’s like we’re in hell itself, and his resemblance to Gant isn’t just uncanny; it’s terrifying. But not in that exciting way Gant makes me feel.
“Everyone’s words must have finally got to him. As you’ve said, his mother’s sister, my brother-in-law, and now me because you’ve crept into my room with that bald cunt.” He tilts his head. “I can see why Gant needs me to break the trance you’ve cast over him. You're his first special pussy. The kind that makes young men believe in fairytales instead of nightmares because that’s all the world really is. No fairy godmothers, just deals with the devil. You just made yours.” He eyes the duffel. “Was it worth it?”
Whatever spell he’s casting, I’m breaking it as I attempt to turn for the door, but he’s too fast. One second I’m standing, the next he tugs my towel so hard that I fall onto him, my forehead smacking his abs before my nose bangs into his hard cock, my knees hitting the hardwood.
The towel flutters to the ground, and a scream tears from my lips as I try to crawl away from him. His fingers brutally fist in my hair, and tears leak from the corner of my eyes as he rips me back, face-first, onto his lap.
“Get — ” I scream, but he mashes my face harder into his fat dick, muffling my words.
“I told you not now ,” he says, shoving me away so fast and hard, I fall on my ass, my legs spread as my skull smacks into the floor.
His face hovers above my pussy, his eyes zoned in, but I’m zoning in on the massive window behind him. On the reflection standing in the doorway.
“Gant.” I struggle to sit, stars exploding before my eyes as the blood rushes around my head. I feel helplessly around the ground, desperate to grab onto the towel, but then a streak of white zips past me as Bart uses his foot to toss the towel into the air before catching it.
“It’s nothing we both haven’t seen already,” Bart says, and I rip at the fluffy white towel in his arms like a damn dog playing tug-o-war.
He relents, and I fall back a second time as he lets go, but I don’t care as I frantically cover myself and watch the opened duffel bag slip off the bed and topple to the floor. Stacks of money spill out as the papers from the green folder rain down on me as Bart pours them over my head.
I peer up at Gant, up into those dark, murderous eyes that flit from Bart to me to the papers and finally back to me again as he picks up one of the photos of the Packard.
“Why are you naked in Bart’s room?” he asks quietly. Calmly.
“I was looking for — ” How could I tell them that I came into Bart’s room looking for Rin? Then again, I don’t owe him an explanation at all. He’d offered me to his father like a lamb for slaughter. An old doll for a new puppet master.
“For me,” Bart says. “She’s bought me a ton of treats, including herself.” He gestures to the floor.
Stupidly, I have a brain glitch because for one second, I forget what he’d just said downstairs, and I stare, waiting, mentally pleading for him to say something . Anything. But he isn’t going to defend me, not to Bart his sire. His master.
Rin’s words of Gant never allowing Bart to do to me as he pleases resurfaces in my mind. She’d been so wrong. Gant wouldn’t just let his father do something to me. He’d stand by and watch, just like he’s doing now. An even starker reality washes over me. He said he wanted Bart to break me, but offering me to him in the first place already accomplished that.
“What does it look like?” I ask, getting to my feet. “You have eyes, don’t you? See the folder? See the money? See me naked? In Bart’s room.” With my back to Bart, I flash him to prove it.
Those eyes bore into me like never before. I can barely withstand it, but I can’t look away as I grip the towel so close to my thundering chest that my nails dig into my flesh.
“Isn’t that what you wanted? Your father to fuck me over?”
Silence. More silence as those pits bore into my skull, his expression unreadable.
Until Gant's phone pings. Then mine. Then Bart’s.
I squeeze my burning eyes shut for a nanosecond, and when I open them again, I peer down at my glowing phone screen just a few centimetres away.
I know who it is before I even pick it up and open the article.
Beaussip
From Cum Rags to Riches.
It turns out Raggedy Anne isn’t so raggedy any more.
In fact, Ginhart is six figures richer thanks to solving the mystery Beaulieu’s former king has set his murderous gaze on: finding his mother’s killer.
But this mystery driver didn’t just hit-and-run once, not twice, but three times.
In no particular order:
Hit and ran into Marisol Auclair’s vehicle, killing her.
Hit and ran over L on the same night as 1.
Hit and ran into Marisol’s womb with a drive-by shoot-out.
Yes, that means Gant Auclair has a half-brother precisely one year older than he is.
Two brothers?! Calm your clits. We still don’t know who this mystery man is. Yet.
But Beaussip is willing to pay another pretty penny once you find out L. Unless, of course, Bart Auclair is willing to pay more?
He did give three hundred thousand for solving the mystery, and we sprinkled a little cherry on top for the exclusive. But how did our little orphan Annie with no resources manage to pull that off?
Ah, we’re forgetting the best resource known to mankind. Pussy power!
We all thought she was brain-dead for taking Gant back, but she was truly just biding her time to get close to his family. Because it turns out our very own Platinum Prince, Sylo Parrish, is not only Gant’s cousin, but they share a brother thanks to Sylo’s father, Silas Parrish.
Silas Parrish, who happens to be Jarett Colt’s brother. Who is Jarett, you ask? Just L’s father in Marisol Auclair’s leaked sex tape.
Oh, what a convoluted web.
So little time, when there’s so much to do, like sexing sisters by the twos…
Like banging brothers sixteen years apart for revenge.
Like murder, allegedly.
Your move, Gant.
But in the meantime, everyone, get on your knees.
Because Beaulieu doesn’t just have a new king but a new queen.
The room grows even quieter, if that’s possible.
Then, Gant pockets his phone and gazes at me. “Does it feel as good as you thought it would, dovey?”
The question catches me off guard.
“Your revenge?” He steps closer, eyeing the duffel bag. “The money I would’ve given to you either way. You solved the mystery before I could, and without you and Rin, it would’ve taken so much longer.”
Did he know about Rin this whole time?
“She isn’t as sneaky as she thinks she is. Her Korean contact is also Bae’s.”
Cold water trickles down my spine at the revelation.
“And without you, I wouldn’t have pinned everything on Silas so early. That finger necklace- it didn’t make sense. You had it after you went to the bathroom. We were all outside, but Silas was just pulling into the garage, not in the Packard but his coupe. The garage that’s opposite the powder room. He choked you… Why would he do that unless you had some massive secret on him?”
I swallow, hard.
“What could be the connection? And then…like a lightning bolt, it pierced my heart, stabbing through my bones. The car. Silas’s car. The grey eyes, Sylo’s eyes, his father’s eyes. Where could you have seen them before to jog your memory? Where could you possibly have been to run into real-estate tycoon Silas Parrish when your circles would never overlap if not for me? Another lightning bolt struck. At Beaulieu, at the play. It all started to make sense. You wanted to go to the Parrishs not because you wanted to support me, but because you wanted answers for the reward, for your revenge. For money. Just like they all warned me.”
And I proved them right because I’m leaving with the gold I dug.
Still, does he think calling me out will make me feel guilty given all the shit that he’s done?
“ Exactly. Nothing more. Nothing less. You begged me to use you.” I shrug. “And what are rich little boys good for but a payday? Everyone tried to warn you about that. About me.” I lift the duffel bag’s strap even as my heart plummets to the floor. “You didn’t seriously think I gave a fuck about your family reunion, did you? That I gave a fuck about your mother’s killer when she was a raging cunt to me? That I’d actually want you back after you fucked with those pointe shoes whether you slipped them into the theatre or not? After you had your friends and lackeys torment me, spill food on me, burn me. ” I point to the scar just visible over the top of my towel that Rin had given me with her scalding hot water from her sparkly cup. “You're so spoiled, you really thought that there was something oh so fucking special about you, that I’d overlook everything for you? And who the fuck are you to me? No one .”
I break our eye contact and stoop to pick up the three racks that fell out of the bag.
“But I’m not the only person you’re a no one to.” The vitriolic vomit spews from my lips. “You were right about Marisol being in love with her first son and not you. You opened those black, soulless eyes, and she saw you for what you were, another Bart Auclair and who could ever love someone like him?”
Unreadable. His face is still completely unreadable.
I need to shatter him. I need him to feel this inexplicable pain.
Didn’t he say our souls were tied? Then why can’t he feel it? Why isn’t this agony flowing between us? Because there is no us.
I can’t shatter him because he doesn’t care yet, so I keep going.
“Her giving her baby up for adoption was the best thing she could’ve done. No matter where he is or what he’s doing, he can’t be any worse off than you are.”
Nothing. He gives me nothing.
“The necessary spare.”
Bart laughs hauntingly behind me, though what exactly he finds funny is lost on me.
“Such riveting revelations. Thank you for the reality check,” Gant says dismissively, coldly. Colder than my little speech could've ever been.
I shove the three banded piles at his chest. “That’s payback for Beaulieu’s tuition. I deserve the rest, and you deserve hell with all your demons.” I move toward the doorway, my heart thundering with each step because after what Gant asked Bart to do to me, will they seriously just let me leave?
But he doesn’t reach for me as I slip past him into the hall. There are no footsteps behind me, and for three paces, the longest paces of my life, I think there won’t be.
“ Wait .”
I don’t turn around as I quicken my pace. I want to run as fast as I can, and pathetically, I want him to follow. To stop the shattering of my heart before it’s too late.
To tell me that everything I heard was just a cruel lie.
“ Stay away from me! ” I shriek, my voice cracking as I rush toward the lift.
He overtakes me easily, but he doesn’t reach for my arm. In fact, he’s careful not to touch me at all as he presses the lift’s button.
“Relax. I’m not chasing you.” he grabs something from the bench. Bae’s keys are missing, but the black card’s tossed carelessly on the cushion. “Not any more.” The doors slide open, and he slips it into the slot, presses L for the lobby and steps back.
That L’s burnt into my brain from Beassuip’s article. The font is identical…
“You’re free, little dove,” Gant says as I slip inside, my heart and stomach shredding to pieces. “Fly away and don’t come back unless you want to be slaughtered and dripping from everywhere but your slit.”
Something hits me in the face as the doors flutter shut, and I realise it’s fluttering bills that’ve escaped their bands because he’s thrown back the money I threw at him.