Rebate King: Every Beauty I Spoil Makes Me a Billionaire

”You refuse that glass tonight, you’re not just turning down a drink. You’re embarrassing me in front of everyone here.”

Stan’s gaze lifted slowly and locked onto his. ”And what if I don’t?”

The room tensed. A few of the other guests actually flinched.

Zane was a second-generation rich kid. In this city, in a room like this, in a social circle like this, his name carried real weight. Stan Harrison was, as far as anyone at the table knew, a broke college student with no family connections and no backing.

One of the older men cleared his throat and leaned forward.

”Little brother,” he said carefully, ”just drink the liquor. Don’t make things complicated.”

”Brother Zane isn’t someone you can afford to cross,” another chimed in. ”Drink it.”

”Come on, kid. Don’t go looking for trouble.”

The voices came one after another, all of them urging Stan to back down. Not a single person at the table was willing to speak up for him.

Stan’s jaw tightened.

”Everyone shut up.”

The room stilled again.

Zane had finally hit his limit. ”Damn it, I gave you face, and this is how you repay me?”

He snatched up a half-full bottle of beer and hurled its contents straight at Stan’s face.

The cold beer slapped across Stan’s cheek and collar in a wide, soaking arc. Foam dripped down his jaw and onto his shirt.

For a single, long second, Stan didn’t move.

Then he stood up, slowly, deliberately, and the room seemed to hold its breath.

He moved fast, the next second, his fist came around in a single clean arc and caught Zane square across the jaw.

Zane’s head snapped sideways. His feet left the ground. He hit the floor with a crash that rattled the table.

He tried to push himself up, swearing, but Stan was already on him. Whatever Zane had expected, a scuffle, a shove, some clumsy college-kid flailing, it wasn’t this.

Stan’s strength was in a completely different category. Every punch landed like a hammer, and within seconds Zane was curled on the carpet trying to cover his face with both arms.

POW!

POW!

Stan delivered two more solid blows, then stepped back, breathing evenly.

The rest of the room was frozen.

Not a single person moved to intervene. Not a single person spoke. Several of them were staring at Stan with genuine fear in their eyes, but half the fear wasn’t for him. It was for him. Because everyone in this room knew who Zane’s cousin was.

Zane dragged himself into a sitting position, one hand cupped over his split lip, eyes burning with humiliation and rage.

”You actually dared to hit me?” His voice shook. ”You just wait.”

Stan scoffed as he watched Zane fumble for his phone. Less than ten minutes later, the door of Room 302 swung open again.

A man in a sharp black suit and dark sunglasses stepped inside, flanked by four security guards in matching uniforms. The entire atmosphere of the room shifted the moment he walked in. The guests who had been sitting in stunned silence immediately straightened up and lowered their heads.

Logan Whis. The HYTV’s manager. Zane’s cousin.

Zane practically threw himself at Logan’s feet.

”Cousin,” His voice cracked with genuine misery. ”Cousin, I got beaten. Look at my face. Look what he did to me. You have to back me up on this!”

A flash of something cold and dangerous passed across Logan’s eyes. His jaw set.

”Someone dared to lay a hand on my cousin?” His voice was quiet but razor-edged. ”Don’t worry. I’ll settle this tonight. Point him out.”

Zane lifted a trembling finger and jabbed it toward Stan.

”Him. It was him.”

Logan raised a hand. The four security guards behind him moved at once, fanning out and starting to close in around Stan from three sides.

Maya shot to her feet.

”Stop, this has nothing to do with Stan. Zane started it. He was the one who picked a fight.”

”Move aside, miss.”

Logan was already stepping forward to push past her, but halfway through the motion, something in his brain caught on what she’d just said.

He froze.

”Wait. What did you just call him?”

Maya blinked. ”...Stan Harrison?”

Logan went very, very still. The name hit him like a bucket of ice water poured down his spine.

’Stan Harrison.’

That name had been circulating at the very top of the Wanhai Group’s internal discussions for the past several days, whispered in boardrooms, flagged in confidential memos, spoken only in tones of extreme caution.

Just a few days ago, an anonymous buyer had acquired thirty percent of the Wanhai Group’s shares in a single transaction. Thirty percent. Overnight. A stake so large it instantly placed the buyer on equal footing with the Chairman himself, the kind of ownership that didn’t just make someone a shareholder, it made them untouchable.

The name attached to that transaction was Stan Harrison.

And this HYTV, this very building Logan was standing in, the business that paid his salary, the empire that employed every single person in this room, was a subsidiary of the Wanhai Group.

Which meant, in the most literal, terrifying sense of the word, Logan Whis worked for the young man his cousin had just demanded he beat up.

A thin line of sweat broke out along his hairline.

”Cousin, what are you waiting for?” Zane whined from the floor, mistaking his hesitation for reluctance. ”Hurry up and teach this bastard a lesson already.”

PAH!

The sound cracked through the room like a gunshot.

Logan’s open palm caught Zane across the face with enough force to send him sprawling sideways onto the carpet.

Zane’s head bounced once off the leg of the table. A stunned, wheezing silence followed.

”You’re the bastard,” Logan snarled, voice shaking with a fury nobody in the room quite understood yet.

Maya stared, wide-eyed. The other guests looked as if they’d been slapped themselves. ’Weren’t these two cousins? What in the world was happening?’

Zane pushed himself up on one elbow, one hand pressed to his cheek in disbelief.

”Cousin,” His voice cracked, thick with confusion. ”Cousin, you, you hit the wrong person.”

”I hit exactly who I meant to hit!”

Logan stepped forward and drove his foot into Zane’s ribs, once, twice, a third time, each kick landing with the brutal efficiency of a man trying to make up for something terrible before it could be counted against him.

Zane collapsed onto his side, curling around his stomach, groaning helplessly into the carpet.

And the rest of the room could only watch in frozen, open-mouthed silence.