Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

  He terrified me.

  And I’d never let him frighten me again.

  I kicked the dress and ground the silk into the carpet with a satisfied twist of my heel.

  No way in hell I was wearing any clothes he picked out.

  “You guys deal with Darius,” I said. “I want to take a shower.”

  Reed tensed the same as his brothers, but only he dared to question me. “A shower? Already?”

  I wouldn’t detail the particulars of my current situation. I flushed. “I’m…sticky. Yes, I want a shower.”

  “Shouldn’t you…” He really shouldn’t have pointed. “Keep your legs up?”

  “I think my legs have been up for long enough.”

  Bennett pride was truly a marvel to behold. My step-brothers shared an unrelenting arrogance which only amplified after a night of demonstrating their virile masculinities.

  They smirked.

  There’d be no living with them now.

  Hell, I’d be lucky if I ever got a full night’s sleep again.

  And the warm shudder that rocked me was the first thread of the tangled emotions that strangled me.

  Max stated the obvious. “Dad’s gonna want you there for dinner.”

  “I don’t give a damn what Darius wants.”

  “You want to get hurt?”

  Reed frowned. “Max, come on.”

  “Honest enough question,” Max said.

  After spending my last few hours getting slammed, gripped, and tossed man to man, brother to brother, I both loved and loathed the newfound aches within me. But no matter the gentle touches and pleasurable nibbles, my step-brothers couldn’t ease the stinging bruise on my cheek. They couldn’t kiss away the strikes only now fading from my sides, and they’d never heal the tightness in my chest—either an unfortunate fracture or the lurking asthma threatening what Darius hadn’t fractured.

  I didn’t want any more pain. I agreed to Nicholas’s plan. I’d stay silent about the secret trust and offer my body for whatever heir they thought they could create. But that sacrifice was enough.

  I deserved a little protection.

  “Don’t let him hurt me,” I said. “Simple as that.”

  Max had the least patience of my brothers, but even he was silenced.

  “I don’t care how you do it, or what you tell him.” I held each of their gazes—Max’s dark intimidation, Reed’s gentle green, and Nicholas’s golden vow. “I won’t let him hurt me again. Don’t make me do something I’ll regret. I…don’t want to lose you guys.”

  Nicholas nodded toward the door. They hesitated, but, ultimately, his brothers obeyed. As always. Reed winked before they gave us privacy.

  Privacy.

  A strange word for a girl who just had sex with three men.

  Three brothers.

  Her step-brothers.

  I tossed the towel away and faced the only man capable of delivering such depravity. Under the heat of his honeyed gaze, the whisper of his velvet voice, and the brush of his secret touch, I’d have surrendered again.

  “What can I do?” Nicholas drew too close to me.

  I faked confidence and pretended his approach hadn’t twisted me around his finger, will, and command.

  What could he do?

  An excellent question, only it had no answer. Nicholas veiled his secrets and forged a path to his desires by using whomever and whatever he needed to get what he wanted.

  And that was me.

  But what could he do against Darius? What would he do when his attempts to create an heir failed?

  What could he do when falling in love bound us to a world of pain, sorrow, and danger?

  Nothing.

  And everything.

  My life would either end in a splash of blood or suddenly begin with a newfound wealth. I could topple the Bennetts with a whisper and be destroyed with my next breath.

  “Are you okay?” He asked. It was a simpler question.

  “Are you?”

  He didn’t answer. He abandoned his tie sometime during the night, and I wore his jacket. Nicholas was never so untended. I teased the buttons protecting my nudity.

  He noticed.

  He studied my fingers. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  “You rescued me when your father tried to rape me only to hand me over to your brothers.” A button opened. “Then you watched as they took me, again and again.”

  The memory darkened him, but not into rage. He leaned close, and his breath warmed my baring skin. I stilled, trapped within the intensity of his golden gaze.

  “They might have taken you, but you are in my possession.”

  He unfastened the second button.

  “Never forget, Ms. Atwood. My brothers are permitted a taste, but, ultimately, you belong to me.”

  The jacket slipped from my body. I stood naked, trembling in his heat, so very tiny before such a proud man. Nicholas dressed once more, feathering the jacket over his shoulders as he admired me with a victorious arrogance.

  “You should stay with me,” I whispered. The suit composed him, but it did little to hide his excitement. I edged to the bed. “We could rest for a while.”

  “Are you really thinking of resting?”

  No, but I needed it. “Well, we’ll…get some champagne.”

  “What are we celebrating?”

  Did he have to ask? I grinned. “My victory, of course.”

  “Is that so?”

  “We should drink to my newfound stock portfolio. Or maybe my family’s foresight in securing the shares necessary to bring down the Bennett Corporation.”

  I tempted him with the destruction of his life and the tease of my body—probably the most dangerous way to antagonize a Bennett. Nicholas never took the bait.

  “Get your shower,” he said. “And then please come to dinner.”

  “No.”

  “Concessions, Sarah.”

  “I don’t know what’s more ridiculous—you and your concessions or Max and his optimism.”

  A quick whip of the terrycloth wrapped the towel over my body. The material was too short and Nicholas’s quiet dignity too intimidating.

  “How can you even look at that man?” I said.

  “There’s not a part of me that doesn’t wish a thousand hells on my father.”

  “Then why?”

  “Sarah, no matter what I do, he’ll drag you to that hell with him. I won’t give him that chance.”

  Nicholas brushed a hand on my cheek. I let him linger too long, but he had already seen me at my most vulnerable. He held me when I cried and comforted me as I broke down after his rescue.

  Part of me hated letting a Bennett see that weakness. The other part of me, the part not soured by the name Atwood, wanted nothing more than to be consoled by the man I was beginning to love.

  “Don’t be afraid of him,” Nicholas said.

  “I’m not.” It was a lie.

  “We won’t let him hurt you.”

  “Where have I heard that before?”

  I spoke too quickly. Nicholas pulled away. The frustration crackled around him, a charge of simmering anger and disappointment. I didn’t deserve the guilt for his regret even if he didn’t blame me for acknowledging their failure.

  I groaned. It should have been simple.

  Get kidnapped. Endure the rape. Gloat when my infertility thwarted their plans. Find evidence of my father’s murder.

  The plan had crumbled.

  I became a willing prisoner, they never raped me, and my infertility would force Darius to kill me to save his company.

  And my father?

  My father wasn’t murdered. Even if he was, he was too evil to avenge.

  Nicholas reached for me. It didn’t matter where he touched, just as long as he did. His finger traced where my neck hollowed into my shoulder.

  “I have the takeover,” he said. “They wait for my signal. Once it happens, I’ll have control of the company. He won’t be able to touch us.”

&nbs
p; “When will that be?”

  “No more than a couple months.”

  “I could be dead by then.”

  “You could be pregnant.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Good luck.”

  “You as well.” Even Nicholas’s patience had limits. He paused. “Sarah, I’m asking this as a favor. Come downstairs and eat, be quiet and polite, and don’t give my father cause to hurt you.”

  “It’s not my fault that I’ve been abused.”

  “No. It’s my fault. It always will be.”

  His kiss did nothing to chase the remorse from his words. I welcomed the nibble of his lips, but, like all our time, we existed in stolen moments and dangerous secrets. What should have connected us in quiet peace was only the reminder of the war to come.

  Nicholas had his responsibilities. His expectations of his own duties and the tasks his father forced upon him. The invitation to dinner was not one we could refuse.

  I preferred starvation.

  “You can do this,” he said. “But don’t let him think anything has changed. He can’t know you’ve allied with my brothers or that you’re unable to conceive, or that you are aware of the Josmik Trust.”

  Nicholas forbade me from speaking the very secrets I longed to scream. If Darius realized how badly I already cracked the foundation of the Bennett Estate, he’d slit his own throat instead of mine.

  I agreed with a reluctant nod. Staying quiet would be more difficult than standing before the monster again, but the payoff was worth it.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I’m not wearing the damn dress.”

  “Dinner’s at eight o’clock.”

  I might have asked Nicholas to stay if only to borrow some of his confidence. For the first time in hours, I was alone.

  That only gave me the silence to think.

  And I had no idea what I was doing.

  I showered, letting the thick, rolling steam fill the bathroom before I dipped under the water. The heat soaked through me, the water embraced me, and every evidence of the wildest night of my life rinsed away and circled the drain with the remnants of my sanity.

  Not only did I fall in love with a Bennett, I let all three of my step-brothers have their way with me.

  At the same time.

  And not just once.

  I thudded my head against the tile. It was easy to submit at Nicholas’s hand. I never thought I’d find any comfort in the possession of another, especially a man who tracked me through the night and stalked me over road and cornfield to kidnap me for his family’s twisted benefit.

  He kept me as his pet and prisoner.

  And I longed for him to join me under the water.

  Christ. I wasn’t just digging my grave. I sat at the bottom of an open pit, kicking the dirt walls and ripping at roots to collapse the damn thing over me.

  This was a dangerous game made riskier by my loyalty to Nicholas. Every second trapped in the luxury of the Bennett’s prison endangered me. No matter the love and promises, escape was the only logical, sane, and safe solution.

  But leaving would enrage Darius. Potentially hurt my step-brothers. Ruin Nicholas’s chances to destroy his father in the planned takeover.

  If I left, every second of my freedom would tempt Darius to end my life before the trust awarded to me. At least if I stayed in the estate, Nicholas, Max, and Reed could protect me until we concocted a better plan than hoping they’d get me pregnant.

  Was it worth the risk? Probably not.

  Was it worth attempting if it meant Darius would rot inside his own family?

  Definitely.

  Silence cursed the estate. I dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and forced myself from the room.

  My pulse deafened me to everything but the voice screaming in my head to hide, push the dresser in front of the door, and arm myself against the evil that was Darius Bennett.

  I waited at the top of the grand-staircase.

  Fifty stairs to compose myself.

  The first ten punished me as though I stepped upon broken glass. My nails clawed against the banister, aching as I fought instinct and descended. My shoes clipped against the stone in a distinctive echo.

  Jos-Mik.

  Jos-Mik.

  Jos-Mik.

  At least it offered an imagined poise.

  Money. Power. Stock. It only mattered to me if I had it all and Darius had none. Now, it was the only weapons I had.

  They waited in the dining room.

  I was five minutes late, and Darius Bennett had counted every spent second.

  His eyes weren’t dead, but the specks of color decayed into a dingy brown. He claimed the head of the table and surveyed his family, his home, and his prisoner as though everything in the world had bowed at his feet to produce what he wished. What wasn’t delivered, he took with violence.

  During the night and into the day, I stayed with my step-brothers. Not an inch of my body went unexplored, and every pleasure was meant to break me.

  But I hadn’t broken.

  Not even close.

  So why did my resolve crumble?

  Three men took me during the night, but the only touch I could remember was his.

  Darius’s cold grip on my hips. The searing pain of his attempted invasion. The foul promise of his lust. He punished me then. I’d be fortunate if he didn’t kill me now.

  I couldn’t do this.

  My knees buckled. I’d either collapse in sobbing horror before Darius, or I’d leap over the table and aim a dinner knife for his jugular.

  But I’d vowed never to show weakness in front of a Bennett again.

  They foolishly left a knife at my place setting.

  “My dear, you decided to join us?” Darius greeted me with a smile that bared teeth and words that curled over my throat. I froze, and I didn’t know if that made me hate him or myself. “Your dinner is getting cold.”

  I’d choke on it before I managed to swallow. Prickles of panic stabbed at my skin.

  Nicholas pulled my chair out for me. When I didn’t move, he took my wrist.

  I flinched, maybe to pretend like I didn’t trust him or maybe because it was a legitimate recoil. Nicholas hesitated before his grip tightened.

  I despised this.

  I had every reason to fear Darius Bennett, but not cause to suffer from it.

  I once confronted the man who kidnapped me, eager for the fight. I accepted that my step-brothers were meant to rape me. I used my infertility as a shield and sacrificed my very freedom to defend my family’s honor.

  In a matter of weeks, everything changed. The man I defended didn’t deserve my loyalty. The men I feared protected me. And now? I knew something Darius didn’t.

  I would own him.

  Whether or not he thought he could violate me. Whether or not he’d try again.

  I. Owned. Him.

  I took my seat, and our family dinner began.

  “You aren’t wearing the dress I picked out,” Darius said.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Sarah, you are my daughter, and I expect you to act as such. You will wear what I lay out for you.” He hummed. “Besides, I thought you’d look very pretty in it.”

  Every word grated me until I shredded like the pot roast simmering on the platter. I reached for the wine.

  “No, no.” Darius’s tone would turn the food rancid. His light, patronizing chastisement stuck as hard as a slap to the face. “No alcohol for you, child. We aren’t taking any risks.”

  It wouldn’t matter, but I couldn’t say it. I gritted my teeth as Nicholas passed me a glistening goblet of water.

  Reed grabbed a dinner roll. “You aren’t twenty-one yet anyway. Hate for someone to slap us with kidnapping and underage drinking.”

  I perked an eyebrow. “Heaven forbid.”

  Max exhaled. He stroked the flogger he kept at his side. Always. The damn thing intimidated me, infuriated me, and delighted me. I understood the warning. Like Nicholas said, I was supposed to be quiet
and polite.

  “My dear, you haven’t taken your vitamins.”

  I tensed, refusing to look at Darius. Nicholas did his bidding, passing the tiny crystal ramekin to my plate. I stared at the pills inside.

  They had to be kidding.

  In what universe would I ever take any pill Darius offered me? I might have been a fool for staying at the estate, but I wasn’t suicidal.

  Darius sipped his wine. “A prenatal blend of folic acid and vitamin D, and a woman’s multi-vitamin. All excellent for the baby.”

  I tasted blood. “I’m not pregnant.”

  “You will be, soon enough. Someone should ensure you’re taking proper care of yourself.”

  I didn’t appreciate his concern. Darius surveyed my body as though he could see through my clothing. I hoped he didn’t notice the goose bumps.

  “I can manage it myself.”

  “But all this stress.” His voice gentled. It only sickened me. “It’s too much for you. First your father’s death. Then your brothers’ accidents. Your poor mother was so traumatized, and then there was your school work and the company.”

  “What about getting kidnapped? Being held prisoner? Getting—” My throat mercifully closed before I uttered the R word.

  “All stress is bad stress.”

  “And you’re the cause.”

  Darius chuckled as he cut his meat. “Hush, child. Hysterics are so unbecoming.”

  Nicholas gripped my knee under the table, but I wasn’t the one he should have controlled.

  “I’m not taking those pills.”

  “Doctor recommended. You can take them in the morning with your asthma medication.”

  “Oh. So now I’m allowed my medication?”

  “You need to be healthy and strong. And, my dear, if our little experience in my office proved anything, it is that you are neither healthy nor strong.”

  “You son of a bitch—”

  “Language, Sarah.” Darius’s warning was exactly the melodic tone he’d take with a child. “We are at the dinner table.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Lower your voice.”

  “You tried to rape me!”

  Darius cast a glance to his sons with a smile. “In my preferred method, you wouldn’t have suffered any consequences.”

  I burst from my chair. “Fuck you!”

  “Ms. Atwood,” Nicholas said. “Enough. Sit.”

  No way. Not now.