Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

  I ended the call. The bike roared to life under me, and I jammed the throttle.

  Sarah Atwood was the only woman who would force me into leather. Because of her, I stole through the night like a criminal on my motorcycle.

  Except I was a criminal. I searched for the girl we kidnapped and molested, threatened and beat.

  No wonder she ran.

  But even if she wasn’t worth billions, even if she didn’t possess the power to utterly destroy my family, I’d never let her get away. I fell in love with her. She was the reason I believed something more precious than wealth and power existed in the world.

  She ruined the man I thought I was. Every word from her lips was meant to drive me to my knees, and I willingly collapsed at her feet. She was everything that might have offered me something my fortune couldn’t buy.

  Hope. Passion.

  Challenge.

  Too much challenge.

  I gave her the freedom far too quickly. That would change, whether we wanted it or not. Life would be much more difficult for her.

  For me.

  For us.

  I wouldn’t stop searching for her until I could apologize and earn back her trust.

  I rarely rode my bike, and it was precisely this reason it stayed in the garage. The wind and darkness tricked my mind. The things I once considered important were replaced with foolish thoughts of Sarah, freedom, and the temptation to have everything I had ever desired if I could bend the world to my will.

  But the bike wasn’t fast enough to outrun the creeping, lingering sense of dread. I raced the isolated roads to the estate and eventually fell into formation behind Max’s Aston Martin. My bike rumbled into the garage. Max’s car hadn’t parked before Reed jumped out. He slammed the door, pointing a finger in my direction before I pulled my helmet off.

  “Don’t you fucking say a goddamned thing,” Reed said. “Not one fucking word.”

  The stitches glinted in the dim light, red and raw. I unzipped my leather jacket.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “What did I fucking say?” Reed pointed to the gash on his cheek, stretching from chin to ear. Our father highlighted Reed’s largest scar, one finally fading after years of growth and plastic surgery. “Our lunatic father tried to carve my face off. How the fuck do you think I am? I’m pissed. I’m hurt. And holy Christ, Nick, if you don’t get the fuck out of my way, I’ll give you a goddamned scar to match.”

  Reed was rarely angry.

  Now, he was beyond enraged.

  The stitches were the only reason he had yet to completely fall apart—physically, mentally, emotionally. He shoved past me, ignoring Max as he tossed a bag of pain medications and antibiotics at Reed’s chest.

  “I’m done with this bullshit. I’m done with this family. I’m done with him.” Reed pointed at the house. “For twenty-four years, I’ve been beat and pissed on. Now I’m expected to do it to someone else. No. It ends now. And if you aren’t man enough to do it then I will.”

  I dropped my helmet on the workbench and peeled the gloves from my hands.

  “You didn’t tell him Sarah met with Roman Wescott.”

  Reed frowned, hissing as the tension tugged on his cheek. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’d rather it be my face than hers.”

  Max crossed his arms. “Think she’ll appreciate the sacrifice?”

  “This?” Reed pointed to the wound. “Yeah. She’ll understand. But the rest of this insanity? Fuck it. She’d rather burn the estate to the ground than let us help her now. And guess who’s going to get caught in the middle?”

  I wouldn’t allow it to happen. “Sarah isn’t like that.”

  “Like what?” Reed narrowed his eyes. “Like her father? You aren’t that stupid. This doesn’t end without more blood. Look in the mirror, Nick. You’ll be the catalyst for the third generation of this feud.”

  I didn’t deny it. But I would end it.

  No matter what Sarah believed about me or what she thought she had to do to survive, I’d find her. I’d bring her under my control.

  And then we’d start again, not with her as my prisoner, but as my partner. We would control the stock until the moment we could strike. The power would tilt, my father would fall, and I would have everything.

  Including Sarah Atwood.

  Where ever the hell she was.

  “I’m going to bed,” Reed sneered. “And no, Nick. You don’t have to cuff me.”

  I wouldn’t try to apologize. Not yet. Not when he wouldn’t listen. Max and I followed, though our brother was beyond our comfort. He muttered to himself, storming up the staircase.

  “At least I got fucking blown today. One perk to this fucked up family—”

  Something else echoed in the house. I shushed my brother.

  Max shrugged. Reed swore. I doubted the painkillers aided any of his senses.

  Rumbling bass vibrated within the very walls. Every booming thud punched in my gut.

  The estate existed in perpetual silence. My father wouldn’t have tolerated unproductive noise. I didn’t trust it. I stalked the sounds, hunting the thrumming booms and harsh, static crackles haunting our second story.

  The music or movie or whatever played was far too loud. Something was wrong. The noise pumped, obnoxious and oppressive, and far too repetitive for a movie.

  Far too realistic.

  My blood thickened, surging like molasses through my unwilling heart.

  I slammed through the theater’s locked door.

  The footage of a crashing plane brightened the theater. The blinding explosion of fire and smoke zoomed in blurry focus on the screen. The flames devoured was little was left of the wreckage.

  Instantly, I knew what I watched.

  The death of Josiah and Michael Atwood.

  Sarah was here.

  Sarah had been here.

  For God only knew how long.

  “Holy shit,” Max shouted.

  Reed smashed his hand against the lights, and I dove to the screen, yanking wires out of the projector. The sound didn’t mute.

  “No no no!”

  “Jesus fuck!”

  Then the explosion.

  I ripped the DVD player from the cabinet, hurling it to the ground.

  Silence.

  Except for Sarah’s weeping.

  The choked cries would forever rake my nightmares.

  My beautiful, unbreakable Sarah sobbed, bound to a chair and forced to watch the footage of her brothers’ plane crash. A black box recording overlaid their final moments of utter horror.

  The bindings over her body were too tight. She hadn’t been able to escape the terror, even when her sickness overwhelmed her.

  She’d thrown up sometime in the night.

  How long had she been here?

  “Sarah?” I knelt before her, my hands on her cheeks. She sat in shock, paled, cold, and clammy. Tears streamed over her cheeks. Endless. Constant. “Look at me.”

  Her eyes didn’t focus. They hadn’t moved from the screen, even without the video playing.

  “Sarah!”

  I shook her. She didn’t react. Didn’t move.

  I never knew fear until that moment.

  I shouted to my brothers. “Get me something to cut her free.”

  Reed tossed himself at her feet, swearing again and again as he tried to warm her hand. Max tossed him a knife, and I worked with a pair of scissors. The rope and cords fell away, though they had broken her skin. Her arms and chest scraped with abrasions.

  And still she said nothing.

  Only cried.

  A stream of tears wetted her cheeks, crippled her breathing, and turned her lips a dangerous shade of blue.

  “Jesus,” Reed whispered. “She’s been home this whole time. We weren’t here to stop him.”

  No.

  I wasn’t here.

  I failed her.

  Again.

  Again and again.


  No wonder she didn’t trust me. No wonder she retreated into the shocked silence of her mind.

  Reed rubbed his face before he remembered the stitches along his cheek. He winced but grasped for his phone to check the time. “How long as she been here? Sarah? Can you hear me? Sarah, say something. Christ, dude. She’s been sick. What do we do?”

  I scooped her into my arms. “I’ll take care of her. Straighten up in here and wait for me in my suite.”

  Sarah fell limp as I held her. She didn’t speak or help to hold herself against my chest. She just…

  Gave up.

  Surrendered.

  Submitted.

  The only thing I ever demanded of her, and now I had it.

  Sarah wrapped herself in a cocoon of silence and lost her every strength into the pit of flightless despair. My father hadn’t touched her, hadn’t harmed her, and yet he stole from her the only strength that fortified her against the nightmare we inflicted.

  Hope.

  “Sarah.” I called her name, ordered it, as I hid her within my suite. I set her on the vanity counter and drew a bath. “It’s over. I’m here now.”

  Nothing.

  The water splashed into the tub and steamed, filling the bathroom with an oppressive heat that usually helped her lungs…had she not given up trying.

  Her breathing shuddered. She made no attempt to cough or choke or gasp against the closing of her throat. Her lips trembled in blue tightness. Her eyes—the sharpest gaze which ever dared to challenge mine—faded to a sickly grey.

  I wasn’t letting this happen.

  My father wasn’t taking her from me.

  Not like this. Not ever.

  I pulled the dress off, but shivering rattled her body. What had once been tight with curves and feminine secret thinned too much. Stress and fear eroded her, hardening her from the girl I loved and into a woman who knew only pain and sorrow.

  I ached with her, just as lost and sick and helpless to prevent crimes that never should have happened, to protect the blood that never should have spilled.

  Sarah. Reed. Who was next? How long before my father murdered his sons in his quest for greed and dominance?

  And what about my greed?

  Blood destroyed my family’s bond. Narcissism corrupted what remained.

  What was the point in having it all if I destroyed everything acquiring it?

  Sarah coughed. The rasp would drive me insane. She suffered at night and now she suffered as she woke, trapped between reality and the horror of my father’s cruelty.

  The tub filled. I didn’t bother removing my jeans or shirt. I settled with Sarah in the water, letting her rest between my legs.

  The water stirred her, and she flinched as the warmth stung where the rope had bitten. I apologized, but I brushed handfuls of water over her chest, arms, and neck, cleansing her of the sickness and restoring the flush of warmth to her silken skin.

  I wove my fingers in her hair. Her weeping quieted. She finally woke, squirming against my body, but edging closer. She hid her face within my soaked shirt.

  “I don’t want popcorn again,” she said. “Ever.”

  I had no idea what to say to that. “Deal.”

  Her voice wavered. “Why didn’t he just hurt me? Why would he do this?”

  It wasn’t a question I wished her to ask.

  It was an answer that only my father’s eldest son would understand.

  Beating her did nothing to break a woman already broken by hatred. The only way my father could punish Sarah Atwood was to destroy what made her so determined to defeat us. Her family.

  My father forever tarnished the memory of her brothers with a black and evil knowledge no one should have possessed. Their last moments were theirs, not a burden for her to bear.

  “Where were you?” She whispered.

  “Where I shouldn’t have been.” I tightened my arms over her. “I’m sorry, Sarah.”

  “You’re always sorry.”

  Honesty. It served no purpose but to feed my guilt. “I know. It changes now.”

  “You always say that too.”

  “Things are different now.”

  “No.” Her voice hardened. “They’re exactly the same. We promise each other the world and then destroy those vows the instant a secret is easier to hide. We end up here, always. In pain.”

  “No more secrets then. No more running. We’re stronger than he is.”

  “Maybe. Now. But I’ve seen how this will end. We’ll fight to be together, swear our love, and then we’ll ruin each other because it isn’t possible for us to have everything.”

  “Then I only want you.”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  “I do.”

  “You’ve chased power your entire life. Why would you give it up now?”

  Easy.

  Easier than any deal I ever made, dollar I ever spent, and selfish desire I ever put before others.

  “Because you are the one irreplaceable thing in my world. You are everything to me. And I swear to God, Sarah Atwood, I will spend every minute for the rest of my life proving it to you.”

  “And your father? The fertility drugs? The companies?”

  “Forget them. I only want you to be safe.”

  “I don’t feel safe.”

  And I hated myself for it. “You will.”

  “What about trying to get me pregnant? This ridiculous scheme to keep me alive?”

  “It’ll end.”

  Sarah rested against me, the tears returning. “This won’t end until he’s gone.”

  She whispered of our greatest problem and one of our only remaining solutions, but the risk wasn’t worth the complication. Not yet. Not until we had no other options.

  I held her tighter.

  But how much longer could I risk leaving her so vulnerable?

  The rap at the door startled her. She dove against me, but Max’s voice eased her thrashing. She stilled as he entered. I nodded to the warming towel against the rack, and he helped to pulled her from the water. The towel bundled over her. He leaned down to hold her close.

  I stilled, edging from the water as a sudden chill chased through my veins.

  Max’s words shadowed with regret, remorse.

  I didn’t trust Max’s restraint.

  I didn’t know what he’d say.

  “You will never understand how sorry I am.” His voice rumbled low. He covered her with the towel, but his hands fell limp to his sides before he helped to dry her. “Baby, I will never, ever forgive myself. You get me? I won’t rest until I earn your forgiveness.”

  Sarah didn’t understand.

  Max stole her to the bedroom. I peeled the dripping shirt from my skin. I kicked off the jeans, replacing them with a fresh pair of trousers as Sarah rested on the bed. She huddled against the blankets.

  Reed sat in silence across the room, his stitches just as dark and ugly now as they were in the shadows of the garage. Sarah stared, her lip trembling as fresh tears rolled over her cheeks.

  “He did that to you?” She whispered.

  He nodded.

  “My fault?”

  His nod came slower. I’d have scolded him, but Sarah hadn’t regained enough strength for lies. Not yet. She covered her face with her hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “It’s done,” I said. “And you’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

  Her gaze hadn’t left Reed’s new scar. She tensed, her voice a deadened, frightening shade of resignation. “He tried to hurt me.”

  He did hurt her, even if she wouldn’t admit it. Sarah took her first full breath. It chased the hollowness from her words.

  “My brothers are dead.”

  I looked at Max. He said nothing.

  “It doesn’t matter how many times he tortured me with the video,” she said. “Even if I watched it a million times, they died only once.”

  I brushed the hair from her face. “Don’t. You don’t have to be brave.”
>
  “Yes, I do,” she said, holding each of our gazes. “I lost Josiah and Mike. But now I have three more brothers, three men I love. And you guys are still alive.”

  Her eyes flashed, pinning me in place, promising the same intensity she once used to oppose me.

  “And I won’t let Darius separate us. Not after he’s already taken so much from me.”

  She let me pull her to my chest, though the limp and frightened girl was replaced with something more dangerous—someone volatile and more unpredictable now than before my father threatened her with the memory of her family.

  “I’ll stop him,” she promised. Who was she convincing? I didn’t trust the hollow shock in her voice. “Before this is over, Darius Bennett will fear me. Nothing he does will ever hurt me again.”

  16

  Sarah

  Darius Bennett slept soundly in his bed.

  I’d ensure he never woke up.

  A knife twisted in my hand. A cleaver from the kitchen.

  I didn’t remember stealing it. I didn’t remember anything.

  It was too hard to think over the sound of my brothers’ screams. They ached in my head. An endless ringing. A demonic cry from beyond the grave. It echoed and twisted and would never end, even with the knife, even with the darkness, even with the images finally over…

  Darius Bennett slept soundly.

  He didn’t deserve that peace. Night after night, I slept in quivering terror. His hands never left me in my nightmares. I bled and fought and struggled.

  And I hated it.

  I hated him.

  I hated the control he wielded over me. Nothing he said, did, or hurt would ever compare to the horrors I imagined myself.

  Darius was no longer a man. He was my ultimate fear.

  He corrupted every strength I had and every future I might have possessed.

  As long as he lived, I wouldn’t. As long as he breathed, I couldn’t.

  No matter the ropes or threats or locked doors in the Bennett estate, the chains that bound me most effectively weren’t twisted over my body. They invaded my mind.

  I stepped closer, but the knife weighed heavy in my hand.

  I could do this. I had to do this. I had no other way to protect myself or the ones I loved.

  Every day Darius’s eyes feasted on my curves. I knew what he wanted, what he imagined. I pretended to be brave. I stilled my trembles and cleared my voice and met his gaze. But every second spent peering into his blackened soul corrupted my courage.