Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

  Was this how I wanted to be found? Dead from an asthma attack, covered in my own sickness, hiding a pregnancy from the men who might have helped me survive everything?

  From the one man who deserved to know?

  The squeezing in my chest faded as I made the decision.

  I refused to let the fear or the rage or the blistering helplessness control me.

  The only way I’d ever heal was if Darius Bennett was punished for what he did. The only way I’d survive a pregnancy with severe asthma was if I had help.

  I needed my step-brothers.

  I cleaned myself and crawled to the bed, resting within the stiff sheets and clutching the phone to my breast. I once meant for Darius to endure the same torment he forced on me. Now I just wanted him dead. Cold and buried and gone forever.

  I dialed Nicholas…but I didn’t press send.

  I longed to hear his voice. I wanted to slap his face and blame him for everything that happened to me. I planned to bury myself in his embrace.

  But I knew I had to keep the baby as far from the Bennetts and their evils as possible.

  My heart didn’t just break—visions of an unrealized future, a lost and perfect love, and the memories of a gentle passion shattered with every beat. If I was to survive, if I meant to protect my child, I had only one option.

  Rid the world of Darius Bennett and shield my baby from any of his influences. They owed me that much.

  I cleared the phone and called Reed. He picked up, but I spoke before I heard his voice and lost all composure, all courage.

  “I need your help.”

  2

  Nicholas

  “Did you fucking kill her?”

  My father’s office door crashed against the wall. Chunks of wood from the frame shattered, striking the ceiling, the windows. They tumbled still before his desk.

  I stared the monster in the eye.

  He didn’t blink.

  I repeated myself. My words echoed in fierce accusation, layering in the freezing hiss of a desperate man without patience, without hope.

  Without answers.

  Without her.

  “Did you kill her?”

  My father’s thin lips peeled into a smile. He folded his hands into his lap, just waiting, hesitating as the silence tightened my fists.

  “Kill who, son?”

  I wasn’t a man who lost his temper. My father was a man who didn’t deserve the air he breathed.

  I swore, ripping the laptop and papers from his desk. The computer crashed in a disappointing fizzle, but the roaring blood in my ears promised a greater calamity once his bones cracked and skin ripped.

  “You seem tense,” my father said.

  I grunted as I hauled him from his chair. He wasn’t feeble, but he didn’t fight as I slammed him against the window and weighed my failing patience against his uncompromising stare. His head smacked against the glass. It wasn’t enough.

  Outside, San Jose glimmered in the twilight. The cracking glass would have shattered the quiet, but I longed for every murderous second of Heaven as his body careened to the pavement below.

  I gripped his suit. His eyebrow arched.

  I should have driven his head through the window.

  But I had to know.

  For two months, I lived in ignorance, pessimism, and a denied mourning. She vanished, completely. Emails unanswered and phones disconnected. A private investigator revealed nothing.

  Max warned we’d need to hire a coroner.

  It was the first time I struck my brother. He lost a tooth. I thought I lost my mind.

  Either the grief would break me, shadow me in crimson regret and endless solitude, or that failing slice of hope would cut through the insanity.

  If she were safe, we’d all survive.

  The only force more powerful than greed was hate. Money didn’t transfer into the afterlife. Hate did. Vengeance did. If he murdered her, I’d follow him to hell and become his own personal devil.

  “Did you kill Sarah Atwood?”

  “You think I would kill my own daughter?”

  “Don’t fuck with me. Is she dead?”

  My father grinned. “Why do you ask, Nicholas? Has your little sister gone missing?”

  If he dared to take that perverted tone about Sarah once more, he’d pray to land in a puddle of glass forty stories below.

  “Answer the question. Did you have her killed?”

  My father declined to respond. His attention drifted over my shoulder. I dropped him and ducked, avoiding the fist of one of his newly hired bodyguards. He stepped aside as the second guard imbedded his foot in my gut.

  I swung. My punch caught one in the chin as the other slammed my ear. I fell to my knee, but not before gripping a pair of scissors cast from the desk. I jammed the blade into the thigh of the bastard gripping my neck.

  The monsters my father hired were as emotionless and cruel as he. If they bled, it was black and putrid. The stain spread over his thigh, but he didn’t swear. His grip tightened, and the other bodyguard struck me in the chest. The air hissed from my lungs.

  I didn’t give my father the satisfaction of groaning. Not like I had the air to make the sound anyway.

  “Don’t bruise his face.” My father readjusted his suit before claiming his seat. “But teach him this lesson.”

  As with everything my father expected, his guards were ruthless, efficient, and obeyed his every order. A kick to the chest was nothing. The jab to the kidney drove me to my knees. My stomach heaved. I didn’t vomit.

  Yet.

  The funeral guests left when the ambulance arrived for my hysterical step-mother. My father grunted, wiping the blood from his hands with a handkerchief.

  “Bethany sliced her wrists in the bathtub. I’m going with her to the hospital. You stay at the farm until what whatever remains of those bastards are buried.”

  As if I had a choice. Two men were dead, lost souls in a feud with no visible end. The least they deserved was an acknowledgement of our guilt.

  The crowds paid their respects, and the caskets lowered into the farmland, beside the wretched body of their father. A murderer didn’t deserve a grave as beautiful as the landscape surrounding the Atwood farms.

  The guests tucked away their tissues and paraded to their cars.

  But she stayed.

  The beautiful blonde with hair as pale as her corn’s silk and blue eyes faded with tears. She sat in the dirt and wept for her brothers. For her life. For everything that was now hers.

  Sarah Atwood’s sorrow broke my heart.

  I wished we weren’t the cause.

  A rib cracked. The sharp slice echoed over the room. I gasped, but my escaping words didn’t beg for pity. My father loathed mercy and begging excited him. My brothers and I shared enough scars to understand his sadism.

  And now so did Sarah.

  If she were still alive.

  I left her at the chalet, but I promised her I’d return. We’d planned to sell her shares of the company, appease the board, and find a way to shield her from my father.

  But maybe she didn’t believe me? Maybe she ran before the bastard had a chance to locate her.

  Or maybe she was dead.

  And then my father would need more than two Russian mutes with bloodied fists to protect him.

  “Where is she?” I rasped through the pain. “Answer me.”

  My father nodded. The monster on my right struck where the rib already shattered.

  “First, you steal my daughter and hide her far from where her daddy can find her.” My father’s voice was far too calm for the filth he spoke. “And now you storm into my office fussing like a toddler. Why? Is it because she’s run from you too? Tell me, Nicholas. What’s happened to this family? To you?”

  “Nothing you didn’t cause.”

  “Me?” he actually laughed. “How is this disaster my fault? Be honest, son. You fell in love with your sister. You bargained with everyone’s lives to save hers. You gave her
the stock, and you were the one to threaten Roman Wescott into giving you every last share.”

  He nodded to his guard. I braced for it, but the fist to my gut roiled every pain with my simmering disgust. I grunted and spat. The second guard backhanded me for the insolence of making a mess in my father’s office.

  That would bruise. He didn’t care.

  “That little Atwood slut climbed into your bed, gave you a ride, and then ran away with the entirety of the Josmik Trust. Didn’t she tell the love of her life where she went? Are you really surprised?”

  “Sarah was selling the stock to the board. She didn’t want to keep it.”

  His eyebrow arched. “She fucked you good, Nicholas. At least you got off while it lasted.”

  I tasted blood. It wasn’t from the beating. “You killed her. You found her and murdered her.”

  “Son, I assure you. The last time I saw Sarah Atwood was the last time you did.”

  He didn’t know about the chalet. He didn’t know I’d confessed my love to her, begged her forgiveness for the horrible pain my brothers and I caused, and ordered her to stay and wait for my return.

  My father gestured for his men to strike me again. The punch bent me in two. The hit to my chest popped me upright in the chair.

  “I should have killed her, but I didn’t think the little whore would ever bolt.” My father sighed, unflinching, as he observed my beating. “To be perfectly honest, my daughter charmed me. I let her off easy, but I’ve always had a soft heart.”

  My breathing hurt, but I deserved the ragged drag of air through my lungs. Sarah suffered through worse for us—her own broken ribs and injuries, terrors and captivity.

  Of course she’d leave.

  Of course she’d run.

  What promises of mine would ever comfort a woman so mistreated? I never saw her body without bruises. I vowed to keep her safe, but my word hadn’t prevented any injury or sacrifice. And the day I freed her from my possession, the instant the collar unclipped from her neck, the devil rose from hell to recover the innocent soul he nearly lost.

  What my brothers and I did to her was unforgiveable. And even in the dark and quiet, when I returned to fall back within her, as I offered her my heart with every passionate thrust, she made her choice.

  Sarah ran to save herself. And she took the only leverage she had to ensure her safety—the very fate of the company she vowed to destroy.

  My father dismissed the guards he had hired specifically to defend him from our retaliation. Not a day went by that Max and Reed didn’t demand some form of satisfaction. For them, it had been three months since the night he put the gun to her head and forced us to ruin her.

  They weren’t the same men I remembered.

  Neither was I.

  The bodyguards wouldn’t protect my father. The only reason he breathed was because I couldn’t take the chance that he’d found Sarah and imprisoned her without our knowledge.

  “I asked for one thing, son.” He dabbed his handkerchief over the blood that smudged his desk. “Sarah Atwood’s heir. We were in agreement. You all fucked the girl, and yet here we are. Months later, and our company is still in jeopardy. I’m disappointed with this turn of events.”

  My grief and misery faded. I believed him. He hadn’t found her. She was safe.

  So why did she run from me?

  “I don’t care if I disappoint you,” I said.

  “Yes, you do. All of my sons do. It’s the reason Reed has yet to abandon his name, and why Max bloodied his hands so often. Even you, Nicholas. Until that little bitch staked her claim on your cock, you served me with every expectation I had of my heir.”

  “I don’t serve anyone.”

  “You made a fine lapdog for Sarah Atwood.” He spat the words. “And a better one for me these past few weeks. No more arguing. No more complications in the board meetings. It’s refreshing. Almost as if you remembered you were my son.”

  “It’s not for you. I vote with you like we agreed.”

  “Do you regret this now?”

  “It kept her safe.”

  A pause. My father’s lips pressed into another smile I didn’t trust. He leaned forward.

  “For how much longer, Nicholas? Do you really think you can protect her from the board?”

  No. She inherited the shares early, but she hadn’t signed the sales agreement to transfer the wealth to the board. Her fate was decided.

  But if Sarah had attempted to harm the Bennett Corporation, she’d already be dead. Instead, she acted stupidly and recklessly, which meant everything was going according to her plan.

  “They will kill her,” my father said. “And you and I won’t be able to save her.”

  The disgust was worse than the blood and sweat beaten from me. “You don’t want to save her. You want to hurt her.”

  “Sarah Atwood was always meant to be bred. Her own father didn’t label her as an heir, and her brothers named her as there was no one else in their line. Her sole purpose in this world was to carry whatever son you planted in her womb.” He snorted. “But you couldn’t even do that.”

  And I was grateful. The last punishment Sarah deserved was the dehumanizing realization that we twisted her body with such a repulsive desire.

  “The idea was mad from the start,” I said. “And now we have more problems than her.”

  “The board?” His voice lightened. “They have a plan to regain those shares. They’ll capture her, kill her. She’ll be lucky if she dies before they take a taste of her for their troubles.”

  My stomach turned. The men on the board, men like Bryant Maddox who’d do just as my father predicted, would make her suffer for their lost investments. My mind raged, blitzing into both pain and ruptured aggression.

  No one would ever touch her. Not after what my brothers and I did.

  Sarah endured enough without a man forcing himself upon her.

  The thought sickened me, but my father watched my every flinch. It wasn’t a weakness to love, but it wasn’t a strength that would protect her from vile intentions.

  “If Sarah Atwood were killed…” My father seemed pleased by the implication. “The trust would transfer to her mother. As Bethany’s husband, Sarah’s power of attorney would defer to me. So, Nicholas, if you wish to save your little whore, I’d recommend finding her soon.”

  “And what would you do to her if I did?”

  “She knows what she must do. First, she sells the shares—that’s non-negotiable. Then she’d have a choice.”

  “You’ve never given her a choice.”

  “She can either be bred, or she will be killed.” He rapped his fingers against his desk. “And, son? I think that decision might be harder for her than you believe.”

  “You will not hurt her.”

  He held my gaze. “I’ve acquired a taste for her pain. I’m sure I’ll sample it again. Soon.”

  No more madness. I heard all I needed to hear. I stood, wracked with the ache of my broken ribs and enough internal bruising to piss blood. My father ordered his guards to escort me from the office.

  “Board meeting tomorrow, Nicholas. Tricky vote. I’ll need your support on those few employee terminations we’ve discussed.”

  I gritted my teeth. Seven hundred employees weren’t a few. Whatever legacy I’d inherit smoldered in the wreckage of his leadership.

  I turned to the door, but I didn’t move quickly enough. The pleasure in my father’s voice gurgled like an oozing wound.

  “I’m sure she’ll return soon, son.” He laughed. “And she’ll have so many stories to tell you.”

  My father’s guards forced me into the elevator, but I waited until the doors closed before sinking against the mirrored wall. I attempted to check my ribs in the mirror. Twisting to untuck the dress shirt agonized me. I imagined what I’d see instead.

  I escaped into the parking garage but waited until I was in the car before dialing Max on the pre-paid phone.

  He answered after one ring.
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  “What’d you find out?”

  I hid the pain. “He doesn’t have her.”

  “You sure?”

  “I have two broken ribs and instructions on how to vote at the meeting tomorrow. He doesn’t know where she is. Sarah’s still alive. She’s okay.”

  “Then where the fuck is she?” Max asked.

  Good question.

  His voice lowered. “And why the hell is she running from you?”

  Better question.

  “Are you ready to move?” I clutched the steering wheel. “Tonight is our best opportunity. Not many people in the office.”

  Max swore. “I’m ready. Got a problem though.”

  “I don’t want to hear the word problem.”

  “Reed hasn’t picked up his packages.”

  Son of a bitch. I slammed a hand against the console. My ribs immediately punished me.

  The silenced pistols, unregistered and imported from Max’s contact in Mexico, waited for their first and only use. We left the helicopter on the Bennett Corporation roof, fueled and serviced. I’d pilot. Max would contain the cargo. Once we reached the yacht, Reed and I arranged for a drop in the deep, darker parts of the ocean. Ten million dollars, but they promised discretion.

  They also wanted it in cash. And if Reed hadn’t secured the duffle bag…

  “Where the hell is he?” I spat my words. “What’s he doing?”

  “Hasn’t said. He’s gotta get there in less than an hour. I knew we couldn’t count on him, Nick. He’s still fucked up from raping Sarah.”

  “Goddamn it. If he wants to atone for it, this is the only way.”

  I seized my primary cell phone as it rang. Reed’s name flashed over the display.

  “Hold on. I found him.”

  Max swore. I answered the call.

  “Nick.” Reed spoke slowly, too steady. “Something came up.”

  “You have a job to do,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Getting ready to board a plane.”

  “A plane?”

  “Listen to me. Something important happened. Get out of San Jose. Meet me at my house.”

  “Reed—”