by Lana Grayson
“Because you’re coming with me today.”
“Where?”
His smile trembled my gut. “We’re going to the Bennett Corporation Headquarters. I have something to show you.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine here.”
“Do you want to know the real Mark Atwood?” Darius buttoned his suit. “You have ten minutes to get ready before I rescind my offer. Dress professionally, Sarah. You’re representing your family.”
Damn it.
Was he serious? He’d take me to the main office? Why?
The answer hit me harder than any of his strikes.
We’d be alone.
Separated from my step-brothers.
Away from Nicholas’s intervention, Max’s promised abuse, and Reed’s kindness.
He bribed me with secrets about my family, but I feared he’d lead me straight into hell.
Anthony’s warning and Nicholas’s revelation churned my stomach. I was certain—absolutely certain—Darius was responsible for Dad’s death. But now? A creeping fear punctured through me.
Christ.
What if I was wrong?
What if I was taken and fucked, seduced and abused for…nothing?
The sickness returned. I didn’t let it out. I pushed beyond Darius and dove for my wardrobe.
He handed me the outfit he preferred. The skirt did nothing to settle my stomach.
But I had only one way to find out what happened. One way to end the insanity. I’d give Darius one opportunity to tell me the truth, and God help him if he lied.
I wasn’t fighting for my father’s legacy anymore.
I’d thrive on my own revenge.
I didn’t trust Darius, but I followed him to the limo parked outside. He answered a call as soon as the driver had his instructions. I scrunched in my seat as far from him as I could without offering him the satisfaction of watching me squirm.
The road twisted and turned for miles without pavement markings. No cars rumbled near for twenty minutes, and every mile traveled within the wilderness stole another flake of my courage. Darius probably hoped I’d be demoralized by the distance, the isolation.
The joke was on him. I wrecked my own confidence, dashed upon a foolish belief that I could protect myself from his demons.
His phone buzzed again. He brushed a finger over my arm.
“She’s with me.” He hummed. “Consider it a…bring your daughter to work day.”
“Get off of me,” I hissed.
Darius smirked and ended his call. “Your brother. Checking up on you.”
I didn’t ask which one. It didn’t matter. I guessed. Darius sneered.
“You fucked him more than once, didn’t you, you little slut?”
I didn’t answer.
He chuckled. “Thought you could ensnare him? Thought you’d seduce him, and he’d fall in love with you and release you from our custody?”
“Seduce him? If I recall …” I threaded my words in bitterness. “I was the one tied to the bed.”
“He doesn’t care for you, and he never will. You are nothing but a cunt for Nicholas to fuck.”
So I learned.
I didn’t react.
“You weren’t impregnated this month, my dear.” Darius looped a lock of my hair behind my ear. “But I assure you, my sons were raised with Bennett ambition. We always get what we want.”
I had no reason to doubt him, especially as his eldest son stood at his side. Nicholas could rot in hell, but he was still an ally. I said nothing about our encounters. It’d kill me, but I’d protect him as long as he stole the Bennett Corporation and humiliated his father.
The ride to San Jose prickled with an unsavory silence. I ignored Darius as he answered emails and took calls, but his attention wasn’t on his cell. He stared at me. Searched over my curves. Shifted against the bulge in his pants as we drew nearer to the headquarters.
No matter how much I hated my step-brothers, their desire had been just that. Desire. And in my moments of weakness, I shared it.
But everything Darius did, every word he said, and every breath he took riddled with bestial sadism. The limo parked, and he attempted to take my hand. I leapt out as the driver opened the door.
The Bennett Corporation compound was housed on its own plot of land in the middle of the city—a five story complex of modern architecture and classy design. Enough people wandered the street to make escaping easy, especially as a police officer parked one block away.
Darius took my elbow and squeezed.
“It would be unwise,” he whispered. “Painful to you, and certainly a tragedy on your poor mother. Come with me. Don’t make me regret this trust.”
I didn’t trust him, but I still followed.
A marbled and ostentatious foyer welcomed us into the heart of the Bennett Corporation. Artificial light and chlorine kissed fountains decorated the lobby. The ceilings stretched multiple stories, but they painted it a fake blue. Suits and ties and heels and skirts filled the morning rush of employees to their offices. A stale whiff of coffee permeated from the kiosk parked within an imitation jungle of ferns and flowers.
Was everything the Bennetts touched fake?
When my family went to work, they toiled outside, in the real plants under an honest blue sky and prayed for the water that freely tumbled from the Bennetts’ fountain.
Then again, my father spent more and more time trapped in our company’s offices. And I hadn’t touched soil in years—not when most of my experiments were conducted within the RNA of the crop, not in tilled dirt.
Darius reserved a private elevator as CEO and owner. He pulled me inside, ignoring the nods and well-wished good mornings from his employees. I shuddered as he refused to release my hand.
The elevator moved too slowly. I studied the mirrored panels.
I was still bruised—pale and tiny next to the greying demon that possessed enough strength to overpower me and reveal my rage and grief and damning emotions I tried to hide.
The doors opened. The silence of his private floor descended like another gag stuffed in my mouth. My skin brushed with goose bumps, and every rational thought barraged my head with warnings to stay tucked within the elevator.
“Come with me, my dear.” Darius bargained with blood. “You’ll appreciate this.”
I swallowed, immediately regretting the breath that refused to squeeze from my lungs.
Our steps echoed in the vast hall, and Darius led me to the thick, spanning door that sealed me inside his office. The sterile space existed only for efficiency and business. The windows spanned the entire office, but the stark light that trickled in fell cold upon the black leather furniture.
He offered me a seat before the sprawling executive desk.
He claimed the throne behind it.
And smiled.
“It’s been some time since an Atwood graced my office,” Darius said.
“I’m here. Let’s talk.”
He didn’t offer me coffee or water. His phone blinked on do-not-disturb. I winced as I realized how tightly I crossed my legs.
“I wish to…clear my name,” Darius said. “You believe I am responsible for Mark Atwood’s death.”
“Yes.” I stated it strongly, even as the conviction faded in my head.
“I didn’t.”
I expected as much.
“Nicholas told you about his mother?”
I ground my jaw. “He said that my father hired the man who severed her car’s break line.”
“It’s true.”
“Do you have proof?”
Darius folded his hands. “If I had enough to convict him, he’d be in jail now, rotting away for taking my wife and nearly murdering my sons.”
“I can’t prove you killed my dad, and you can’t prove he killed your wife,” I said. “What’s the point of this? It’s getting us nowhere.”
“My dear, I told you. I wish to clear my name.” Darius stared at me. “And to damn his.”
&nbs
p; He ruffled through a file next to his desk and offered me candid pictures of a farm. Photos of alfalfa and corn, potatoes and onions—each plant thriving in a cracked soil that shouldn’t have sustained such quality. He allowed me to read the documentation attached to the file.
“Transgenetic drought-resistant crops grown on an African farming collective.” I flipped the page. “This is a non-profit project?”
Darius nodded. “Keep reading.”
The scientific journals revealed the program’s experiments into a specific genome of the plants they cultivated. My heart fluttered at their results.
Hearty plants, durable crops, seeds that’d withstand arid climates and a product relatively unscathed by the harsh conditions of its growth.
“Similar to your research?” Darius asked.
I wouldn’t rise to his challenge.
“Similar, but not exact,” I said. “It’s what I planned to study when I finished my degree.”
“Yes, it is.” Darius absently studied a photo. “Your father realized it.”
“My father was always interested in my research.”
“No, my dear,” Darius laughed. “He was interested in progress. Profit. Your research was secondary to his goals.”
“You don’t know anything about my father. He committed to R&D because he understood the environmental threats facing the agricultural business in the west.”
“Spun better than a PR department,” he chuckled. “Your father cared only for his own business and farm. Everything he did and every penny he spent was meant to profit only the Atwoods.”
“This research,” I tapped the folder, “and the experiments I did? It’d help everybody.”
“He didn’t help anyone, only himself.” Darius pulled another folder from his desk. “This should be illuminating.”
I opened the folder.
My heart sunk.
“One of your father’s first initiatives was forging an R&D team to study, create, and patent specific genes that would benefit his company. Once the genes were secured and the product created and the money tucked safely within his bank account, he ensured no other laboratory studied anything similar to what he patented.” Darius took a great satisfaction in my trembling. “How many of Atwood’s development products are actually on the market?”
None. I cleared my throat.
“It wasn’t part of our business plan,” I said. “The past few years we focused on the water shortages and droughts. My father got sick, and we didn’t have the initiative we needed to…to…”
“Benefit every farmer in southern California? To offer products and produce that would revolutionize agriculture?”
“The science was new. My father didn’t understand it.”
“Yes, he did. Your father knew exactly what the science meant. And that’s why he squashed it.”
The folder trembled in my hand. I continued reading.
The farming collective with their beautiful plants and healthy, lovely vegetables.
Sued and dismantled for patent violations.
I thumbed through the rest of the papers. Not just one project squashed.
Dozens.
Non-profit companies and university research.
Small labs and large industries.
Individuals.
Charities.
When someone researched anything even remotely similar to our patents and developments, Dad descended with an army of lawyers and dozens of lawsuits claiming our work had been infringed.
The most recent suit stabbed through my chest. The African initiative—a non-profit attempting to stop hunger and grant sustainability to rural and desperate villages—sued, dismantled, and pending restitution.
Dad cited my research as the cause to shut them down.
He used my name.
“Your father knew the value of that research. He also knew how pivotal it would become.” Darius leaned over the desk. “But why release a revolutionary product before the market is sufficiently desperate?”
“No.” I seized a breath. “This was just…protecting the research. He wouldn’t have hid it. He was sick. He couldn’t take on this many projects. But if he hadn’t died—”
“Sarah, he planned to sit on your projects and the science that would literally save hundreds of thousands of lives from hunger.”
“It’s not true.”
“Like a proper businessman, Mark Atwood knew he’d earn more from the products when they were in demand. Ever wonder why your father invested so much in political super PACs and organizations? Those groups lobbied for farmers’ tax breaks, subsidies, and all the irrigation water they needed to drown their drought-ridden lands with water-demanding crops despite the harsh environment not supporting their product.”
Darius plucked the folder from my hands and replaced it in his desk. “Your father planned to wring southern California dry, profit from the crops he sent overseas to rot in storage, and patent and hide the one solution that would ease the demand on the environment and provide hungry people around the world the means to feed themselves.”
I trembled.
“Sarah!” Dad was mad. I hid in the doorway. He’d shout just as loudly if I approached his desk or waited in my room. “You worked on our research in the university lab!”
Only once. I entered the results, that was all. Dad raged, running his hand over a bald head. He forgot he lost his hair to the chemo last week.
“It was just an Excel sheet,” I said. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Never take our work out of the lab!” He didn’t have the energy to slam a fist on the table. He could hardly even raise his voice. “If the school finds it—”
“They won’t.”
“If they find it, they’ll claim it for themselves. Any work done within the University is their property! You could have cost this family millions, Sarah! Billions!”
“I…I didn’t mean to.”
“You never mean to.” He sighed. “Sarah, I don’t know how you’re ever going to help this family when I’m gone.”
“Dad, you aren’t dying.”
“Good. Because I certainly can’t trust you, now can I?”
“You can. I promise.”
He waved a shaking hand. “It’s fine, Sprout. I should have expected this. Just be more careful and go to bed.”
I didn’t let him see me cry.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I love you.”
“Yeah. Goodnight.”
Darius’s smile only grew.
“Your father was ruthless, my dear. He was violent. Vindictive. And he was obsessed with my family. The car crash was only one opportunity he took to harm us. Our warehouses were constantly damaged with vandalism and violence. One of his migrant workers was to be charged after he attempted arson on a fertilizer factory in Texas. Do you know what happened when he was arrested?”
My voice weakened. “My father had him deported too?”
“Your father had him murdered in his jail cell.”
No.
I clutched the arm of the chair as Darius laughed.
“You didn’t know your father at all, did you, my dear?”
I closed my eyes. It didn’t help. The room swirled and tilted, and I suffered through a wavering breath that did nothing to ease the strain building in my chest.
Was it true? Nicholas’s pain was too real, and Anthony’s warning too abrupt.
I searched through reluctant memories.
Dad’s late nights at the office.
The patents he forced me to file.
Mom’s arguments. The time she tried to leave. The black eye when he didn’t let her.
He taught me nothing about the business.
He never included me in meetings.
He posed for pictures only with Josiah and Mike.
He hadn’t named me in his will.
God. What the hell had I done?
I adopted his work ethic and ambition, but I inherited something worse. His hatred. I shared his every loathing
heartbeat for the Bennetts, and, in my blindness, I trapped myself in their grasp.
Darius rose from the desk. He circled behind me, but I didn’t notice until his hands rested upon my shoulders.
The goose bumps returned. I shrugged, but it didn’t cast him away.
“I understand. It’s difficult to hear.”
And he loved every second of my torment. The breaking of my heart was a far more effective punishment than any gag or flogger or bindings.
His fingers pressed hard.
I stiffened.
“And now you see why we have taken you in. Given you a new family.”
I swallowed. “Don’t twist it. You kidnapped me.”
“Only to do what must be done.” He petted my hair. “Your father spent his life attempting to suppress the Bennett Corporation. It’s time we had our revenge and take what is due to us.”
“Your fight was with him. I’ve done nothing to your family.”
“Sins of the father…” Darius chuckled. “My dear, I’ve been lenient with you, if only because I anticipated it would be difficult for such a young girl to understand her new place in this family.” His fingers dug into me. “No longer, Sarah. You have a very important role to play for my sons, and I will not accept any further disobedience.”
“If you think I’ll let any of this happen without a fight, you’re as insane as you are cruel.”
“Cruel? I haven’t been cruel yet.”
I didn’t have time to prepare. The backhand blinded me. I stumbled, but Darius caught me before I tumbled from the chair.
It wasn’t a kindness.
He forced me over his desk.
The shock of the wood struck under my lungs, prying the air from me in a painful wretch. Darius pulled my hair and slammed my head against the desk as I twisted to escape.
The slam blitzed me with pain. I stilled. Blinked. Heaved.
Nothing came out.
A darkness warred with the light from his windows.
“Since the beginning, you’ve been a nuisance in my household,” Darius hissed. “I’ve given you too much freedom, and you’ve bewitched my sons. They’ve taken pity on you. It ends now.”
“Maybe your sons aren’t monsters.”
“Maybe they didn’t fuck you enough.” Darius’s strike wasn’t a spank. He meant to hurt. I lurched over the desk, but he spoke over my shout. “Your life is going to change, Sarah. We were benevolent, but you didn’t show the proper gratitude.”