by Lana Grayson
“Don’t you fucking look at her.”
Darius’s choked gasp didn’t beg for his life or plea for mercy. He laughed, again and again, each demonic chuckle slicing my courage. My step-brothers circled me, protecting me from Darius’s touch, and yet, somehow, despite their rescue, my world still tore apart piece by corrupted piece.
“You idiots.” Darius grunted against the arm in his throat. “I told you to fuck her, not indulge her. This was why I wanted her gagged and bound.”
“Don’t give me more of a reason to hurt you,” Nicholas warned. The thick muscles of his arms twitched with untapped strength, straining for the moment to snap both his sanity and his father’s neck.
“She convinced you to betray me?” Darius sneered. “She told you to sell your stock?”
Max scowled at me. “He’s right. You should have been gagged.”
“And you think…what? She’ll return it when she’s done?” Darius cackled. “Christ, sons. Are you that blind? For a minute, I didn’t know if I held Sarah or Mark Atwood against that knife.”
It wasn’t a compliment. My stomach twisted as Darius spoke too reasonably for a man whose life threatened in the curl of his son’s bicep.
“You can’t trust the little slut. I taught you better than this. You know the Atwoods have made it their life goal to destroy us.”
“And you haven’t tried to destroy us?” Nicholas grunted. “Kidnapping? Rape? Selling this secret out to the board? You beat us into submission as children, threatened us as grown men, and forced us into violence to preserve our power. No more.”
“I made you the man you are, Nicholas.”
“You made a monster.”
“And because of it, you have the power to end this feud and protect this family. I told you to fuck and breed Sarah Atwood so that the next generation of her family’s blight would be ours. It would have ended the struggle, secured our future, and earned you a son worthy of our name.”
“That isn’t how I planned to build my empire.”
“This is the only way to seize it!” Darius stared at me. “You either breed the girl or put a bullet in her head—”
Nicholas twisted, silencing his father with a growl. “What if I kill you instead?”
“Then how does my eldest, my heir, receive his precious inheritance?” Darius laughed. “You need me, son. You need me for the company. For the estate. For the money. If my death is the least bit suspicious, our assets are frozen and my sons are given nothing. I would sooner let the company dissolve than let my traitorous son hand it to a little Atwood whore.”
“It’s worth it,” Reed held me tighter. “Kill him. We got enough money.”
Darius growled. “I should have slit your throat.”
Nicholas swore. He slammed Darius into the wall hard enough to crush his nose. Blood poured from his face, but Darius only groaned in aching disappointment. As though he expected more from Nicholas. As though he didn’t even care his life was meant for his son to end.
“Now you have a suspicious death,” Darius spat blood. “Broken noses don’t look like heart attacks.”
“You deserve to die for the hell you’ve put this family through.” Nicholas breathed heavily. He looked to his brothers, speaking through gritted teeth. “But I’m not going to do it.”
“That’s my boy,” Darius grinned. “Let’s hear your master plan.”
“We’re leaving. Tonight. And you won’t stop us.”
Darius’s nose gushed crimson. “I’m in no position to argue.”
“You resign from the Bennett Corporation, effective immediately.”
“Name you in my stead?”
“Yes.”
“And, with me gone, you think your little sister will let the trust dissolve so you can keep your company? I didn’t raise a fool.”
Nicholas didn’t look at me. “And you will not touch Sarah Atwood. You don’t look at her, talk to her, or come near her ever again.”
Darius sighed. “We’re not done with her.”
“Yes, we are.”
“Remember the opportunity that exists between her fucking legs.”
Nicholas seethed, but he didn’t end the life that still threatened us, even pinned to a wall and weakened with spilling blood. “Agree to these terms, and you’ll get a decent buy out. You get to live.”
“How can I trust your word, son?” His gaze seared through Nicholas and aimed for me. “You’ve already lied, betrayed your family, and attempted a hostile takeover.”
“You can either doubt me and die or take your chances and live.”
Reed’s hand tightened over me. Max shifted too, sheltering me from Darius’s twitching lip and resigned sneer. I didn’t hold my breath. Darius Bennett stole it in fear and lost it in the cunning twist of his brow.
I feared him more now that he was struck against the wall. I’d revealed too much. He looked inside my soul and saw the only power I possessed was a frail bond with his sons. I was nothing to him, only a womb to be filled and life to snuff out when he was through.
Nicholas demanded that I submit if I wanted to survive, and I’d pretended as long as I could. But it didn’t protect me. It only exposed a lie I now shared with the man who would ruin us all.
Darius didn’t yield. He merely lowered his fists.
“Go then, Nicholas,” he said. “Take the whore and watch as she burns the world around you.”
“And the resignation?”
“You’ll hear from me first thing in the morning. That, I promise.”
Nicholas shoved his father away, watching as Darius choked over a freeing breath of air.
“Congratulations, Nicholas, the Bennett Corporation has never had such a judicious leader.”
Darius laughed. It curdled my stomach. Not because he showed no remorse. Not because he held a knife to my throat. Not because he’d threatened and attempted to rape me again.
But because I recognized his false surrender.
Nicholas let his father go.
It was our worst mistake.
We should have run.
Out of the mansion, out of the city, just escaped and never looked back.
But Nicholas didn’t run. Bennetts never retreated, they simply relocated their battlefield. Worse yet, my step-brothers weren’t afraid. They didn’t think we had to keep moving.
They thought they’d won.
I didn’t feel much like celebrating. I also was a piss-poor example of a trophy of their victory.
I cleaned the blood from my neck, but I didn’t need a scar to remind me that attacking Darius was foolish, careless, and utterly reckless.
Nicholas took my hand as we packed a bag and left the estate. He forced me behind him on his bike in a chilled silence. Reed didn’t look at me. Max grunted when I worried for Hamlet.
But Nicholas kissed my forehead.
Reed tucked his jacket over my shoulders.
Max drove a car instead, just so we could take my dog with us. He even allowed Hamlet to sit up front on the imported leather.
I should have apologized.
We all should have apologized.
But we said nothing. Only ran.
We escaped to Max’s penthouse in San Jose, hardly past the shadow of the estate looming in the mountains. The basement housed a private elevator, and we slipped upstairs to Max’s claimed upper floor. Hamlet bounded down the hall, bouncing at the door as though we weren’t hurt, exhausted, and suffering from the horror of the night. I patted his head, but he was too excited to have us all together again, close and safe.
That, I understood.
“In.”
Max’s order wasn’t soft, and he didn’t offer it with a Baby.
I squeezed past Nicholas and Reed and shuffled in the entry, rubbing the cut on my neck as the door locked behind us. I didn’t know if I should have thanked Max for taking me in, or if my reaction was just another mistake in a line of fuck-ups that would make our lives miserable. I waited in awkward silence inst
ead.
His penthouse was dark and industrial and every bit as intimidating as him. He decorated it cold and sparse. A bachelor pad for the bachelor who hardly lived there.
Max pointed over the open floor plan. “Bedrooms. Bathrooms. Living room.” He headed to the corner, flipping on the lights over an array of bottles and shakers. “Bar.”
Reed spoke for the first time in hours. “I don’t care what you make. I’ll have two.”
His stitches flashed. He shouldn’t have ridden his bike such a long distance. The helmet pressed his cheek, and the cut oozed. I didn’t know how badly he hurt, and the mountainous back roads and dark turns were dangerous even for someone who wasn’t…maimed.
Reed knocked open a pill bottle from his pocket, swallowed too many, and followed it with a splash of offered whiskey.
He didn’t smile.
He couldn’t, not without hurting his injury.
My chest seized. I wasn’t the one who made the slice, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t responsible for his pain. All of their pain.
Was it worth it?
I left Roman Wescott’s office without an agreement, unable to close the deal. Darius was right, he just didn’t understand why. If I wanted to destroy him, I’d first have to betray Nicholas. I would steal everything from him—everything he worked for, everything that was promised to him, everything he planned for so long to change and improve.
And now, Darius knew about our fucking alliance. What I spat in hatred and anger damned me to the Bennett Corporation. Was I still worth more pregnant than dead?
I needed a drink too.
Maybe the whole bottle.
Hell, just the glass pushed against my throat to finish what Darius had threatened.
Nicholas guided me to the couch. I followed, but my steps tripped. I gripped the dark sofa just to stay standing.
“Reed…”
All three of my step-brothers frowned. Individually, I could handle the intensity of Max’s gaze or the unfamiliar scowl touching Reed’s lips. But collectively? Even the gold of Nicholas’s eyes obscured into a muddied amber.
I already said enough tonight.
They didn’t want to hear anymore.
I quieted, slipping onto the couch to cradle my legs to my chest. I still had Reed’s jacket tucked over my shoulders. He hadn’t asked me to return it. Yet. I clutched the leather, held it against me with the same ferocity I clung to Mike and Josiah’s pillows after the news of their crash.
I’d lost two brothers already.
I couldn’t lose these men.
Not my gentle Reed who’d just as eagerly toss me in a pool or carry me away from danger. Not my Max, the one who understood the frustration when the world used our illnesses and injuries to define us.
Not Nicholas.
My Nicholas.
My chest ached. Tears slipped before I could stop them.
The fear returned.
So much fear, an endless barrage of thoughts that needled my chest with consequences that gutted me as though the knife had actually struck.
Now that I admitted it, I couldn’t remember a time when I hadn’t been afraid—even before the Bennetts. Mom’s breakdown. My brothers’ deaths. Dad’s cancer.
I rubbed my cheeks with the backs of my hands, cleansing the tears. The San Jose skyline filled the floor to ceiling windows. Despite the flashy lights of downtown, the night seeped into the penthouse.
In the distance, the Bennett Corporation headquarters glowed, framed against the mountains.
We weren’t far enough away.
I didn’t know where we could go. Even if I went home, I ran from the man who sent his sons to chase me on bikes and pluck me from my own cornfields. If my step-brothers took me, Darius could do the same.
If he came after me.
When he came after me.
My step-brothers revealed nothing beyond their own exhausted silences. I assumed they relived their side of the events. They’d finally escaped their father, though I hadn’t given them a choice. They opposed a man more violent and brutal than any of us believed. At least, for them, it was over.
But they hadn’t been trapped under him.
They hadn’t heard the disgusting rasp in his voice.
His threats weren’t meant to scare me. His hiss, the words he spoke, the futures he imagined, what he intended to do.
Darius was desperate to punish and claim me. If he had his way, he’d make me suffer in humiliated agony—
“Sarah.” Reed’s voice lured me from the darkness. He offered a drink. “You could use it.”
My hands trembled as I grasped the glass. I sniffed it, and the alcohol burned more than my tears.
“Not supposed to,” I said.
Max tossed me a blanket. “Don’t think that matters much anymore.”
“I guess not.”
I took the shot, grimacing as the liquid set my mouth on fire. I didn’t need any more heat rushing to my head. I handed the glass to Nicholas. He shot the rest.
“Guess you can sleep here.” Max poured a second drink and gestured to the kitchen. “There might be a frozen pizza in the freezer. Haven’t been here for a while to check.”
My voice hushed. “I don’t think I can eat.”
Reed snorted. “Make it. Getting your face cleaved works up an appetite.”
What did they want from me?
An apology? More tears? A plea for forgiveness?
I pushed away from Nicholas and threw Reed his jacket. He hissed as the sleeve swept against his cheek. He deserved it.
Or maybe he didn’t.
Hell if I knew.
“I panicked.” I thought I’d scream. My voice trembled instead. “I tried to sleep, and all I heard, all I saw was that video. Over and over, hours of my brothers dying!”
Nicholas waved his brothers away. “Sarah.”
“I snapped! Everything is just this horrible blur. The footage. You guys finding me. I thought I was in the theater, and then I woke up in the bathtub with you, and then I don’t know what happened afterwards. I couldn’t think. I just…acted. And then Darius…he tried…”
“You should rest,” Nicholas said. “You’re tired.”
“She’s not tired.” Max slammed the pizza in the oven. “She’s traumatized! Jesus fucking Christ, he knew exactly what he was doing making her watch that shit.”
Nicholas exhaled. “I’ll handle it, Max.”
“Did you know he had that footage?” He asked. “That was the black box recording. Where the fuck did he get that?”
Reed’s voice hardened. “Of course he had it. He probably had it all along. You know he wanted to hear what was on that tape.”
Max swore again, slamming his drink into the sink. It shattered on impact.
“What the fuck did he tell you, Sarah?”
I swallowed. I couldn’t think about it anymore. Didn’t he realize? Couldn’t he tell? I shook my head. Max didn’t care. He pushed every limit I had, fed off of every pain inflicted on others and, for some reason, wished it on himself.
Including this one.
But he couldn’t protect me from this punishment. None of them could.
“Sarah!” Max’s order verged on threat. “What did he say?”
“It’s fine,” Nicholas said. “Sarah, you don’t have to think about it.”
Max’s voice darkened. “He might have told her anything.”
“He didn’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“We’d know.”
Nicholas’s voice had yet to melt back into the caramel steadiness. The calm was gone. A razor’s warning remained. I didn’t recognize it. His stillness wasn’t patience, it was…predatory. A rage-fueled awareness, a deadly trap set with no escape.
His hug shadowed me in a false peace. “Forget what you saw, Sarah. And what you heard. Consider it a nightmare.”
“A home movie.”
“What?”
“He called it a home movie. Said I di
dn’t have to go home to see my family.” My heart ached for my lost brothers. “I didn’t know how much I missed them until…”
“Holy fuck.” Reed collapsed in the chair by the window. He looked out, away from us. “Goddamned lunatic.”
I swallowed. “Reed…”
“Don’t.”
“But, I have to—”
“I said don’t.” He stretched his neck as best he could, wincing as the stitches tightened. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t. I could feel it—a tension that wasn’t there before. I hated whatever walls suddenly separated us, but I wouldn’t rest until I ripped them down and begged Reed to forgive me.
“I thought I’d return quicker.” The explanation was weak. “But after what you said…I wanted to get to my mom. I tried to get her away from Darius. I didn’t know—”
“Jesus, Sarah. What do you want from me?” Reed swallowed another pill. “I kept my mouth shut about where you went. I didn’t tell him a goddamned thing you didn’t just fucking shout right back at him. But you got what you were after. You had your vengeance. It’s done. What happened, happened.”
“I’m sorry.”
Reed sighed, meeting my gaze. He offered a simple smile. A momentary truce. I’d take it.
“I’m fine. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”
It wasn’t true. I didn’t feel safe. He didn’t seem fine.
For months I planned, schemed, and fought for a way to escape from the Bennetts, but none of my imagined scenarios hurt this badly.
I lost Reed. I was losing Max.
And Nicholas?
Our relationship balanced between secrets, lies, and a fragile trust that crumbled and rebuilt every passing day. Loving him was a constant fatigue but also a healing thrill. I wouldn’t let him slip away too.
The pizza bubbled in the oven. Max limped to the kitchen to shut off the timer and dropped an iPad in my lap.
“Here.”
I bit my lip. It was the first piece of technology with access to the internet they gave me in months. “What do I do with this?”
“Whatever you want,” Max said.
Nicholas sat too close, watched too intently. I didn’t trust my voice.
“Are you sure?”