by Lana Grayson
Max panted, sweated, and swore.
“What the fuck do we do?” He slammed his hands against the cement. “Reed, you out?”
Reed’s voice hollowed. “Does it fucking look like it?”
“You even trying?”
The restraints prevented Reed from lunging and ripping out Max’s throat. “You son of a bitch—”
“I was just fucking asking!”
“Who the fuck keeps this type of bondage shit in their house?”
I wiggled a finger, tucking it into my palm. The leather slipped.
“Thought you were interested, little brother? Thought you wanted to learn the rough stuff.”
Reed spat on the ground. “You didn’t get enough of that shit tonight? Should we call Dad back? Make me hold her down for you again—”
“Jesus Christ, what the hell do you want? Think I knew what he was planning? Think one day I figured I should buy some restraints in case Dad bound us to the balcony after forcing us to rape our fucking sister?”
Reed jerked his arms. “Never should have done it.”
“You did.”
“Fuck you.”
Max swore. “Nothing we can do about it now, can we? Jesus, we knew it would end like this. Every goddamned day we held a knife to her throat. Now you’re upset when it slips?”
The leather yielded. I tugged against the twisted straps. Blood seeped over my fingers. It only aided my escape.
“We hurt her,” Reed said.
Max frowned. “At least she’s still alive.”
“Yeah, but who knows how badly that will fuck with her.”
“She’s still breathing.”
“We hurt her.”
“Holy Christ, she still has it better than the other Atwoods, doesn’t she?” Max thrashed a final time, popping his shoulder and bracing the wrong leg to force his freedom. “At least she’s alive to try to fight him off.”
The guilt added another layer of weight to the bindings. I leaned forward, straining as my wrist ground against the cuffs. My jaw clenched, and, with a scraping of my flesh, the leather released me. I shook off the ache and tended to my other wrist. Reed whooped in excitement.
“I’ve almost got it,” he said. “Get my left hand.”
I was free.
My mind abandoned all coherent thought, and my every imagined vision tainted with blood and retribution. Rage and insanity and numbing fear nearly cast me from my brothers in desperate chase to find my father before he hurt Sarah or decided she wasn’t worth the risk to the company.
But selfish vengeance led only to mistakes.
Sarah learned that first-hand.
I gritted my teeth and aimed for Reed, ripping through the binding on his bruised and swollen wrists. He bolted from the railing and helped tear the leather from Max.
But Max stilled. He stared at me.
“We have to tell her.”
“Save the confessions.” I pulled the restraint from his hands and pitched it across the balcony. “She needs our help, not our burdens.”
“It’ll be your burden too. If you still think you can save her from Dad and get her away from all of this, you’ll have to tell her.”
“I won’t.”
“How can you say you love her?”
I grabbed his shirt, hauling him to his feet only to slam him against the sliding glass door. The pane trembled, and the splintered glass from the bullet cracked behind his back.
“Because I love her. I’m sparing her that pain.”
“Bullshit. You’re afraid to lose her.”
Yes.
More than afraid.
Terrified.
Max baited me with a truth that would destroy Sarah Atwood in complete and total betrayal.
“When are you going to tell her that we killed her brothers?” Max growled.
My voice hardened. “We?”
“You son of a bitch. You’re just as responsible as me.”
“Am I?”
Max pushed away. “Dad didn’t tell me what I was doing or whose plane it was. He said it was important to the family, that I was the only one he trusted to do it.” His breathing cracked with what might have been a sob. But Max never allowed anything beyond darkness into his thoughts. “I wanted to prove myself to him. I didn’t question it. I just…did it.”
Reed pulled me back, letting Max free. “Sarah can’t know. It’ll kill her. You saw her after his home movies. She loved her brothers. You tell her, and God only knows what she’ll do.”
That was easy to imagine.
“She’ll destroy the Bennett Corporation.” And me.
“That’s if she doesn’t decide to do that after tonight,” Reed said.
Max slammed against the door, locked from the inside. He hit the glass with his bare hand, punching where the webbing cracks slipped from the bullet hole. We didn’t have time to waste.
My kick aimed for a stretching crack. It shattered the door and scattered the glass.
“Let’s hope she survives the night,” Max said. “What’s your plan?”
I checked the time on my phone. No calls, no texts, but I hadn’t expected my father to contact me.
Not if he had more important things occupying his time.
“We’re going after them.” I zipped the leather jacket. “And we bring Sarah back by any means necessary.”
Max frowned. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
“What if it gets bloody?”
I didn’t expect the word to ever cross my lips, let alone taste as delicious as the coppery tang.
“Good.”
Max nodded. He pulled a key from his pocket and led us to his gun cabinet. He handed me a .45 and ammunition. He dropped a second into Reed’s palm. He stilled.
“Will you be able to pull a trigger?” Max stared at us. “Dad left this type of bullshit to me in the past. Doubt either of you ever got your hands dirty.”
It was the truth. My father ordered a distinct segregation for his sons, a set role each of us fulfilled. And, like mindless little minions, we eagerly met his every expectation.
Not anymore.
My father raised Nicholas Bennett as his protégé, a groomed mimicry that served only as an extension of his greed and black ambition. With every swipe of the crop and every rigorous anticipation of behavior and skill, I learned.
I was Darius Bennett’s heir, but I wouldn’t become my father.
I’d become his complete and total opposition.
But my courage built at the expense of the blood, virtue, and pride of an innocent woman. It would be the last time Sarah Atwood saved me from myself.
I tucked the gun in my jacket. Reed did the same. Max nodded.
My brothers followed as I stormed from the penthouse.
“Head to the estate. Split up when we arrive. Don’t hesitate to shoot.” I hated thinking it. “He won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Or me.
With Sarah under his control, my father didn’t have a need for us. If he raped and impregnated her, his heir would not only assume power over the Bennett Corporation, but he would own rights to Atwood Industries as well.
And that lusted power lured my father into a state of obsession so dangerous even if Sarah had revealed her secret—even if she tried to wield her infertility as a way to prevent his violence—he wouldn’t have cared. He’d have taken his chance and tried anyway.
Because that’s exactly the chance I took. The outcome I demanded.
The greed and hunger in my blood was gifted from his. I understood him too well.
Which meant we didn’t have much time.
My motorcycle roared with every untested rage burning through me. I didn’t wait for either of my brothers. I jammed the throttle and tore from the parking garage. Reed followed close. Our bikes surged through downtown San Jose toward the Santa Cruz Mountains lurking in the distance.
The night cloaked us in speed, chasing the shuddering terror that coiled within my heart. I damned
my thoughts to images of pain—the same tortures we inflicted on a woman I supposedly loved.
At least it had been at my hand.
The excuse did nothing to sate my demand for blood or the guilty, horrid, hormonal release. I hated myself. I hated what I did. I hated how it felt. I hated how I felt. Sarah had endured the worst, and yet the disgust and shame which assaulted me shadowed my thoughts in grief.
I’d never look at myself in the mirror again.
Not without knowing what I did.
What he made me do to her.
How badly I betrayed her.
The city lights faded into the early morning curtain of solitude that blanketed the mountains. Dangerous roads during the day were made perilous at night, especially for bikers blinding themselves in evil to prevent the unthinkable from happening once more. Each mile tore at my heart and wore the bike, the throttle nearly ripped from the handlebars in my crushing grip.
She’d be okay.
Sarah spent every minute of every day fighting every insult against her.
She’d be okay.
But would I?
How much blood would spill to sate my wrath? My soul craved to inflict every pain she felt upon the man who demanded obedience over rationality and submission over humanity.
What would I find when I stormed the mansion?
Thirty minutes rent through me as though the gun had fired into my skull. We blasted into the estate, but I didn’t have to order them to move. The same animalistic instinct for blood surged through them.
I led them in a charge, each of us blasting through a locked entrance to our childhood home and sprinting through the halls, kicking in doors and launching up stairs.
Stillness greeted us.
I didn’t know if I wished to hear her screams. Silence meant he was either finished or…
Or she was dead.
Reed bounded along the foyer. “Not in the basement.”
Max shouted from upstairs. “Not in my side or Reed’s.”
Reed swore, running to check the study and parlors, shouting as the rooms remained empty and undisturbed.
I stalked my wing. My bed hadn’t been touched.
That left only one mess of sheets.
We met in the hall outside my father’s bedroom, guns drawn. My brothers waited for my nod.
The door shattered under my foot.
Darkness.
Empty.
Still.
They weren’t there.
“Son of a bitch.” Reed leaned down, cradling his head. “Where the fuck did he take her?”
My gun hadn’t fired. The relentless agony of unfulfilled revenge rampaged through me as if I had never breathed, as if my heart failed to pump my blood, as if I had kissed Sarah Atwood but was unable to speak the words I longed to say.
I’m sorry.
I’ll save you.
I’ll hide you.
I’ll never let him hurt you.
The words turned to graveyard dust in my mouth. They wouldn’t be unsaid for long.
I’d find a way to make my promises and protect the girl like she deserved to be protected.
I just had to think.
I had to imagine what a man like my father would do if presented with the opportunity to seize everything he ever wanted by punishing the one he hated most.
I didn’t have to guess.
My cell vibrated in my pocket, and I knew exactly who it’d be. I ripped it from my jacket and answered, the sinister rumble thick with enough rage to reveal my intent without a weapon in my hand or the scattered remnants of his door at my feet.
“Where is she?”
The trembled answer wasn’t a gateway to hell. The whisper echoed only of Heaven and light and invaded paradise.
“Nick.”
I clutched the phone. “Sarah? Are you okay? Where are you?”
“Daddy warns you not to follow.” The edge in her voice wasn’t meant for me, even if my cruelty deserved every last barbed threat within her words. “Or he said he’ll kill me before we have any fun.”
Fuck.
“Tell me where you are.”
“If I do that, he will kill me, and I’ve already had a rough enough night.”
“What does he want?”
Sarah didn’t answer, and the muffled exchange ended with her sharpened cough. “Daddy says to just be grateful you got to fuck me. He says even if you disgrace the Bennett name, at least the three of you got off one last time.”
Another cough. I recognized that sound. The wheeze ached in my own lungs.
“Sarah, are you okay?”
“No, but it’s asthma. I’ll be fine if I get my inhaler.” She hardened. “You couldn’t afford the liability if I drop dead here, and I doubt Daddy wants to lose me when you might have bred me like a good little whore.”
Sarah’s voice shaded with wild, breathless rage, but she was smart enough to drop a hint even coiled in sickening threat. I stared at my brothers.
“I’m coming for you.”
“Nick, don’t. If you do, you’ll all die. Just stay away.” The sorrow in her words would end me. “He says he has no sons.”
The call dropped.
My blood laced with a perverted confidence.
He had no sons?
That wasn’t true.
It wasn’t true at all.
If only because I finally saw the truth. I understood, for once in my life, exactly what it meant to be a Bennett.
The gun disgusted me.
The metal hadn’t fired, and yet it burned my flesh.
Since when did I rely on violence to achieve my means? Blood and pain and rape? It was barbarism, not the composed dominance of the world I crushed within my hand and used to further my own ends.
And he knew it.
All this time, all the lessons, all the moments where I wielded contracts as if wealth were every bullet I needed—he wasn’t training me to be like him.
He made me better at being myself.
Teaching me to become a proper Bennett.
I wasted my life pulling away from his shadow and reinventing myself as a man who didn’t rely on deceit and corruption to manage my empire and grow my power.
I was a fool.
I wasn’t meant to oppose Darius Bennett.
The only way to stop him, the only way to ensure his reign ended and our lives were saved and Sarah’s life was spared was to embrace what had always been, what was always meant to be, and what I had already learned to do.
Innocent blood spoiled when used for revenge.
And so I wouldn’t be innocent. I wouldn’t struggle against the forces my father created.
To save Sarah Atwood, I had to become the leader he wished, even if that meant becoming the man I swore I’d forever reject.
“Is he going to hurt her?” Reed asked, the words as dark as the images swirling in my head.
“No.” Confidence returned. I understood now. “He wants her heir. The fertility drugs take a few hours to work. He’ll try later, when he thinks he has the best chance.”
“What the hell do we do?”
“We do what we should have done long ago.” I studied my brothers, no longer disgusted by my actions but strengthened by the clarity such violence offered. “We rescue her.”
“How?”
“I know where she is.”
Reed frowned. “But she couldn’t tell us.”
“She didn’t have to. She said we couldn’t afford the liability if she had an attack where she was.” I handed Max my gun and unzipped the leather jacket, returning to my room to pick a suit before the sun rose and my work day began. “He’s holding her at the Bennett Corporation. That’s the safest place for her and the worst place for me. He knows we won’t start a firefight in our headquarters.” I paused. “Fortunately, I don’t have to.”
Max followed closely, holstering his gun to his side. “Why?”
“Because I don’t plan on killing our father.”
�
�Why the fuck not?”
“Because that’s what he expects. I don’t have to touch him. I’ll ruin him from the inside.”
“How?” Max blocked my path. “How the hell do you think you’re going to save your ass and hers?”
“If we want to survive, we will submit to Sarah Atwood.” I met my brother’s challenge and promised nothing but victory. “I’m surrendering my control of the Bennett Corporation.”
Darius Bennett would have preferred to chain me to the conference table. He waited for me to serve him on my knees like a proper whore.
It would happen.
I knew it. I felt it.
My skin bruised and broke at the hands of my step-brothers, but it wouldn’t be enough for him.
“Twenty-four to thirty-six hours,” he had whispered, eagerly. He savored the thought of taking, hurting, claiming. “The doctor said that’s when the drug is…most effective.”
I hadn’t counted the hours, but when dawn broke, my time slipped away. Darius wouldn’t wait a full day before ruining me. He hid in the Bennett Corporation headquarters like a coward. I’d be safe until the moment he decided running from his son wasn’t as enjoyable as raping his step-daughter.
He forced me into an executive chair poised at the carved redwood table. My lungs ached. It was a trap. He lured me into the very core of the Bennett Corporation, where my family had attempted to strike for generations.
I had the stake to drive through its heart.
But Darius had the needle, gun, and motivation to destroy me.
It wasn’t a stalemate. His restraint was a miracle.
Darius hadn’t touched me. Hadn’t beaten me. Hadn’t hurt me.
Instead, he forced his sons to do it for him.
My step-brothers.
My friends.
My lovers.
The men I trusted, and the ones I left stranded and devastated on the balcony.
I survived the ordeal, but I wasn’t sure they did.
My step-brothers couldn’t look at me. They didn’t speak. They didn’t even see the piece of sharpened glass I kicked toward Reed’s hand, something they might have used to slice through the bindings Darius forced me to tie.
I was the one raped. They were the ones broken. My heart didn’t just shatter—it burned to ash and flaked away. Reed’s whispered apologies. Max’s collapse.
And Nicholas?