by Lana Grayson
I ached for the words I spoke to him and the bruises he left on my hips. The gold in his eyes faded completely, lost and flared into a hardness I didn’t recognize. A hatred. He embraced violence and breathed only vengeance.
He did his part with a ruthlessness I remembered only once before.
Darius possessed the same brutality.
I refused to let it scare me.
Darius might have led me around his office in a leash or simply hauled me over his desk to finish what he started weeks ago.
Once it was done, once the tortures were over and the lecherous monsters waited for a Bennett that would never be born, I’d sit at the head of their table, steal their fortunes, and hold the fate of the company in my curling fist. If I so chose, I’d dismantle the entire goddamned empire and let it drown in the poisons it manufactured.
No more corporation.
No more Bennetts.
No more pain.
And Darius would be left cowering with nothing as I stole his fortune, sons, and pride with a flick of a pen over the corporate ledger.
But, that would also punish Nicholas.
His company would be mine. His stock, mine. His empire, mine.
He expected me to return it to him, but he never believed it would truly happen.
Nicholas Bennett was far wiser than me. He understood the complications from the beginning. It wasn’t hatred or vengeance that would betray him, but business—the only language the Bennetts spoke and the scripture they worshiped.
Nicholas would understand.
He had to understand.
I couldn’t surrender now, and I couldn’t protect his interests.
That trust was the only strength that remained.
Darius settled in the chair beside me. With a gentle hand that promised only cruelty, he brushed a lock of hair behind my ear.
I hadn’t the time to wash the tears from my face or cleanse the ordeal from my body. He didn’t care. He forced a school-girl pink sundress over my shame, slipped the delicate sandals on my feet, and kissed my forehead in every fatherly manner I came to fear more than the strike of his hand.
He wanted me presentable for the meeting.
I wondered how long it would take for me to soak the dress in his blood.
“Cheer up, my dear.” He patted my hand. “We’ll be done quickly, then we’re off to make a baby.”
I thought I’d eventually get used to his intentions.
I didn’t.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said.
“You don’t have a choice.”
“You aren’t pointing a gun at your sons anymore. What makes you think I’ll listen?”
It’d have sounded stronger without the gasp, wheeze, and cough imbedded in my words.
Darius wasn’t concerned. He spoke as though he judged the courage in my blood.
Very little remained.
“I never needed to threaten my sons. You’re an Atwood, and the only thing an Atwood lives for is their own selfish interests.”
“And revenge.”
“Revenge won’t taste as sweet as you, Sarah.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“No,” he said. “You won’t have any.”
I shuddered in furious silence as the first of the Bennett Board of Directors entered.
Bryant was a sleaze bag and far more dangerous than I originally believed. He shook Darius’s hand and sat opposite me at the table, entirely too interested in the waistline of my dress, as though he expected me to waddle into the room and visibly swell with a child.
“Awfully early to celebrate, Darius,” he warned.
“Say what you will about the family, but the Atwoods do grow a reliable product.”
“Think it’ll stick?”
Darius smiled. “I’d bet the company on it.”
I said nothing. Though no music, laughter, or scream would have sounded more beautiful than the secret I longed to reveal, my infertility was the only bullet in a gun I forgot to load. I already acted recklessly enough. If I wanted to survive, I had to think like Nicholas. I had to be patient. Practical.
I couldn’t let them frighten me.
Five investors total joined the table, but the Bennetts had ten on their board. At least, a board in name only, until the amendment passed and my presence would rival the majority Darius commanded. I stayed still, though the asthma clouded my head and closed my throat. I wouldn’t let it beat me. Not now. Not while Darius welcomed his partners to the exhibition of my living hell.
I remained silent.
They preferred that.
Bryant surveyed me, his gaze focused purely on profit. I didn’t dare to guess where the others looked. Every part of me had already been more exposed and hurt than anything I suffered in my nightmares, and it wouldn’t end with a board meeting.
I was nothing to them.
Not a woman. Hardly an Atwood. They didn’t view me as a rival, only a body to fill and a slave who had yet to perform her only immediate function.
Darius didn’t see it, but I felt it.
The resentment. The anxiety.
Three months into my captivity, and they hadn’t seen their results. Time passed, and every second that left me barren put the pressure on their wallets.
They wanted the child as badly as the Bennetts, but the investors didn’t have the patience of even my step-father. The safety of the company outweighed a family’s revenge. Darius meant to breed me for more than the corporation’s benefit—with my body’s surrender, he’d steal my pride, my potential, and my future.
I clenched my teeth. He didn’t realize the danger in his selfishness.
His board spent the last years watching as profits trickled and quarterly reports were gamed with layoffs and restructuring, all courtesy of the man they now depended on to secure their ultimate plan. They trusted him to seed me with an heir, and the months lost to nature’s refusal damned their chances.
Every business weighted risk against venture.
I was, most assuredly, their greatest capital risk.
“Were the drugs administered?” Bryant didn’t even wait for the coffee to brew before asking the important questions. “Was she bedded?”
“Oh, yes.” Darius took my hand, pressing my fingers to his lips. “I should say so.”
I jerked, but he didn’t release my palm. The betraying flush amused the board. Six men circled me, their chuckles exposing the tatters of my decimated pride.
“All three of them?” Bryant asked.
Darius’s voice slithered over my skin. “Go on, Sarah. Don’t be modest. You have a controlling interest in this company. The least you can do is answer your fellow board members.”
He’d regret this.
All of this.
I braved their stares. “I don’t have a controlling interest. I am the controlling interest. Remember it. One day, I’ll have Darius’s seat, and then I’ll ask each of you how it feels to get fucked.”
Again, they laughed, as if they had nothing to fear from my threat or they thought I’d never carry through with it.
They made a terrible mistake. I longed for the moment to prove how dangerous it was to cross me.
“We’re all friends here, Ms. Atwood.” Peter Hannigan, the man who turned on Nicholas only to leer at the woman he loved, motioned for a time out. “No need for such hostility.”
“Yes, Ms. Atwood, you are acting so…hormonal.” Bryant laughed. “You understand your responsibilities now, I take it? Permit an old man’s curiosity and please, relieve the board’s concerns. You were to be fucked by all three of your brothers. Were our orders satisfied?”
Peter chuckled. “Hopefully, her brothers were.”
How dare they.
How dare they ask such terrible questions.
My night shattered into visions of hell—moments of forsaken violence at the hands of men I trusted, friends I loved, and a man I needed. Darius meant to destroy me with their relentless thrusts an
d murmured apologies and the punishment for our disobedience.
I’d struggled to imagine myself anywhere else.
I’d fought against my every fear if only to make it easier on them.
I didn’t let myself hurt.
Before, I had submitted to Nicholas, Max, and Reed because it was something sensual, new, and terribly forbidden. I thought it’d bring no consequence but pleasure.
Until now.
Until him.
Until the board feared for their fortunes. I confronted the vile nature of fearful men, terrified of losing their power and tempted with greed to acquire more.
Darius forced an innocent woman to lose her virginity, pride, and all control over her body just to add a few more blood-soaked dollars to a fortune already sickeningly untouchable.
I wasn’t answering any of their damn questions.
“Why don’t you ask my father?” I spat. “He was there. Holding the gun.”
Darius sighed and gave a helpless shrug. “Little girls, what can you do? They never do as they’re told, and, when you get hard on them, they crumple.”
The board murmured their agreement.
“Too rough?” Bryant asked with dark amusement.
Darius shook his head. “She overreacted. Started crying in the middle of it all. Nick had to stick his cock in her mouth to stop her sobbing while Reed did his part.”
I launched from the table.
Darius trapped me before I could run. He forced me into the chair with a grip that might have wrenched my bones from the socket, but his insult hurt me more. He chided me for the memory and cursed as a wheeze shortened the last easy breath of air I took. I gasped, shallow and worthless. It aggravated him.
He shoved a bottle of water into my hands. “Even now, she’s a little prima donna, refusing to believe her cunt wasn’t made to be bred. I had no idea she’d be this difficult of a whore.”
The eldest man, Stanley, frowned. “Regardless of her…efforts, the board has only one concern. Did she or didn’t she conceive?”
“Oh, it’s much too early to tell,” Darius said.
“Unfortunate.”
“That’s the way of nature, Stanley. However, she was aided by the fertility drugs and seeded by three men. She will bear a Bennett.” He smiled “Her body simply does not have a choice.”
“No,” Stanley said. “But we do.”
Darius silenced. So did my coughing.
A surge of hope sliced through the tightening of my chest, a burst of warmth and radiant sanity I hadn’t dared to imagine.
They’d let me go.
God, they’d let me go!
Maybe they understood? Not the cruelty, these men were beyond empathy for others, but they saw the business, the empire, the wealth all crushing within my grip.
They’d release me because they knew I’d seize control.
They cared only for the money, not the feud. If it no longer benefited them, I’d be released.
And, if I could escape from Darius Bennett, I’d be free.
Stanley couldn’t intertwine his arthritic fingers, and so he held his palms instead. He leaned over the table, his lips loose and words slurred over saliva.
“This plan has always been…distasteful, to say the very least.”
Darius brushed a finger over my cheek. “True. But you know my daughter was only taken into my home because of these desperate times. This plan was a circumstance of last resort, created by Mark Atwood’s refusal to leave his empire to Sarah.”
“She’s been raped.”
Darius grew impatient. He sneered at me.
“I assure you, my sons were kinder than she deserved.”
Stanley wasn’t moved. “Darius, you realize the staggering amount of money riding on this one conception is...well, quite frankly, it is a risk I was unable to justify without your assurances.”
“I understand.” Darius spoke of me as though I wasn’t sitting beside him. “I had hoped her time spent within my family would be easy. I was lenient. No bindings to the bed or terrible injuries. At least, not yet. But anything can happen. Should the board worry for her behavior, I could break both of her legs and leave her bed-ridden.”
Bryant chuckled. “Or ridden in bed.”
I shuddered. I had no reason to doubt Darius. He’d hurt me in every way he possibly could—mentally, physically, emotionally—and then he’d rut whatever remained to ensure I never recovered.
Worse, he wouldn’t be the one to issue the pain, not now that his own flesh and blood turned on him. He’d make them do it, and, like the fool I was, I’d sacrifice myself again and again to protect my step-brothers.
Stanley grumbled, cursing at Bryant. “The point is, all this funny business is for nothing if the girl doesn’t conceive.”
“She will.”
“When my daughter married, she tried for three years, not three months.”
The board quieted. I didn’t react.
“The girl is young, of course,” Stanley said. “And with the fertility treatments and the…amount of intercourse she’s subjected to, I’m sure her chances are substantially improved; however, the time has come to ask…what if it isn’t enough?”
Darius’s patience wore thin, his plastic smile an invitation to continue. “What’s your concern, friend?”
“I move to end this experiment.”
“And do what instead?”
Stanley hesitated only to nod in my direction. “We should kill the girl.”
My lungs crumbled, and the sudden fear shot pain through my chest as though I breathed pure smoke. Darius gripped my arm and prevented me from fleeing.
“She might be pregnant already,” Darius insisted. “It’s too early to make such rash decisions, especially as this particular drug induces ovulation. She should be taken regularly, beginning today.”
“And your sons would do this?” Stanley’s eyebrow rose. “Where is Nicholas?”
Darius didn’t blink. “Exhausted from his night, of course. He is not the only Bennett available to take responsibility for this family.”
No, he wasn’t.
Darius would be more than willing to restrain, hurt, and breed me, especially now. Especially as my step-brothers stormed the estate with guns drawn prepared for murder.
Darius had watched, of course, tapped into the estate’s security cameras. He forced me to make the call, to taunt his sons, to speak with the man who broke me well after I surrendered to him.
Clyde, the only yet-silent board member, checked the time on his cell phone. “Darius, I’m inclined to agree with Stan. You must admit, controlling Ms. Atwood is not only an exhausting procedure, the legal ramifications of this arrangement are dire. Your sons couldn’t even control her at the charity gala.”
“That damned Wescott,” Stanley said. “Who knows what she said to him.”
Darius’s attention was a brand of fire and the threat of utter incineration. He steeled his voice, but I recognized the hatred clenched within his fangs. “Well, my dear? Ease our fears. What did you discuss with Mr. Wescott?”
I’d regret saying it, but either the asthma or intentions of the board would steal my final breath. I had nothing to fear except Darius Bennett, and even he could hurt me no more than what he forced his sons to do.
“We discussed how best to raze the Bennett Corporation headquarters to the ground.”
Stanley sighed. “She’s her father. It’s as if he’s been reincarnated.”
Darius crushed my hand. Fortunately, my cry silenced within the gasping cough. They didn’t hear my pain.
But I heard the crack of bone.
“As I said, she is difficult.” Darius rolled my fingers, grinding the knuckles over the fracture that pierced me with tears. “Nothing a good strap and some time at home won’t fix. After all, who hasn’t had to discipline a misbehaving daughter?”
Stanley shook his head. “I call for a vote. I’m sorry, Darius, but every moment she’s without child is another moment close
r to the release of the trust. She is a liability and threat to this corporation. She must be handled quickly.”
A vote.
They would vote on my life. Not just on my treatment or torment or the decisions I wasn’t permitted to make about my body and the men I had no choice to obey.
They voted on my life—my last right, stolen by men more concerned with money than the evils they perpetrated.
I was glad I couldn’t breathe. Glad my asthma stole my voice and robbed me of any chance I might have used to humiliate myself in running or hiding.
I’d look into the eyes of the men who damned me into a world of violence, and they’d stare back as they judged my life as either too important or too worthless to risk impeding their plans.
Darius glowered, his voice a rumbling growl.
At home, he expressed himself in damning brutality and blood.
Here?
This was another world, one he chose to hide in to avoid the retribution of the sons he betrayed.
And yet, the headquarters wasn’t safe for him either.
“You will not kill my daughter,” he said.
“Oh, please, Darius.” Stanley groaned. “Do you actually care for the girl or are you simply waiting for your own opportunity to bed the child and create an heir?”
“I am protecting my investment.” Darius strengthened his words. “She has the fertility treatments. She’s been fucked and properly seeded, I saw to it. I admit, ridding ourselves of the problem is an easier solution, but I will not allow us to squander this opportunity. The child she bears will be worth billions.”
“If she conceives, if she carries to term, if if if,” Stanley warned.
Bryant frowned. “What will ease your concerns, Stan? Darius can fuck her here on the table then. Would that convince you she’s been impregnated?”
Stanley waved a disgusted hand. “Heavens, no, but the very fact that we are yet discussing her future conception is reason to worry. If she were already with child, we’d be celebrating. She is not, and so we must vote to preserve our hold on this billion dollar investment, our present holdings, not the potential benefit for the future.”
Short-sighted bastards. I clutched my broken hand, forcing shallow breaths.
Stanley looked over the table.
“All in favor?” He asked. “Aye.”
Clyde didn’t look at me. “Aye.”