by Lana Grayson
“I’ve spoken my piece before,” my father said. “Sarah Atwood is not to be killed. I’ve grown fond of my daughter, even if she is difficult to break. She lives, and we accept her offer.”
“Darius, she owns a significant portion of this company,” Bryant said.
“And I wish to see what she would do with it.” He leered at the screen once more. “She’s been missing for two months. That is a long time for a young girl to be alone with her nightmares. Perhaps she’s had a change of heart.”
Despite my revulsion, I seldom had cause to vote against my father. In this case, I eagerly sided with him, sparing Sarah’s life yet again.
“You’re making a mistake.” Bryant kicked his chair as he stood. “Your bitch will destroy us.”
He merely smiled. “Not if I destroy her first. It’s a family matter, Bryant. I’ll handle my little girl the best way a father can.”
The rest of the board seized the opportunity to escape from the talk of murder and money. They planned to reconvene for their weekly golf game that afternoon.
I stood once we were alone, save for my father’s bodyguards looming between us.
“Where is she, Nicholas?” he asked. “Our little Sarah wouldn’t do this without your help.”
He had learned nothing about Sarah Atwood during her captivity beyond what color panties she wore and when her cycle was due. Had he paid the least bit of attention, had he respected the Atwood instead of obsessing over the crest between her legs, he’d know.
Sarah was exactly the type to seize her revenge without help.
“She’s come back to you then?” he chuckled. “Right when she presents the Bennett Board of Directors with a proposal to make herself richer from the investments she stole. What did she tell you? That she loved you? That she needed you?”
I wished she had.
“What will you do for her?” he said.
“Anything she asks.”
“I taught you better than that, son.”
“And it’s taken months to unlearn it.”
He folded his palms. I recognized his intimidating stillness. I wish I hadn’t inherited it. “I respect you, Nicholas. I always have. You are the best of both me and your mother. I never doubted the man you’d become.”
“You gave me no choice. You molded me after yourself.”
“No. Not quite. You never accepted everything I taught. Max…” He nodded. “Max might have been worth my time, if he hadn’t ruined that leg.”
As if the injury from the crash was his fault. “Max would never have done your bidding. Not like me. I tried for years to impress you.”
“Max lived to impress me. Every minute of every day, but I had no use for a crippled son, just as I had no need for an emotionally weak child like Reed. Your mother babied him. I should have put a stop to it, but Helena always insisted Reed was special.”
“Why?”
“Because he was the least like me.” My father paused. “Did you know your mother feared you?”
He said it to force a reaction from me. He’d get none. “Is that so?”
“Max was impressionable and desperate for attention. Reed was too kind-hearted. But you? She recognized that spark in you that I see every day.” He studied me as if acknowledging my maturity for the first time. “You did as I asked, capturing Sarah Atwood. You bedded her despite your reservations. You insisted your brothers seed her as well. But I saw it, son. That lust. The need. The drive to be the man who finally broke her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You wanted her child as badly as I did, and you still do. That’s why you stormed my office. That’s why you’ve plotted to kill me.” He grinned. “You realize the only chance you have at finally conquering Sarah Atwood is if I’m dead. You don’t want me to breed her first.”
I fought the urge to lunge for his throat, but returning to Sarah bleeding and broken wouldn’t convince her that she was safe by my side.
“You are as cruel as I am. Don’t pretend it’s love or compassion that hardens your cock. You’re my son. You inherited my instincts.” His voice grated my conscience, scouring every defense that separated his evils from mine.
“I never hurt her.”
“Didn’t you? Even when Sarah told you no? Don’t lie, Nicholas. The first time, when you bound her to the bed and stole her virginity, she said no. And despite how she might have wetted for you, the fact remains you couldn’t help yourself. You saw a woman, fertile and helpless, and you drove into her with the same ruthless desire that makes me the monster you say I am.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“I’m just more honest than you. You rutted that girl. Even if she had fought you through an asthma attack as you suffocated her with a pillow, even if she had clawed so hard against your chest she ripped a nail, even if she offered you everything to her name to let her go, you would have fucked her. Her refusal would have excited you as much as if she willingly spread those pretty pink petals.”
“Stop.”
“I’m sure she told you that too.” My father rarely smiled with genuine amusement. My discomfort delighted him, his own private joke. “Nicholas, you and I are men who understand true dominance. That girl might have convinced herself she loved you, but we both know the truth.”
“What truth?”
“You didn’t give her a choice in any of this. You told her she’d love you. You told her she’d submit to you. You told her you would fuck her and try to breed her and take her even if she didn’t want it. And what was her response?”
She ran from me. She escaped when she could and returned only as a last resort.
She left because she saw in me the same monster she hated in my father.
“Don’t let her go this time, son,” he said. “She needs only another mounting and she’ll crumble for you, permanently. She’s just as fragile now as she was that first day I stripped her and offered her as the ultimate gift to my loyal sons.”
“She was no gift.”
“Yes, she was. It brings me joy to spoil my children, even my daughter.” He patted my shoulder only to elbow my tender, broken ribs. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
“I know.”
“You don’t, but I’m sure you’ll understand eventually. Tell Sarah that her Daddy misses her.” His threat riddled with insincere warmth. “And I’ll be visiting her again very, very soon.”
Reed tapped a page in the baby book. “Hey, Sarah. Did you know—right now—your uterus is the size of a grapefruit?”
I burst into tears.
“Nice job.” Max ate his spaghetti but passed me the box of tissues. I grabbed one, but the last tissue pulled out too. I couldn’t reach it before it floated to the floor.
Wasting that tissue was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
The tears kept coming.
“Whoa.” Reed stuck a knife in his book to mark his place. “Chapter four warned about the mood swings. Probably should have been in chapter one.”
He picked up the tissue and knelt beside my chair. The kitchen table was stocked with every variety of fruit, vegetable, ice cream, and pasta dish, but between the incessant crying and nausea, nothing set right with me except that box of tissues, and now they were gone, and I was pretty sure I went insane sometime in the last week.
“Sorry, Sarah.” Reed rubbed my arm. “Your uterus is lovely.”
He brushed lower, massaging my elbow before drifting to take my palm. He didn’t reach it. His hand circled my wrist.
Then I did remember the worst thing to happen to me.
And the disgust and shame disguised itself as morning sickness. I bolted to the bathroom.
Max called after me. “There’s another box of tissues under the sink.”
Great.
Just what I needed.
I made it two months without breaking down. Two months of strength, courage, and the mental fortitude to survive an attack from that monster.
/> And I cried over a box of tissues.
Also because I wanted scrambled eggs, but the color, smell, taste, texture, and birthing process of eggs now nauseated me.
I wept over the sun rise in the morning, and then again later while thinking about the sunrise that morning. I freaked out when Reed offered me his spot on the couch when all I wanted to do was pout while standing because I couldn’t decide if I had to use the bathroom or if I needed a nap.
And at night, I muffled my sobs in the pillow because Nicholas respected my wishes and hadn’t returned to my bedroom since the day I first arrived.
That wasn’t hormones. That was legitimate heartbreak.
I didn’t want him with me. I couldn’t imagine spending another night without him.
It was a mistake to return, but after another asthma attack landed my butt on the couch with my step-brothers hovering with medicines, water, and Lamaze breathing instructions courtesy of Reed’s damn baby book, I made the right decision. For the moment, this was my safest place.
I finally had a full-night’s sleep, but, when I woke, I was more alone than when I was running hotel to hotel.
It had to be Nicholas’s baby.
So why was I fighting him?
I didn’t bother returning to the kitchen. Reed built his house with junk food —prepackaged meals and snacks and everything easy to toss into a bag before heading to the beach. None of it looked or smelled good. It was best to avoid food.
I snuck back to my room. Why did a baby the size of a walnut make me so damn tired? I hadn’t read beyond my current What To Expect From Week Eleven part of the baby book, but I hoped once the kid started to look more human and less tadpole it’d stop draining my energy.
I’d need it.
Especially tonight.
At least I wasn’t showing, even with my grapefruit uterus. I double-checked the little black cocktail dress to ensure it hid every secret.
The baby wasn’t visible, but the rest of Sarah Atwood sure was. I gaped at the mirror as Nicholas knocked against the door frame.
He noticed too.
“I need a shawl.” I turned to the side. My chest busted out of the neckline. We were beyond full or perky. “This looks a little vulgar.”
“Wow.” Nicholas cleared his throat. “You look beautiful.”
I wasn’t prepared for his compliments, and I flinched at his touch. I twisted away before his fingers brushed my arms. The rush of adrenaline only aggravated me.
The memories would stop drowning me at some point.
Right?
It had to end. I’d let myself bawl over a tissue, but I couldn’t reveal what happened. It was done, and I’d deal with it the way we should have months ago.
By punishing the one responsible.
Nicholas dressed in a designer suit, tailor cut to his frame of muscle, strength, and confidence. He held himself with the utmost poise, smiled with an endless reserve of patience, and behaved as a perfect gentleman despite the parts of me that plumped in a suddenly-sexy dress. He offered me two gifts from his jacket pocket.
A small bag of ginger candy for my nausea and a personal pack of tissues.
“We’ll leave shortly,” Nicholas said. “But we’re only staying at the art gallery for a few minutes.”
I timidly sucked on a candy. Ginger wasn’t my favorite, but it did soothe my roiling stomach.
“We have to be there for the unveiling.” I held Nicholas’s gaze. The amber sharpness was the only feature he didn’t inherit from Darius. “The artist was best friends with Josiah and Mike. They commissioned the painting right before the accident. I never imagined Atlas would finish it, not after…”
“I understand.”
Of course he did, and that made it worse. I couldn’t think of my brothers without imagining the terrible video footage Darius forced me to watch. I’d rather a hundred nights of what he did over witnessing another second of their deaths.
I hid in a shawl as best I could. It didn’t work. Reed hooted the instant I rounded the corner. I squirmed under the attention, but pretended he flattered me. Neither Reed nor Max wore jackets, but they rocked the slacks and vests, clinging perfectly to Max’s bulging muscles and Reed’s leaner build. We burst back into the public eye in style, which is what I wanted. A unified front.
We took a private plane to Cherrywood Valley, and a limo delivered us past the acres of my cornfields. My step-brothers offered as many tissues as I needed, but I would never weep over my farm, not when it was still undeniably in my possession.
The limo pulled to the curb outside the retro-styled, remodeled factory-turned-art gallery. The artist in question, the famed Atlas Chase, preferred his art displayed in a…more rustic neighborhood. I doubted the warehouse workers or the bikers in the nefarious bar, Pixie, cared for his modern art. But Atlas never feared the darker parts of society.
He once told me if it could be painted, it had value. Even a shadow, a splash of blood, a bruise…
A grave had the most value of all.
He had designed Josiah and Mike’s headstones.
Nicholas offered his hand to emerge from the limo, but I couldn’t. I needed a moment. A second. A minute. It was the first time I’d appear in public since the attack, and if the simmering agoraphobia wasn’t bad enough, now my thoughts rolled with memories of my brothers.
They gave me all the time I needed.
“—Josiah and Mike tell me to watch in case Dad comes home. And I’m four, I have no idea what they’re doing in his liquor cabinet.” I abandoned my dinner to tell the story. My step-brothers continued to eat. “They grab his Macallan bottle and poured it into a half empty two-liter of Dr. Pepper.”
“Classy,” Reed said.
“I know, right? But then they start fighting, and they didn’t watch me. I liked soda, but Mom never let me have any. Said it’d rot my brain.” The irony was not lost on me. “I start chugging this bottle not realizing what’s in it. Mike catches me, but it’s too late. I am now a drunk, four-year old asthmatic, wobbling around the house just before my family hosted Senator Ruby for dinner.” I hummed. “Don’t remember much else, but it was the only time I’ve been drunk. Dad was m-a-d.”
Dad was always mad, but the memory warmed me. I pushed the mashed potatoes around my plate and admitted what wasn’t really a secret.
“I miss my brothers.”
Nicholas nodded. Max left the table without a word.
“You guys never got into trouble like that?” I asked.
Reed exhaled. “We had that dangerous streak beaten out of us. We wouldn’t have gotten a little sister drunk.” He elbowed me. “Apparently, we fuck our sisters instead.”
“Fantastic.”
An aggravated shout insulted the Bennetts.
I groaned as the dark-haired troublemaker in black wagged a finger at the limo. Atlas wasn’t as large as Max, but he was more agile than Reed, and his confidence erupted from raw talent instead of Nicholas’s accumulated power. Every part of him appeared chiseled under the most talented artist’s hand—which was probably his. He was as handsome now as I remembered him when I was little.
“Oh, no.” Atlas spoke through a grin, but his words might have crumbled the gallery into dust. “Private party, gentlemen. You aren’t invited here.”
Nicholas offered to shake his hand. Atlas slapped it away.
“I don’t want any Bennett slime dripping over my art.”
Max snorted. “Out of our fucking way, Picasso.”
“Not a chance. You aren’t welcome here.”
Oh, Christ. Another Atwood/Bennett turf war in the middle of the street. Not the best publicity as more limos pulled along the curb. I slipped from the backseat before I could untangle my shawl, but I prevented Max from planting his good leg and earning a misdemeanor.
“Atlas, they’re with me.”
He didn’t recognize me at first, at least, not surrounded by Bennetts.
His jaw dropped. “Sprout?”
Max
swore as Atlas swung me in his arms for a hug—exactly the type he used to give me when I was still pint-sized and begging to watch movies with my older brothers and their friends. Hell, Atlas was like a third big brother. Even called me by my nickname, despite the frown tugging on Nicholas’s lips.
“I didn’t think you’d come,” he said.
“Sorry I didn’t RSVP. I’ve been traveling a bit.”
“You are always welcome, Sarah.” Atlas eyed my entourage. “What’s with your…friends?”
“Long story. But it’s okay.”
He wrapped an arm over my shoulders, guiding me away from my step-brothers and into the gallery. “I have your brothers’ painting.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Good. They’d be happy.”
The silence dropped between us like it had at their funerals, when it hurt too much to even breathe. He held me close.
“Not the same without them.”
I nodded, refusing to cry.
Atlas offered me a tour through his sleek exhibit. He utilized every quirky space within the factory. Abstract paintings hung on the stairs, leading to a loft above and the open floor below. The murals featured spotlights which lit and shadowed the canvas with as much care as Atlas took to splash the paint. This I expected.
What surprised me was the string quartet, led by a blonde violinist rocking a modernized, dub-step rendition of Bach. Waiters in tails serving hors d’oeuvres passed between formally dressed socialites.
Atlas offered me a glass of champagne, and I wasn’t sure how to refuse without questions.
“You hate all this fancy, pretentious stuff,” I whispered. “Said us elites never understood your work.”
“I do hate it.” He winked and gestured over his posh guests. “But you all love me.”
He frowned as a woman in a headset waved to him. He downed the champagne.
“Looks like I have a sale. Go see the painting, Sprout. I have it in the far corner.” A crease formed in his forehead. He looked away. “Didn’t want everyone gawking at it.”