Capital Risk

by Lana Grayson

  “If I were Reed, what would you need?” he asked.

  The question came too quickly. “What?”

  “If I were Reed, and I asked if you wanted anything, what would you need?”

  “From Reed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Answer the fucking question.”

  I flinched. He apologized, but he didn’t mean it.

  “If you were Reed…” I didn’t see a point in lying. “I’d ask you for a foot rub and we’d watch something stupid on Netflix until I fell asleep.”

  Max said nothing. It couldn’t have offended him. I shrugged.

  “But he’s whipped. You’re not.” I smirked. “You’re not into that.”

  He ignored the implication. “What if I were Nick? What could I do for you then?”

  That was an easier question, but it hurt to answer.

  “Nothing.”

  “You sure about that?”

  I wasn’t in the mood to deal with any of Max’s head games. “It’s complicated.”

  “How complicated can it be? You’re having his kid. That’s as simple as it gets.”

  My mood swung every which way, and this time it skipped the tears and burst into anger.

  “You think it’s that simple? You aren’t the one carrying the baby. You aren’t the one getting sick ten times a day. You aren’t the one who’ll have to explain to her Board of Directors why she’s carrying the child of her family’s greatest enemy.”

  “And you’re making it worse by refusing help and doing it all on your own.”

  I refused to look at him. “We’re done talking about this. I’ve suffered through enough doctors and exams and morning sickness today. I can’t deal with anything else.”

  “You better start dealing.”

  The rage prickled. I blinked angry tears. “And how would you deal with this?”

  “Easier than you. I would have known from the beginning this was going to happen.”

  “Oh, screw you, Max. You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You don’t deny a Bennett,” he said.

  “Get out.”

  Max wasn’t even apologetic. “You never considered it was a possibility.”

  “Because it wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “You weren’t supposed to fall in love with Nick either. Surprise.”

  Why was he being such an ass? “And instead of ruining just my life, we’ve ruined two.”

  “Lot more than that, baby.”

  My fingernails dug into the pillow. “Good. Then you understand why I’m doing this. I have to think about what’s best for my son.”

  “Your son.” He emphasized the word. “We hope.”

  We all needed to hope that the baby was a boy. I refused to answer Max otherwise.

  “Did antagonizing my dad at the art show fit into your plan for what’s best for the baby?”

  “I had to confront him.”

  “And now we’ve spent a week running your ass all over Central California to stay out of his sight.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.”

  “Yes, you are. But you think you can hide from him if he’s six feet under.”

  “Don’t tell me the thought doesn’t excite you.”

  “Sure, it does.” Max crossed his arms. “But I was the one he beat on for twenty-seven years. I’m the one he abandoned when I started to limp. I’m the one who deals in blood to prove I’m still a Bennett. So yeah, the thought excites me. But, baby, revenge doesn’t look good on you. Leave it to the ones who are already damned.”

  “I didn’t start this war, but I’ll end it,” I said. “And if that means murdering a man who has no right to exist outside of hell, then I’ll do it for myself and for my child.”

  His child.

  Nicholas’s child. It had to be. They’d have to believe it was.

  Max stepped inside the room. I tucked the pillow closer to me, but he didn’t speak. His hand brushed aside my hair, and I swore he saw where the deepest bruise had lingered on my cheek.

  “What happened to you, Sarah?”

  I said nothing.

  “For two months, you ran from us. No calls. No emails. No nothing.”

  “Contrary to what the Bennetts believe, I’m no prisoner. I can do as I please.”

  “No, you can’t, but it’s cute when you get defiant.”

  “You guys don’t control me.”

  “Now we do. More than ever. And we don’t even need a leash to do it.” Max grinned. “You should have kept running, baby. Run and never looked back. But you didn’t. Why? The kid?”

  “I couldn’t run forever while pregnant.”

  “You shouldn’t have run at all.” Max leaned close. “Nick came to visit you. You and him had some magical sex and made a little miracle baby…and then you ran.”

  I swallowed. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you insult me for panicking. I found out I was pregnant, Max.”

  “You knew that instant?” His words were heavy, like he jammed the pillow over my face himself. “As soon as Nick rolled off of you?”

  I said nothing. Max expected it. His voice lowered.

  “The only difference between a secret and a lie is the work you put into keeping it.”

  “And you would know?” I whispered.

  “Far better than you, sweetheart.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  Max laughed. “I’ve never been the one to comfort you. I’m not the one you love, and I’m not the fucking puppy dog wagging his tail and chasing after you.”

  “Then what are you?”

  “Not someone you should ever trust.”

  “I don’t want to play games, Max. Just say what you want to say and let me sleep.”

  He frowned. “You’re pregnant. Finding that shit out should have pissed you off. Shocked you. But it shouldn’t scare the fuck out of you.”

  “I’m not scared.”

  “No. You’re devastated.”

  “Max—”

  “You ran the instant Nick left, and it was only once you split that you realized he knocked you up. So what happened, Sarah? Did you try to escape from us? Did you really think you could hide from the Bennetts and we wouldn’t capture you? Find you?” he snorted. “Hurt you?”

  I had enough. “You have no idea how much I’ve been hurt, Max Bennett.”

  “Then explain this shit to me, Sarah, because none of it makes sense.”

  “Get the hell out of my room.”

  “You gonna make me?”

  I moved faster than Max anticipated. The smack centered hard on his cheek.

  “Haven’t you done enough? Your family bred me. What else do you want? Blood? Pain?”

  “Forgiveness.” Max gripped my hand and pushed me down on the bed.

  For a moment, I feared he’d follow. The cold terror leeched through me. Even his familiar weight would tangle me in darkness.

  But he didn’t. Only his voice hardened, a shield from the mournful shadow in his words.

  “But you’re never gonna forgive us, are you, baby? You’re already looking for vengeance. You’re beyond mercy, aren’t you?”

  “How can you ask me that? If you knew what happened—”

  “A lot of bad shit happens to good people, Sarah, and the Bennetts cause it all. How much blood will make it right?”

  “I’m pregnant, Max.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “So fucking think about what’s best for that baby, growing up in the middle of a goddamned war he wasn’t supposed to cause. Think about what you really want. You aren’t a murderer. You’re stronger than that.”

  I met his gaze. “No. I’m not. I won’t stop until Darius is punished for ruining my life, my family, my…everything. And don’t you dare tell me I shouldn’t do everything in my power to get justice.”

  “And once he’s dead?” Max leaned in. “Who else are you going to punish?”

  Mysel
f.

  “Anyone who dares to endanger my family.”

  Max grunted. “Christ, you are an Atwood.”

  “And you’re a Bennett.”

  “And this is one weak-fucking truce.”

  The door slammed behind him.

  What was his fucking problem?

  The blankets twisted under my feet. I kicked them away. I often felt used after my time with Max, but the words he said and the regretted hate in his voice were new.

  Guilt blended with a new wave of weeping, but I’d be damned if either Max Bennett or my raging hormones forced me from the bed. Our conversation was over. I didn’t care if I got another apology, if I slapped him again, or if I finally figured out why he sounded so goddamned lost every time he talked to me.

  Like he already mourned for me.

  I wrapped the blanket over me just as a sizzling pop echoed through the beach house. The air conditioning squealed, and the grind of electronics abruptly silenced.

  I hadn’t felt an earthquake. Why else would the electricity go out?

  The silence didn’t settle. It crashed.

  And I knew.

  I burst from my room for Max—fight forgotten, ready to run.

  “Sarah!”

  Max shouted from the living room. I called back, but the splintering crash of glass muffled my cry. Hamlet yipped and ran with me to the kitchen. I forced my dog beneath the open island. He whined, but I covered him as a second torrent of shattering glass rained over the house. The crunch of wood slammed the front door against the wall.

  The security system stayed silent. No explosive barrage of sirens and flashes that always tripped up Josiah when he snuck out at night.

  Whoever broke into the house studied how to disconnect the system.

  Max’s profanity roared. In the darkness, a shadow launched over the sofa and crashed into the coffee table, wrecking it into pieces. The man grunted, and the sickening crunch of fist against shattering jaw echoed through the room.

  I screamed as an unfamiliar snarl bit through the night. Hamlet surged forward, knocking the second shadow to the ground. The man he attacked howled in pain.

  “Sarah, run!”

  Max’s order gurgled over bloodied words. I crawled from behind the counter. My chest tightened. I ignored it. Hamlet attacked again, lunging for the man holding Max. My step-brother’s choked grunt and pounded struggles snapped over the living room.

  He told me to run.

  But they’d kill him.

  My fingers curled over the stool before I realized how stupid it was for me to try to fight. I rushed forward, crashing the chair over the head of one of the intruders. He groaned and collapsed.

  The flash lit the living room.

  The gunshot came immediately after.

  I didn’t even scream. The shot fired so close to me the heat practically seared through my shirt.

  It was too near to my tummy, and I realized what I almost lost.

  Hamlet bolted, unharmed but terrified by the sound. He wasn’t the only one.

  A second shot fired, but this one aimed for the intruder. He crumpled to the floor.

  Dead.

  I threw up. Max shouted.

  “Sarah, get the fuck out of here!”

  Max killed a man.

  A man who hunted me.

  This wasn’t happening.

  I tripped backwards, kicking the fallen man as I blindly sprinted away from the guns, the blood, the body. I rushed into the night and kicked a path through the sand. The roaring surf muffled any other sounds from inside the beach house.

  Then I found the second body.

  Our security guard—garroted and left to rot in the sand by the water.

  Oh God.

  Everything had changed.

  What had once been a feud between families now extended beyond our own walls.

  He wouldn’t stop this time. Not until he waded in blood to finally capture me.

  I turned from the body, repulsed and enraged, but I couldn’t get help easily. My family built the house a half mile from anyone—far enough to ensure our privacy and mimic the rural openness of the farm, far away from the crowded beaches. I left my phone charging by the bed.

  I needed to find another way to call for help. For Nicholas. The police.

  Like I should have done months ago if I hadn’t been so terrified of ruining the Atwood pride. If I hadn’t feared what Nicholas would do or think after he learned the truth.

  I turned, rushing back to the road.

  I never made it.

  The hands clutched me from behind. So familiar.

  Too familiar.

  I kicked. It did nothing.

  The cold barrel of a gun jammed against my side. The cloth dosed in chemicals covered my mouth and nose.

  “Time to come home, my dear.”

  Sarah didn’t answer her cell phone. I tried Max. Same issue.

  Neither were exceptional morning people. Previously I had been threatened with grievous bodily harm and implements shoved in places best suited for men of other tastes. Max wasn’t pleasant when he woke either.

  It meant nothing that I’d be ignored by them at five in the morning.

  Or six.

  But by seven, I worried. I left both voice mails and text messages, and I called Reed and ordered him to return to the Atwood’s ten thousand square foot “beach house.”

  It was easy to forget how tremendously wealthy Sarah’s family was, and how much money, land, and investments one woman now owned. My father never forgot, and his obsession became mine.

  She should have answered her phone.

  I wasn’t waiting to find out why she was ignoring me this time. My real reason for leaving her was done. The arrangements for my father’s murder rescheduled once more.

  It’d cost twenty million this time. Non-refundable. He didn’t like that we’d called off the last attempt so suddenly. He said it made him nervous. I didn’t care, so long as it didn’t make him sloppy.

  But it took time. Another month, another drop, another series of gut-checking complications.

  Then she’d be safe, and I could let her rest without calling her cell-phone every hour to check on her.

  If she’d answer.

  I didn’t trust it. I tried to reschedule the meeting, but my client asked to meet for breakfast instead. I waited for a chartered plane as my father currently flew in our private jet through Oregon. I had an hour to spare. My partner on this particular meeting wasn’t pleased by the change of plans.

  Bryant Maddox uttered a few choice words as he berated me for my irresponsibility, but he met me within his chosen café a half hour prior to the meeting. He ordered the server to take us to the table he selected—a secluded location outside on the terrace, completely inappropriate for a business discussion. I permitted it only as I intended the meeting to be brief.

  Bryant questioned my decision.

  “What’s wrong, Nicholas?” His hands trembled as he poured sugar after sugar into his coffee. “You’d never compromise a deal this way. Bennett rule, right? No business in the mornings?”

  “Times change.”

  “And you expect the board to tolerate changes in your father’s business plan?”

  I frowned. “Garalt Farms is my prospective client, not my father’s.”

  “Recommended by Sarah Atwood, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “How kind of the little whore to offer us an exciting new customer base.” Bryant slurped his coffee. “At least the bitch is good for something.”

  I once respected Bryant—not only as my father’s confidante, but also because he understood the business and strived for our level of perfection. Now, I saw the coward instead of the man. He was a sniveling, greedy, brutal bastard who took pleasure in the suffering of others. He delighted in my father’s evil as he was too weak to be his own sadist.

  Bryant deserved worse than a morning coffee in a French café outside a busy intersection in San Jose. An eye
-for-an-eye wasn’t enough for the monsters my father fostered within our company, and entirely too kind for the horrors they inflicted on Sarah.

  And he’d be fortunate if I were the one to exact our revenge. I hardly recognized the hatred burning in Sarah. The board would flake to ash after she scorched through the Bennett Empire to protect her child.

  Our child.

  My son.

  Bryant checked his watch and swore. “First you jeopardize a multi-million dollar deal by altering the appointment time, and now they’re late. This is unacceptable, Nicholas.”

  “Don’t question me.”

  “You realize the dire circumstances facing our company?”

  “My company.”

  “That little bitch holds more stock than I do.”

  “And?”

  Bryant’s eyes narrowed like an irritating weasel, and his voice edged with the animal’s squeal. He checked his watch once more, and his fingers rubbed hard against the linked metal tabletop. A thick gold ring clattered with his motions, tapping a nervous rhythm.

  “If you don’t see the danger in an Atwood controlling the company, I won’t pity you when the whore bleeds you dry.”

  “If Sarah Atwood is so powerful, perhaps you should beg her forgiveness instead of insulting her.”

  “I wouldn’t beg an Atwood for anything. By the time this is done, she’ll beg us for mercy.”

  “Continue to threaten her, and you won’t live beyond this breakfast.”

  He snorted, his eyes hardening. “You aren’t so noble, Nicholas. You might not beat her, but you won’t let the bitch destroy what’s rightfully yours.” He checked the watch for a third time, stiffening as he pushed his coffee to the side. “I have a call to make.”

  He could make a dozen calls so long as it removed his presence from my table before his infection poisoned the deal with my potential clients. I read my phone. No messages. No calls.

  Where the hell was Sarah?

  And why did Bryant trip away from the table in blind haste?

  My gut sunk. Something was wrong.

  My phone rang. Reed. I answered, but he was already screaming.

  “—On my bike! Fucker followed me to the office—”

  I didn’t have time to decipher his profanity. The blitzing rumble of motorcycles splintered the peace of the morning. Six bikes thundered through rush hour traffic, splitting lanes and careening over the sidewalk.