Capital Risk

by Lana Grayson

  I’d never wash this decision off of me. His voice chipped away my very soul.

  This wasn’t a kindness to Sarah. He was torturing me. Forcing my hand for his own amusement, his own ends. This was my punishment for disobeying him and daring to ally with a woman who no longer wanted my help, my apologies, or my heart to beat.

  Even Dad knew I was the sick son of a bitch who would do anything to spare Sarah Atwood any more pain.

  “Sober up, son. Time to take your place in this family.”

  I woke in a choked gasp.

  The penthouse was cloaked in darkness. Silence smothered my wheeze.

  His hand gripped my shoulder. I hadn’t expected the night to come so soon. He hunted in slinking shadow. I couldn’t see him, but it wouldn’t matter. Not now.

  “Baby.” Max’s raw whisper scarred the shattering stillness. “Gotta wake up now.”

  Nicholas had warned of the danger. I thought I’d have more time.

  I thought eight months of their mercy would somehow prepare me for the inevitable. But the days I spent captured within the Bennett’s will were simply the trembling shuffle of a prisoner to the guillotine.

  We knew it would end this way.

  Why did it frighten me now?

  The bed was empty. The coldness terrified me.

  “Where’s Nick?”

  Max’s impatience ached my lungs. “Don’t worry about him.”

  I wished I could see him before it happened. “Is he safe?”

  “Yeah. For now.”

  The thought granted me a little comfort, the barest flicker of hope. “Will he stay safe?”

  “Depends on what he does tonight.”

  “I don’t want him to get hurt.”

  “No one plans to get hurt, baby,” Max said. “Sometimes there’s no avoiding it.”

  “Like now?”

  “Just like now.”

  Just like always.

  I couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t hurt. Every touch preluded a new misery. Every kiss ended with the bitter strike of another’s fangs.

  I fought and resisted and plotted, and it hadn’t prevented any pain, only delayed it.

  At least tonight it would end.

  “Do you trust me?” Max knew better than to ask that. He tried again, his voice low, almost apologetic, as if he possessed even a shred of empathy. “Did you ever trust me?”

  That answer came easily, burning from the smoldering debris of my broken heart. “No.”

  “Good.” He didn’t mean it. “Then I’m not missing anything.”

  “I never trusted any of the Bennetts.”

  My eyes adjusted to the darkness. Max waited, his expression hard, unstable.

  “Lot of good that caution did you.”

  I rested my hand over my tummy. “You’re going to lecture me? Now? You really think it’ll help?”

  “No.”

  At least he was honest. I tried to stand. The asthma flared, and I coughed, hard. He didn’t offer to retrieve my inhaler. I leaned to the nightstand. The motion lurched my stomach.

  So that was it then. Asthma and nausea. I’d hardly be able to walk. Let alone…

  What? Run?

  There was no more escaping. It was about to be over.

  The finality of it all didn’t bring relief. Fear prickled my neck.

  I looked at him, expecting something, realizing I’d earn nothing. “What will happen?”

  Max anticipated the question.

  “It’s gonna be quick.”

  My stomach twisted. “Quick?”

  “No suffering. No sense dragging it out.”

  “Right.”

  I puffed my inhaler and stood. Max allowed me to change from the pajamas into a dress. It didn’t matter what I wore when it happened, but at least I’d regain a shred of dignity.

  Just for the Bennetts to steal it again.

  Max watched my hand tremble as I smoothed the dress. I blamed the albuterol. He probably assumed it was fear.

  He didn’t look at me. “If you want…if it makes it easier…I can do it instead.”

  It wouldn’t make it easier. Just the opposite.

  He tried to explain it, like it’d make it easier on me.

  I didn’t need Max’s pity.

  I knew this was coming.

  “You don’t have to see him,” Max said. “I don’t want you to face him. We can do it…another way.”

  I already shamed my family’s name by running once. It wouldn’t happen again. Now was a time for quiet dignity and acceptance. I fought. I survived.

  And now came the consequences.

  “No,” I said. “It ends like this.”

  He didn’t patronize me by asking if I were certain. I made my decision. If he understood it, he didn’t say, but I doubted a man like Max Bennett would ever recognize the dread of blood.

  “You know what he expects.” It wasn’t a question or an apology. Max uncurled the leather collar and leash from his pocket. “Last time, baby.”

  Even if the asthma hadn’t squeezed my lungs, I doubted I’d have fought the scrape of the collar against my neck. I had been free of it for months. It only made sense he’d inflict it on me again.

  The leash clipped, the tiny metal click just as loud as any crash of metal bars in a cell or shudder of chains binding my body. It was humiliating and unnecessary. The asthma, nausea, and fear already quieted Bumper.

  “It still looks good, baby.”

  Captivity never looked good. It was ugly and grotesque and so very Bennett. I touched my tummy.

  “At least she’ll never know.” I dared Max to speak. “My one consolation.”

  “No one will know.”

  That was the agreement. No legacy of mine would be tarnished with such terrible brutality. The Atwoods were proud. Strong. And too many of us were now victims.

  “He expects you to fight.” Max stood still. His hand curled into a fist.

  “You never asked my permission before.”

  “This isn’t like before.”

  “What’s different?”

  His voice hollowed. “This is it.”

  “So don’t change now.” I raised my chin for him. “We’re not making memories, Max. Don’t pretend to be noble—”

  The backhand came quick, hard. He silenced me with the blow, and I tumbled to the bed. My gasp choked over ragged coughs, but he had what he wanted. A bloody lip. The bruise over my cheeks.

  Most men liked their women pale, blushing with inexperience and timid excitement.

  The Bennetts preferred me bleeding, bruised, and swollen in more ways than one.

  Max didn’t apologize for it, but I added it to the list of his unforgivable offenses. The list grew by the second. He wrapped the leash over his hand, coiling it just to tug me close.

  “That’s the last time I hurt you, baby.”

  The words forced from an aching chest—tightening with sickness, asthma, and grief. “Every minute near you hurts me.”

  “Yeah.” He jerked the leash. I nearly tripped. “Glad I won’t be torturing you anymore.”

  I followed him from the bedroom and stared ahead into the darkness. The gentle glow of a nightlight in the nursery lit our path. I ignored it, and I forced myself to forget everything delicate and perfect, soft and wonderful within the lovely room. It wouldn’t help me now.

  Hamlet padded to my side from the kitchen, his muzzle wet from a late-night drink. I scratched his head as he loyally followed.

  “No, Hamlet,” I said. “You gotta stay here. Be good.”

  Max urged me to move. “Let’s go. He’ll be okay.”

  “Someone will make sure, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hamlet whined as the door closed.

  Max didn’t bother trying to hold a conversation with me. He knew I’d give him nothing but silence. The car ride to the Bennett Estate sped through the cover of darkness. I remembered the path, memorized the trail to hell that led from beautiful mountains and
into the growling maw of hell. The car parked outside the front door. He trusted I wouldn’t lose my composure and bolt.

  Much had changed since the first time I escaped from the Bennett Estate. The chair through the broken window didn’t grant me freedom. It signified a new life for me, trapped in Nicholas’s will, abused by Darius’s intentions, and punished for every mistake and moment of disrespect by Max’s hand.

  Maybe I once liked it. Maybe I once danced through the danger and fed off the adrenaline rush we both experienced from the crash of leather against my skin.

  But what was fantasy to me existed as Max’s reality. He knew only bloodshed, just like his father.

  That evil waited for me, lurking on the grand staircase inside the estate’s foyer.

  Darius Bennett once tortured me with a smile and false gratitude.

  No longer.

  He crashed against the white marble of the staircase, and the clap of his heel echoed over the entirety of the mansion. His eyes stared—stark, menacing, and utterly empty. Just like his mansion, his halls, and the expanse of gluttonous extravagance within the manor.

  He was just one man, and yet so much more.

  Bastard and rival.

  Murderer and abuser.

  Rapist and father.

  His very presence chilled my core. He once ripped through me. He stole every warmth, every hope, every ounce of my courage. His touch rendered me empty, but his cruelty didn’t break me. Instead, every hollowed and worthless scar filled with burning, rampant hatred.

  I hated this man.

  I hated his name. His power. His corruption. I hated the way his eyes lingered over my curves, as if he weren’t yet satisfied in my destruction and would seize me again.

  He longed to hurt me.

  And he had.

  But that was then. He could do little else to me.

  I re-forged my dignity to stand before him once more at the end.

  And it was Darius who cracked instead.

  “I should have simply killed you and ended this charade.” He spat the words. I knew he wished to strike me. Given time, he would. “But I thought you might be trusted to fulfill at least one purpose to one of your fathers.”

  His steps punished the stair beneath his boot. If he wished to stomp me, no need for the theatrics. We were both beyond posturing now.

  “So…” He forced me to look up and meet his chilling gaze. “Our baby is a girl?”

  “It’s not your child.”

  “I should hope. A daughter is of no use to me.” His hand caressed my cheek. “Even the simple pleasures fade after time.”

  I shook him away. Max didn’t let me escape. The leash passed to his father.

  “Even when you’re flat on your back you can do nothing right,” Darius said. “Or when you’re on your knees or pushed over a table. Tell me, my dear, when did you feel the most useless under me?”

  “Did it make you feel powerful?” I asked. “Hurting a woman who couldn’t defend herself?”

  “It felt good at the time. Even better now that I imagine you still feel it.”

  Not that I’d admit. Darius reached for me. I flinched, but Max presented me to him. His hands wove over my tummy, daring to touch Bumper, waiting for my reaction.

  He didn’t have a right to touch me, and every moment his hands lingered needled me with dread.

  It was supposed to be faster than this.

  He wasn’t supposed to touch me again.

  “Come with me, Sarah. I have a surprise for you. I think you’ll like it.”

  The leash tightened in his grip. He dragged me to the stairs, but I tripped. I twisted to land on my behind on the bottom step. Darius aimed to kick. I hid my belly, and he grazed my hip.

  “You aren’t even waddling yet. Get up. You’re fine.”

  Max didn’t help me. If he felt any guilt, any worry, it never crossed his features. In his father’s shadow, any bit of light, hope, or cry for redemption darkened into the same beaten submission Darius so often sought from me.

  He did his part.

  I expected nothing more from Maxwell Bennett. His part was done.

  Darius forced me up the stairs, into the wing I only dared to enter in fits of madness. I didn’t believe in an afterlife, but demons were as real to me as any monster lurking in children’s tales or the nightmares of the tormented. My proof existed in the man leading me on a leash to a newly remodeled room adjoining his bedroom. He pushed me within.

  Blue.

  Stark, but blue.

  A cold, institutional blue paint splashed the walls in fake cheer. The white crib and changing table, rocking chair and dresser did nothing to welcome a new life. Only coldness existed here. Only the same extravagant furniture and art chiseled from the Bennett’s wallet. The room decorated with everything stylish and designer, fit for a prince but not a loved son.

  Darius built a nursery. I saw a prison.

  And it relieved me that Bumper would never rest within any crib in Darius Bennett’s possession.

  “You disappointed me, my dear. I told you I expected a son.”

  “I live to disappoint you.”

  “Not for much longer.”

  I held his gaze. “And if the baby is yours? You’d kill her before she’s even born?”

  “Why should I tolerate inferior blood blending with the Bennett line? I should earn something in my sacrifice.”

  “Your sacrifice?”

  “The only reason I let an Atwood within my home, at my table, in my bed was to breed her like a common bitch.” Darius exhaled. “And even that was too complicated for you.”

  He was on me before I reacted. His hand tightened over my throat, and he slammed me against the wall.

  “You failed me, child.” His growl sliced through me. “For the last time. No more second chances. No more begging. No more alliances with my sons. It’s just you and me, Sarah Atwood, and you will answer for your every failure.”

  The leash choked the air from me. He hauled me from the nursery like an errant dog through the halls, deliberately watching me twist and gasp to match his awkward gait. The collar dug into my neck.

  The humiliation would be over soon enough.

  The elevator was too easy a trip for me. Darius forced us through the narrow stairwell to the estate’s roof—half designer garden, half-helipad. The helicopter waited, and Max handed his father a set of ear-muffs for the ride. He didn’t afford me the same courtesy.

  “I’ve decided to take you home, my dear. Back to the farm, back to Daddy and the ashes of your brothers. Consider it my last kindness.” His sneer would forever etch into my memory, worse than any touch of his lips or fingers. “If you’re lucky, maybe I’ll even kill you before I stuff you in their graves.”

  My words didn’t waver. I lifted my chin, a hope for the final blow.

  “I hate you.”

  Darius sneer, his arm raised to strike.

  The slap never landed.

  The crack of Darius’s skull shattered the night with a sickening crunch.

  His eyes met mine in a moment of utter confusion, pain, and dismay. The leash released from his hand just as his worthless body crumbled at my feet.

  Soundless.

  Harmless.

  And still I lurched away. Still I let even the spreading shadow of an unconscious man force me to hide my body, my face, my fear.

  I told myself I would never again fear Darius Bennett.

  Standing over his vulnerable body made me more terrified than ever.

  One last thing to do. One last crime to commit. One last injustice to be sated.

  The lights flipped on, flooding the helipad with artificial brightness. Nicholas stepped forward, the butt of his gun stained with his father’s blood. He touched my cheek.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  The tears came now, weepy only from the surge of adrenaline that threatened to topple me.

  “Why did you wait so long?” I pushed him away. “I thought you’d get
him in the house.”

  “We didn’t have a clear shot.”

  “I used my safe word.”

  Nicholas nodded. “And I was there, like I said I would be.”

  God, this was a horrible plan.

  And, of course, it had been my idea.

  “Darius thinks he’s broken me,” I said.

  My step-brothers did too. They sat in silence within the penthouse. Reed sullen. Nicholas still. And Max, half-drunk with bruises and the fat lip it took for his brothers to drag him back to me.

  “He expects that I’ll kill Max.” I didn’t look at him. Speaking his name was difficult enough. “That I want him to answer for my brothers. But this isn’t about an eye-for-an-eye anymore. This is about chopping the head off the snake. Now’s our chance.”

  Nicholas agreed. “Max, you have an opportunity to get close to Dad. If you go to him—”

  Max sneered. “He’ll kill me.”

  “Not if you offer him what he wants.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I spoke for him. For them. For Bumper.

  For the only way we’d ever secure our future.

  “He wants me.”

  Reed burst from the shadows, tucking a gun into the waistband of his jeans before approaching. He didn’t smile, but the burden eased from his shoulders. He bent down to grab his unconscious father. Max hopped from the helicopter to help. Together they stuffed Darius into the cabin and slammed the doors.

  Just as I planned. Just as we wanted.

  But I didn’t feel any better.

  The fear didn’t fade. The pain. The grief.

  It was all still there, tucked in deep and pounding at my heart.

  “He hurt you.” Nicholas touched the bruise on my cheek. I held his hand.

  “Wasn’t him.”

  Max didn’t apologize. “She’ll heal.”

  I was tired of healing. I didn’t want to hurt anymore.

  Reed brushed beside me, offering me the gun. I took it. Just the feel of the metal left me sick and trembling.

  Nicholas’s voice hollowed. “I won’t take this from you. If you want, Max will lead you somewhere…quiet. You can pull the trigger yourself.”