by Lana Grayson
A yellow highlighter scrawled through one of the columns I listed. Darius marked something.
I squinted.
Josmik Holdings.
Son of a bitch.
How the hell did he keep finding information about the holding? Everything my brothers did was so tied up in wills and trusts I hardly had the authority to run the company, and that was before I opened my mouth and proclaimed Atwood Industries untouchable except for my male heir.
Great idea.
Darius Bennett knew something about Josmik Holdings. My stomach tensed. That was my key. It wasn’t like I’d find a bloody knife stashed around his office to proclaim his guilt in my father’s death. But money was a weapon that couldn’t be washed in bleach or buried in the backyard, deep and secret.
If I could get information about my brothers’ financial secrets—if I learned what they did with all the money they spent—I’d find the evidence of Dad’s murder. Maybe Josiah and Mike had already figured it out, and the proof waited for me to find it.
I took my research. The originals were probably in a safety deposit box somewhere, but at least I had something. One mystery solved. How the hell was I supposed to solve the other?
What if I couldn’t prove anything that would implicate Darius in Dad’s death?
The door’s handle clicked.
The bile rushed into my mouth. It wouldn’t matter now, not if Darius killed me for breaking into his office.
I tucked the folder under my arm. The door opened.
I bolted.
Darius roared as I ducked through the doorway, skirting under his arm. He swung, but his fist only clipped my shoulder. I didn’t stop.
Except I had nowhere to run.
“Little fucking cunt!”
His bellow rumbled over the mansion. I sprinted, but my chest tightened almost immediately. I wasn’t recovered enough to marathon around the estate. I avoided the steps and rushed into the kitchen. Darius’s boots slammed behind me.
How was a man his age so fast?
I scooted around the marble island and dove over the counter, clasping the handle of the chef’s knife imbedded in the butcher’s block. The steel rang as I unsheathed it. Darius stilled under the kitchen’s archway. He shed his suit jacket and quietly rolled up his sleeves.
I regretted not grabbing the cleaver.
The grey in his hair hadn’t slowed him, and the cracking of his knuckles heralded a charge. He was older, but his sons were built like him. Strong. Fit. Etched from stone and just as unbreakable. I brandished the knife before me, crossing my arms over the folder.
“I should have tied you down like a little whore.” Darius stepped closer. “Gagged your mouth and plugged your ass. Left your cunt exposed for the only goddamned reason you’re of any use to anyone.”
“Get away from me.” I aimed the knife like I knew what I was doing. “I swear to God, I’ll hurt you.”
“My dear, you’ve never truly experienced pain. It’s about time someone showed you.”
He lunged. Instinct won. I turned from him and screamed, kicking at his ankle and sprinting even as he grabbed a lock of my hair. The sting forced tears, but I didn’t stop.
I slid around the corner to the dining hall and ducked behind a thick chaise tucked in the front parlor. The dark material stretched to the ground, and I fell to the carpet, pressing my face against the elegant design and silencing my hitching breath with a hand over my mouth.
Darius swore, raging down the hall. The powder room door crashed against the wall before slamming shut with a hideous crack. I ducked farther down, my fingers trembling over the knife.
Christ.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
My mind blanked in terror. Only one thought broke through the panic.
Nicholas.
Where was Nicholas?
I peeked over the couch. Darius’s fury overturned chairs within the smoking room. I had a decent head start for the stairs. Upstairs had closets to hide in. Dark corners.
I’d have to use the knife.
I almost heaved.
I hurried over the chaise and scrambled through the parlor. I wasn’t watching where I ran. I searched over my shoulder for Darius and crashed into a solid chest instead. Someone seized my wrist and twisted. The blade dropped to the floor.
Reed.
He clapped a hand over my mouth before I screamed. I fought his grip, but he shook his head, the questions in his voice icing over as he realized my cheeks wetted with tears. I clutched the folder.
I protested as he peeled the research from my hands, but he released me. “Downstairs.”
He picked the knife off the floor and shoved the folder within the couch cushions.
“Downstairs,” he hissed.
I stepped away. He continued down the hall, calling to his father.
“Hey! Why the hell is everyone screaming?”
Reed, dear-heart of the Bennett clan and a friend who deserved a better partner at Mario Kart. I hurried down the stairs as he delayed Darius.
Not that I knew where I was going.
The estate was huge, a sprawling complex of marble, granite, and hardened masonry. The polished steps glittered gold in false warmth. I leapt down the last three stairs and turned hard to my right.
Nope.
The room spawned into a giant gym, lit by fluorescents and cluttered with weights and machines and no easy way to escape.
I turned, losing myself in a game room. Promising, but too open. A plasma television built into the wall, surrounded by black leather furniture perfect for the Bennett’s man cave.
A beautiful bar was captured in the glow of an unlit fireplace. I ducked into the corner. I couldn’t hide under the poker or ping pong table. The room housed pinball machines and old arcade styled games that looked much easier on an iPhone. I’d be spotted behind them.
I swore and hid in the bathroom, crouching between the toilet and sink like a damn coward.
I shivered. Reed would protect me just as well as Nicholas. I hoped.
Stay in the room. Goddamn, I hated that he was right.
But Nicholas wouldn’t let his father hurt me. Not after all the declarations masquerading as endearments. If he wanted me, if I was supposed to be his, he’d have to prove it by protecting me.
I’d never fight my step-brothers again if they kept me safe from Darius Bennett.
Reed shouted as the lights flickered on in the game room. I wound myself into a tight ball. It did nothing.
Darius’s foot cracked through the door. The wood splintered over me, as sharp as the dragging clutch of his nails against my shoulder. Reed called for him as he heaved me from the bathroom.
“You little bitch!”
Darius tossed me against the pool table. I crept backward but lost a fight with my lungs. I didn’t dare run as I sputtered and coughed. Reed hadn’t moved to intercept his father.
He wouldn’t abandon me. He wouldn’t let Darius…
“Get on your knees,” Darius growled.
“Dad,” Reed said. “Easy. She’s still sick.”
“She’s not sick. She’s dead. On your fucking knees.”
I didn’t move. Reed edged closer, but he didn’t have Max’s aggression or Nicholas’s demeanor. Darius ignored him. He grabbed a pool cue from the display against the wall. Reed lunged for me. He didn’t make it.
The pool cue slammed against my back, driving me to the floor in a flash of pain. The stick splintered in two. I screamed.
Didn’t matter.
Darius had another.
I covered my head as a second strike rained over me. The third lashed my shoulder, thudding hard against bone and instantly welting. I struggled, but Darius ceased his beating only to point the cue at Reed.
“One step, boy, and I fuck her ass with it, do you understand?”
Reed swore. “Jesus Christ, she’s just a kid! Let her up!”
The cue slammed against me. I rolled, but Darius crushed the secon
d stick against my ribs. My vision flashed white. My chest heaved without air.
“She’s not a kid. She’s your sister, our fucking whore.” Darius seized the broken cue and lifted me by my shirt. I fought against his arms. “And it’s time she learned her goddamned place in this family.”
16
Nicholas
Sarah screamed.
Terrified. Trapped.
Pained.
I kicked the chair from my desk and slammed the phone console. The conference call had been on speakerphone, and her shrieking silenced the conversation. I batted the phone off the hook and offered a false chuckle.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” My hand cracked the receiver. “I need to postpone this meeting. I’ll email you a time when we can next convene.”
I crashed the phone onto the cradle.
Sarah screamed again. The haunted agony in her voice would shatter bone.
Or maybe that already happened.
No woman screamed like that without cause.
I sprinted from my office, jogging the steps two at a time to the foyer. Max peeled from around the corner, bare chested and wet from the shower. He tugged his pants over his hips.
“Dad’s got her.” Max dried his face. “Jesus.”
I didn’t answer, and I didn’t wait for my brother to limp down the stairs.
Sarah had quieted, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t hurt.
Or worse.
I knew what my father planned for her. The sexual abuse was left to his sons—as though he offered us a gift. He expected our savagery over a woman without the strength or ability to protect herself.
And yes, part of me enjoyed that.
Part of me wanted nothing more than to have taken her again—forced her to her knees if only to hear that timid, uncertain mew of my name as my cock sunk within her.
But I hadn’t made her scream.
Or cry.
And I’d never, ever hurt her.
My father wouldn’t understand that, but he hadn’t held her, tasted her, breathed her. He hadn’t experienced her heat or how beautiful she looked arched in pleasure as her body milked every ounce of desire from me.
And he would never experience that.
The rage seared through me. Hot, white, deliberate flashes of hatred and disgust blinded my sight. I hadn’t run through the halls of the estate since I was a child—since my father slammed me against the wall and slapped me across the face while reminding me Bennetts didn’t run. Others waited for us. And so they did wait. My family waited while my mother rushed me to the dentist to repair my broken molar from his swipe.
Sarah’s cries shrilled in the game room. I launched inside as my father tangled her within his arms, tearing the clothing from her flailing, bruised body. He hauled her around the waist, forcing her against the pool table. He didn’t stop as she gasped in a shocked pain. The tattered shirt ripped from her shoulders. She kicked as he reached for her pants. He slapped her face.
“What’s happening here?”
I didn’t swear. I didn’t attack. I didn’t even look at my fucking brother as Reed paced the room, begging him to be careful with the girl. My father’s assault slowed. He parted from Sarah’s spread legs just as he finally managed to unbutton her jeans.
She didn’t roll away when he turned. I didn’t know if she could.
Shatters of the pool cues splintered over the floor. A leather chair toppled before the television. Broken glass glittered on the bar.
My father’s knuckles bled.
Sarah coughed.
“Your sister misbehaved.”
Goddamn it.
I gritted my teeth. I told her to remain in her room. She promised.
But the Atwoods never were trustworthy. I learned that lesson seventeen years ago, and I prided myself on never allowing their false words to determine the future of my company or to interfere with the safety of my family.
But Sarah Atwood wasn’t Mark.
She didn’t realize the power she held or the threat she posed or how everything she represented would eventually destroy our empire.
She was just a girl. Tiny. Fragile. Stubborn.
Passionate and strong.
And my father would break her for it.
I should have left her retrained. It would have been an act of compassionate foresight. Instead, it was my weakness that trapped her within his arms.
“What has she done?” I asked.
Sarah stirred, her fingers grasping the pool table for leverage to slide away. My father hadn’t granted her permission to move. He raised a hand. She screamed before it pitted in her gut. Reed grabbed my arm as I rushed the table. The only good he did so far.
“You little sister trespassed where she didn’t belong.”
I frowned. It was his second incestuous reference. Either he knew how uncomfortable it made Sarah, or he liked the implication more than I realized.
His trousers tented. It sickened me. Violence enthralled him, and the helpless girl groaning under his hand would only excite him.
“She broke into my office.” He teased her with the jagged edge of a broken pool cue. “Attempted to steal some of my belongings.”
“My…journal…” Sarah gasped.
My father thrust the splintered cue at her throat. He pushed until she whimpered.
“Sarah, quiet,” Reed said. “Just stay quiet.”
Was she suicidal? The idiot girl would willingly climb into the lion’s den and hope the prowling beast wouldn’t rip her to shreds?
“Little girls aren’t supposed to leave the bedroom.” My father licked his lips. He jerked the button of her jeans open, gripping the denim. “From now on, we’ll have to ensure you can’t get out of bed.”
“Let me talk with her,” I said. My heart pounded white sparks of fury as Sarah struggled to prevent my father from removing her jeans. “I’ll find whatever it was she stole.”
“So will I.”
The pants ripped down. Her pale panties clashed against the violent red felt of the table. She scrambled backward. The shattered pool cue jammed between her legs.
My father scowled. “Either she apologizes, returns what she took, and proves her obedience, or…”
The wood pressed hard against the gentle cotton of her panties. My stomach pitched. Every shred of rationality drained from my blood, my mind, my muscle.
“I’ll dig my fucking way to her goddamned womb and make sure a Bennett jerks off in there.”
“I’ll take care of this.” My voice hollowed as Sarah trembled against the bite of the wood. “Leave her to me.”
“No.” My father ripped the bra from her shoulders. The panties tore next. “I’ll teach this lesson.”
Helpless.
Fucking helpless.
Sarah pawed the pool table. Her bare skin had been a gift, hidden from view in the darkness of the night, wrapped around me in the morning. Every secret exposed, every little heat and slickening petal a treasure reserved for me.
She shrieked, kicking and punching and attempting to cover herself. Now her nudity wasn’t a gift. It wasn’t beautiful.
It was agonizing.
A thick strip of wood rested at my feet. I picked it up, spinning the shard within my fingers. Sarah yelped as my father pinned her neck against the table, slapping her breasts twice, three times, just to watch the blossoming pink bruise spread over a dark welt left by the pool cue.
He’d hurt her. He’d kill her.
And the only way to stop him existed in a pool of blood.
My heartbeat thudded in my ears.
The wood cracked in my hand.
I lunged forward.
Max’s punch to my kidney nearly toppled me to the ground. He pitched the splinter away and shoved me aside.
“Dad.” Max curled his hands within the towel wrapped over his shoulders. He brushed it through his wet hair. “I was supposed to fuck her tonight. I’ll take care of her.”
Reed helped me to my feet, though my mu
rderous intent burst for Max instead. He expected it. The simple shake of his head warned me.
My stomach heaved.
Was I really about to kill my father?
Jesus.
My father arched an eyebrow. “Can you handle her, Max?”
My brother shrugged. “I tend to be a disciplinarian by nature. I’ll ensure she learns her lesson before, during, and after I breed her.”
Sarah shook her head. My father uncurled the hand from her throat.
I didn’t recognize my voice. “I thought we had an arrangement.”
“Nicholas, the situation has changed.” He stroked Sarah’s side, brushing his hands along her lower belly. She flinched as he parted the soft folds of her slit. “The girl must be disciplined properly to learn her place within our home.”
“I can teach her.”
He nodded. “Son, she will learn how to behave once she’s impregnated. We can’t delay it, not if she’s acting out. Pain is an excellent motivator.”
A shard of glass dropped from Reed’s hand. He hid his bloody palm in his pocket.
“Max’ll do it,” Reed said. “I trust his abilities. His girls are always so…” He held my gaze. “Respectful.”
My father grinned. “A man after my own heart.”
Max stared at the naked, trembling girl. “I’m just old-fashioned. I teach women to respect me before I bed them.”
I tasted blood. Reed’s stare was enough of a warning.
Max would take her then.
Punish her.
Beat her.
Fuck her.
And I knew why. The frustration would shatter my bones, rend my muscles, and choke me on the unspoken profanities.
My father would forever scar Sarah Atwood.
At least Max would leave her alive.
My father released Sarah and tugged on his suit, brushing away the straying bits of glass and wood from his rampage. His demeanor once again encompassed a sense of composed calm, but I saw through shell of a man. Evil lurked behind his passive nod.
“She’s yours then, Max,” he said. “Do with her what you will.”
Sarah tucked her legs under her as she struggled to escape the pool table. Max snapped his fingers at Reed.
“Borrow your belt?” He asked.
