by Lana Grayson
I held my breath. The email client popped up. I checked the clock. I probably had less than ten minutes to get my answers and rush back to the room before they realized I had access to the outside world. I couldn’t imagine the punishment if they caught me.
Of all the people in the world to contact, I emailed my lawyer.
God, I was getting corporate.
Anthony, I need everything on Josmik Holdings. Now. –S
Radio silence was not conducive to a proper attorney/client relationship. Anthony’s response came immediately.
S—Are you safe? Your mother said you were staying with the Bennetts. I can be there by the afternoon to get you home. –A
Anthony had a sixth sense for danger. Usually it worked well in negotiations, but I couldn’t let him jeopardize my mother’s safety to rescue me from Darius’s torment.
A—I’ve got it under control. Don’t come. Need an answer –S
We wasted time. I jiggled the controller and begged the screen for something to pop up.
S—Nothing’s available to us. Whatever deal your brothers made existed outside my firm. Got information on a secret trust. They didn’t want you to know.–A
The hairs on my neck rose. Something lurked within Josmik holdings that terrified every one of the Bennetts. So why did my brothers hide it from me?
A—The Bennetts have more information on Josmik than us. They know something. Why?—S
The email replied immediately.
S—They must be involved in the trust. Your brothers were working on a business plan—I don’t know what. They disregarded most of my advice after your father died.—A
Damn. I thumped my head against the controller.
I had another question, but each press of the letters twisted me into a greater knot. I stole my inhaler from my pocket before I pressed send. I preferred the tight coughing over the dread clutching my chest.
A—Helena Bennett died in a car crash in 1998. Do you know anything about it?—S
I refreshed the browser twice. Three times. Nothing returned. I checked the time. My step-family never wasted the day, not when there was money to earn. Each second past seven o’clock gave them cause to look for me. I refreshed again, my heart stalling as the email appeared.
Sarah—I don’t advise questions of that nature. Forget you asked it.
Like hell. I responded quick.
Why?
I held my breath until the email flashed.
Because you won’t like what you find.—A
“Goddamn it.”
I tossed the controller.
I didn’t trust Nicholas Bennett, his brothers, or his father, but Anthony? My father relied more on our attorney than his damn oncologists.
Sickness washed over me. I flipped the Playstation off and rushed from the theater, bolting to my room just as my stomach heaved. I fell to the bathroom floor.
My father—a murderer?
It wasn’t possible. My father wasn’t terribly kind, but he didn’t have time for kindness. He worked hard for the company—for the family. There wasn’t a crime in that.
And he hated the Bennetts, but he would never have tried to murder them.
Not a woman.
Certainly not her young children.
No one could be that evil.
The memory buried deep. My mother rushing into my room when I was little. Three, not even four years old. Mike and Josiah tagged along, sleepy and irritable.
“Up, Sarah. Get up.” Mom sang Grandma’s milking song for the cows to get me out of bed. “We have to go. Off the farm.”
But I liked the farm. She tugged a little book bag filled with clothes over my shoulders and told me we were going on vacation.
I yelled and stomped and ran from her. She shouted, but Dad welcomed me with open arms. Mom hurried after me with tear-stained cheeks and a flurry of angry words I wasn’t allowed to repeat.
“Take your sister.” Dad pushed me at Josiah. “Beth, we need to talk.”
“It’s on the news,” she spat. “She’s dead.”
The door slammed. Mike covered my ears as the smack echoed and Mom yelped.
Dad’s voice carried.
“Good.”
I threw up again as someone’s steps echoed against the tile. I didn’t bother hiding.
“Go away, Nick.”
It wasn’t Nicholas.
“Your sickness might have been a good sign had I not seen the test, my dear.” Darius waited as I struggled to my feet.
My stomach heaved again. “What do you want?”
He wetted a washcloth with warm water and passed it to me. I took it, hesitantly.
“Do you want to know the truth about your father?” He asked.
My throat closed. What kind of trick was this?
I met his toad brown eyes and shook my head.
“I don’t trust a word you say.”
Darius tugged on the sleeves of his suit, adjusting the diamond cufflinks that he wore even within the privacy of his own home.
“Get dressed.”
Not the order I expected from him. “Why?”
“Because you’re coming with me today.”
“Where?”
His smile trembled my gut. “We’re going to the Bennett Corporation Headquarters. I have something to show you.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine here.”
“Do you want to know the real Mark Atwood?” Darius buttoned his suit. “You have ten minutes to get ready before I rescind my offer. Dress professionally, Sarah. You’re representing your family.”
Damn it.
Was he serious? He’d take me to the main office? Why?
The answer hit me harder than any of his strikes.
We’d be alone.
Separated from my step-brothers.
Away from Nicholas’s intervention, Max’s promised abuse, and Reed’s kindness.
He bribed me with secrets about my family, but I feared he’d lead me straight into hell.
Anthony’s warning and Nicholas’s revelation churned my stomach. I was certain—absolutely certain—Darius was responsible for Dad’s death. But now? A creeping fear punctured through me.
Christ.
What if I was wrong?
What if I was taken and fucked, seduced and abused for…nothing?
The sickness returned. I didn’t let it out. I pushed beyond Darius and dove for my wardrobe.
He handed me the outfit he preferred. The skirt did nothing to settle my stomach.
But I had only one way to find out what happened. One way to end the insanity. I’d give Darius one opportunity to tell me the truth, and God help him if he lied.
I wasn’t fighting for my father’s legacy anymore.
I’d thrive on my own revenge.
I didn’t trust Darius, but I followed him to the limo parked outside. He answered a call as soon as the driver had his instructions. I scrunched in my seat as far from him as I could without offering him the satisfaction of watching me squirm.
The road twisted and turned for miles without pavement markings. No cars rumbled near for twenty minutes, and every mile traveled within the wilderness stole another flake of my courage. Darius probably hoped I’d be demoralized by the distance, the isolation.
The joke was on him. I wrecked my own confidence, dashed upon a foolish belief that I could protect myself from his demons.
His phone buzzed again. He brushed a finger over my arm.
“She’s with me.” He hummed. “Consider it a…bring your daughter to work day.”
“Get off of me,” I hissed.
Darius smirked and ended his call. “Your brother. Checking up on you.”
I didn’t ask which one. It didn’t matter. I guessed. Darius sneered.
“You fucked him more than once, didn’t you, you little slut?”
I didn’t answer.
He chuckled. “Thought you could ensnare him? Thought you’d seduce him, and he’d fall in love with you and releas
e you from our custody?”
“Seduce him? If I recall …” I threaded my words in bitterness. “I was the one tied to the bed.”
“He doesn’t care for you, and he never will. You are nothing but a cunt for Nicholas to fuck.”
So I learned.
I didn’t react.
“You weren’t impregnated this month, my dear.” Darius looped a lock of my hair behind my ear. “But I assure you, my sons were raised with Bennett ambition. We always get what we want.”
I had no reason to doubt him, especially as his eldest son stood at his side. Nicholas could rot in hell, but he was still an ally. I said nothing about our encounters. It’d kill me, but I’d protect him as long as he stole the Bennett Corporation and humiliated his father.
The ride to San Jose prickled with an unsavory silence. I ignored Darius as he answered emails and took calls, but his attention wasn’t on his cell. He stared at me. Searched over my curves. Shifted against the bulge in his pants as we drew nearer to the headquarters.
No matter how much I hated my step-brothers, their desire had been just that. Desire. And in my moments of weakness, I shared it.
But everything Darius did, every word he said, and every breath he took riddled with bestial sadism. The limo parked, and he attempted to take my hand. I leapt out as the driver opened the door.
The Bennett Corporation compound was housed on its own plot of land in the middle of the city—a five story complex of modern architecture and classy design. Enough people wandered the street to make escaping easy, especially as a police officer parked one block away.
Darius took my elbow and squeezed.
“It would be unwise,” he whispered. “Painful to you, and certainly a tragedy on your poor mother. Come with me. Don’t make me regret this trust.”
I didn’t trust him, but I still followed.
A marbled and ostentatious foyer welcomed us into the heart of the Bennett Corporation. Artificial light and chlorine kissed fountains decorated the lobby. The ceilings stretched multiple stories, but they painted it a fake blue. Suits and ties and heels and skirts filled the morning rush of employees to their offices. A stale whiff of coffee permeated from the kiosk parked within an imitation jungle of ferns and flowers.
Was everything the Bennetts touched fake?
When my family went to work, they toiled outside, in the real plants under an honest blue sky and prayed for the water that freely tumbled from the Bennetts’ fountain.
Then again, my father spent more and more time trapped in our company’s offices. And I hadn’t touched soil in years—not when most of my experiments were conducted within the RNA of the crop, not in tilled dirt.
Darius reserved a private elevator as CEO and owner. He pulled me inside, ignoring the nods and well-wished good mornings from his employees. I shuddered as he refused to release my hand.
The elevator moved too slowly. I studied the mirrored panels.
I was still bruised—pale and tiny next to the greying demon that possessed enough strength to overpower me and reveal my rage and grief and damning emotions I tried to hide.
The doors opened. The silence of his private floor descended like another gag stuffed in my mouth. My skin brushed with goose bumps, and every rational thought barraged my head with warnings to stay tucked within the elevator.
“Come with me, my dear.” Darius bargained with blood. “You’ll appreciate this.”
I swallowed, immediately regretting the breath that refused to squeeze from my lungs.
Our steps echoed in the vast hall, and Darius led me to the thick, spanning door that sealed me inside his office. The sterile space existed only for efficiency and business. The windows spanned the entire office, but the stark light that trickled in fell cold upon the black leather furniture.
He offered me a seat before the sprawling executive desk.
He claimed the throne behind it.
And smiled.
“It’s been some time since an Atwood graced my office,” Darius said.
“I’m here. Let’s talk.”
He didn’t offer me coffee or water. His phone blinked on do-not-disturb. I winced as I realized how tightly I crossed my legs.
“I wish to…clear my name,” Darius said. “You believe I am responsible for Mark Atwood’s death.”
“Yes.” I stated it strongly, even as the conviction faded in my head.
“I didn’t.”
I expected as much.
“Nicholas told you about his mother?”
I ground my jaw. “He said that my father hired the man who severed her car’s break line.”
“It’s true.”
“Do you have proof?”
Darius folded his hands. “If I had enough to convict him, he’d be in jail now, rotting away for taking my wife and nearly murdering my sons.”
“I can’t prove you killed my dad, and you can’t prove he killed your wife,” I said. “What’s the point of this? It’s getting us nowhere.”
“My dear, I told you. I wish to clear my name.” Darius stared at me. “And to damn his.”
He ruffled through a file next to his desk and offered me candid pictures of a farm. Photos of alfalfa and corn, potatoes and onions—each plant thriving in a cracked soil that shouldn’t have sustained such quality. He allowed me to read the documentation attached to the file.
“Transgenetic drought-resistant crops grown on an African farming collective.” I flipped the page. “This is a non-profit project?”
Darius nodded. “Keep reading.”
The scientific journals revealed the program’s experiments into a specific genome of the plants they cultivated. My heart fluttered at their results.
Hearty plants, durable crops, seeds that’d withstand arid climates and a product relatively unscathed by the harsh conditions of its growth.
“Similar to your research?” Darius asked.
I wouldn’t rise to his challenge.
“Similar, but not exact,” I said. “It’s what I planned to study when I finished my degree.”
“Yes, it is.” Darius absently studied a photo. “Your father realized it.”
“My father was always interested in my research.”
“No, my dear,” Darius laughed. “He was interested in progress. Profit. Your research was secondary to his goals.”
“You don’t know anything about my father. He committed to R&D because he understood the environmental threats facing the agricultural business in the west.”
“Spun better than a PR department,” he chuckled. “Your father cared only for his own business and farm. Everything he did and every penny he spent was meant to profit only the Atwoods.”
“This research,” I tapped the folder, “and the experiments I did? It’d help everybody.”
“He didn’t help anyone, only himself.” Darius pulled another folder from his desk. “This should be illuminating.”
I opened the folder.
My heart sunk.
“One of your father’s first initiatives was forging an R&D team to study, create, and patent specific genes that would benefit his company. Once the genes were secured and the product created and the money tucked safely within his bank account, he ensured no other laboratory studied anything similar to what he patented.” Darius took a great satisfaction in my trembling. “How many of Atwood’s development products are actually on the market?”
None. I cleared my throat.
“It wasn’t part of our business plan,” I said. “The past few years we focused on the water shortages and droughts. My father got sick, and we didn’t have the initiative we needed to…to…”
“Benefit every farmer in southern California? To offer products and produce that would revolutionize agriculture?”
“The science was new. My father didn’t understand it.”
“Yes, he did. Your father knew exactly what the science meant. And that’s why he squashed it.”
The folder trembled in my hand. I
continued reading.
The farming collective with their beautiful plants and healthy, lovely vegetables.
Sued and dismantled for patent violations.
I thumbed through the rest of the papers. Not just one project squashed.
Dozens.
Non-profit companies and university research.
Small labs and large industries.
Individuals.
Charities.
When someone researched anything even remotely similar to our patents and developments, Dad descended with an army of lawyers and dozens of lawsuits claiming our work had been infringed.
The most recent suit stabbed through my chest. The African initiative—a non-profit attempting to stop hunger and grant sustainability to rural and desperate villages—sued, dismantled, and pending restitution.
Dad cited my research as the cause to shut them down.
He used my name.
“Your father knew the value of that research. He also knew how pivotal it would become.” Darius leaned over the desk. “But why release a revolutionary product before the market is sufficiently desperate?”
“No.” I seized a breath. “This was just…protecting the research. He wouldn’t have hid it. He was sick. He couldn’t take on this many projects. But if he hadn’t died—”
“Sarah, he planned to sit on your projects and the science that would literally save hundreds of thousands of lives from hunger.”
“It’s not true.”
“Like a proper businessman, Mark Atwood knew he’d earn more from the products when they were in demand. Ever wonder why your father invested so much in political super PACs and organizations? Those groups lobbied for farmers’ tax breaks, subsidies, and all the irrigation water they needed to drown their drought-ridden lands with water-demanding crops despite the harsh environment not supporting their product.”
Darius plucked the folder from my hands and replaced it in his desk. “Your father planned to wring southern California dry, profit from the crops he sent overseas to rot in storage, and patent and hide the one solution that would ease the demand on the environment and provide hungry people around the world the means to feed themselves.”
I trembled.
“Sarah!” Dad was mad. I hid in the doorway. He’d shout just as loudly if I approached his desk or waited in my room. “You worked on our research in the university lab!”
