by Lana Grayson
Only once. I entered the results, that was all. Dad raged, running his hand over a bald head. He forgot he lost his hair to the chemo last week.
“It was just an Excel sheet,” I said. “I’m sorry, Dad.”
“Never take our work out of the lab!” He didn’t have the energy to slam a fist on the table. He could hardly even raise his voice. “If the school finds it—”
“They won’t.”
“If they find it, they’ll claim it for themselves. Any work done within the University is their property! You could have cost this family millions, Sarah! Billions!”
“I…I didn’t mean to.”
“You never mean to.” He sighed. “Sarah, I don’t know how you’re ever going to help this family when I’m gone.”
“Dad, you aren’t dying.”
“Good. Because I certainly can’t trust you, now can I?”
“You can. I promise.”
He waved a shaking hand. “It’s fine, Sprout. I should have expected this. Just be more careful and go to bed.”
I didn’t let him see me cry.
“I’m sorry, Dad. I love you.”
“Yeah. Goodnight.”
Darius’s smile only grew.
“Your father was ruthless, my dear. He was violent. Vindictive. And he was obsessed with my family. The car crash was only one opportunity he took to harm us. Our warehouses were constantly damaged with vandalism and violence. One of his migrant workers was to be charged after he attempted arson on a fertilizer factory in Texas. Do you know what happened when he was arrested?”
My voice weakened. “My father had him deported too?”
“Your father had him murdered in his jail cell.”
No.
I clutched the arm of the chair as Darius laughed.
“You didn’t know your father at all, did you, my dear?”
I closed my eyes. It didn’t help. The room swirled and tilted, and I suffered through a wavering breath that did nothing to ease the strain building in my chest.
Was it true? Nicholas’s pain was too real, and Anthony’s warning too abrupt.
I searched through reluctant memories.
Dad’s late nights at the office.
The patents he forced me to file.
Mom’s arguments. The time she tried to leave. The black eye when he didn’t let her.
He taught me nothing about the business.
He never included me in meetings.
He posed for pictures only with Josiah and Mike.
He hadn’t named me in his will.
God. What the hell had I done?
I adopted his work ethic and ambition, but I inherited something worse. His hatred. I shared his every loathing heartbeat for the Bennetts, and, in my blindness, I trapped myself in their grasp.
Darius rose from the desk. He circled behind me, but I didn’t notice until his hands rested upon my shoulders.
The goose bumps returned. I shrugged, but it didn’t cast him away.
“I understand. It’s difficult to hear.”
And he loved every second of my torment. The breaking of my heart was a far more effective punishment than any gag or flogger or bindings.
His fingers pressed hard.
I stiffened.
“And now you see why we have taken you in. Given you a new family.”
I swallowed. “Don’t twist it. You kidnapped me.”
“Only to do what must be done.” He petted my hair. “Your father spent his life attempting to suppress the Bennett Corporation. It’s time we had our revenge and take what is due to us.”
“Your fight was with him. I’ve done nothing to your family.”
“Sins of the father…” Darius chuckled. “My dear, I’ve been lenient with you, if only because I anticipated it would be difficult for such a young girl to understand her new place in this family.” His fingers dug into me. “No longer, Sarah. You have a very important role to play for my sons, and I will not accept any further disobedience.”
“If you think I’ll let any of this happen without a fight, you’re as insane as you are cruel.”
“Cruel? I haven’t been cruel yet.”
I didn’t have time to prepare. The backhand blinded me. I stumbled, but Darius caught me before I tumbled from the chair.
It wasn’t a kindness.
He forced me over his desk.
The shock of the wood struck under my lungs, prying the air from me in a painful wretch. Darius pulled my hair and slammed my head against the desk as I twisted to escape.
The slam blitzed me with pain. I stilled. Blinked. Heaved.
Nothing came out.
A darkness warred with the light from his windows.
“Since the beginning, you’ve been a nuisance in my household,” Darius hissed. “I’ve given you too much freedom, and you’ve bewitched my sons. They’ve taken pity on you. It ends now.”
“Maybe your sons aren’t monsters.”
“Maybe they didn’t fuck you enough.” Darius’s strike wasn’t a spank. He meant to hurt. I lurched over the desk, but he spoke over my shout. “Your life is going to change, Sarah. We were benevolent, but you didn’t show the proper gratitude.”
“You beat me.”
“I didn’t kill you.” He leaned over me, his breath foul against my face. “I offer you my generosity, and in return? You refused to give me a grandson. That disappoints me.”
“Get used to it.”
“I will not rest until you are swollen, broken, and pregnant.”
“I’ll kill you before that happens.”
“Like father, like daughter.” He sighed. “You only respond to violence.”
His hands groped my hips. His touch was nothing like the gentle brush of his sons’ exploration. He gripped me.
The sickness rose again. I batted his hands away with a shriek. He ripped my hair back.
“You’ve been a naughty girl, my dear.” Darius slapped my ass again, eager to listen for my screaming. I didn’t recognize my fear or my frantic cries when he pitched my skirt up and pulled my panties to my knees. “Your father should have taught you better manners. Not to worry. Your new Daddy will help you become a proper little whore.”
I fought against the desk but earned only another brutal strike that seared me with hot tears. I kicked. Darius dodged. A third strike.
“Let go of me!” I struggled. He hit again. I shrieked. “Don’t touch me!”
Why was I even screaming?
Why was I wasting air?
Darius had no respect for me, and his grip bound me with every evil he promised. I tensed for another swipe. He beat my head against the desk, laughing as the force echoed in his office. The pain cracked through me. I weakened, and my vision darkened.
It wouldn’t be enough.
It would never be enough to dull the horror of what Darius planned.
Agony burst within my chest. The panic surged with an instant asthma attack, and I wheezed against my futile scream. His fingers prodded. I squeezed my eyes shut.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
They had promised. Each one of them.
Reed swore he’d protect me like a real brother.
Max vowed he’d be the only one who would ever hurt me.
And Nicholas?
Darius forced a finger in me with a grunted profanity. The sensation nauseated me.
Nicholas said I would belong to him.
I was his.
He promised it, again and again. He whispered it while I was in his arms and he growled it while he came inside me, filling me with his every devotion.
I was supposed to be his.
Darius spat. The hot spittle trickled over my skin. He withdrew his hand only to force the wetness between my legs.
I struggled.
No.
Not between my legs.
He didn’t aim for my slit.
“I took a vow with your mother.”
Darius caressed my hips, my curves, my b
ehind. Every touch prickled like a thousand needles, burned like spilled wax, and ached like his relentless strikes.
What he planned would hurt far worse.
“I won’t disrespect her honor by knocking up my step-daughter.”
“So don’t hurt me,” I whispered.
“You only seem to understand your place when you’re imbedded on a cock.” Darius hauled me up by my hair. His sausage fingers pressed hard against a part of me that hadn’t been touched. I never wanted to be touched there. A shiver rolled over my spine. “This lesson will benefit us both. I love to hear an Atwood scream.”
His finger jammed inside that most vulnerable part of me.
And I screamed.
God, did I scream.
The violation was nothing like what my step-brothers forced upon me. Where their touches had been passionate and meant to tease, Darius intended to rip me apart from the inside.
The tears fell and my whimpering begging filled the office. I swatted at his arms, twisted from his grip to escape.
His hold on my hair was too harsh. He ripped out of me only to spit again, forcing his wetness over my budded entrance. He shifted.
His zipper tugged down.
My mind splintered.
I screamed, even without the invasion of his finger.
He liked that, but I didn’t know what else to do.
Darius Bennett wanted me to suffer, and he’d deliver that torment with his cock. He’d brutalize and sodomize me for his own perverse enjoyment.
I’d never known a fear like this.
Not when I watched the smoldering wreckage of my brothers’ plane crash on the news.
Not while my step-brothers chased me through the city streets and wrecked my car within the desolate stretch of my family’s property.
Not even when I realized how badly it hurt that Nicholas abandoned me.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t breathe.
I clutched the desk as though it were the only means to protect me, but the arresting terror wouldn’t let me escape. The desk angled my hips up for Darius. In my horror, I offered him every access to a part of me that should have never been touched.
I pleaded with Darius to fuck me anywhere but there.
“This won’t be pleasant for you.” His words already crawled within me, twisting and clawing a way for the rest of him to enter. “But from now on, nothing will be pleasant for you. The sooner you realize, the easier your life will become.”
The fat head of his cock pushed against me so suddenly I had no time to fight.
My nail splintered as I tried to claw away.
His hips thrust forward. My body refused in a wave of nauseating pain. He smacked my ass and tried again.
The agony shredded through me.
My scream begged for mercy, but Darius managed only to hurt me, not to imbed himself. He swore and ground against my hips.
My vision darkened.
Why wouldn’t I just pass out?
My world would end in incomprehensible misery.
I didn’t understand the shouting. Darius jerked, releasing me before any of his grotesque length sullied my violated body.
I scrambled away, hauling myself over the desk and across the polished wood in a blaze of utter panic. The floor captured me as I tumbled. I kicked my panties away before they tangled around my ankles.
I collapsed against the wall and tugged my skirt down, down, down.
Nicholas pitched Darius into his chair and slammed a fist against his jaw. Darius spit a tooth onto the floor.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” He yelled. “You can hear her screaming from the elevator!”
Darius roared, but Nicholas punched again. He seethed, leering over his father with a menace I didn’t recognize. I curled into a tight ball and shuddered.
“Do you want everyone in this building to know you’re raping your step-daughter?” He heaved an unsteady breath. “They’ll call the police, haul her off, and we’ll lose her for-fucking-ever?” Nicholas seized a handful of Darius’s suit and shook. “How the hell would we survive then?”
The coldness damned me.
Nicholas saved me.
But for what?
To protect me? To spare me pain? To take me as his?
Or to ensure his investment hadn’t been compromised?
I stumbled to my feet. Darius sneered at me—disappointed he hadn’t rutted me into pained, ruined submission.
“She misbehaved.”
“Then let Max handle it before you kill her and jeopardize the entire company.”
Nicholas kicked his father’s chair. He rolled, striking the window.
Not nearly hard enough. He deserved nothing but broken glass and a ten story fall to Hell.
“I’m taking her home,” Nicholas growled. “Put your cock away. You almost cost us everything.”
Nicholas gripped my arm. I struggled, but the panic and pain, exhaustion and utter terror leaded my reactions. I wept as the door closed. Darius sealed inside, trapped in his own frustration and sadism.
The elevator closed. Nicholas didn’t release me.
I hadn’t expected his kiss.
I didn’t think I’d warm to his touch.
I never knew he could be so gentle.
He cupped my cheeks and shuddered, dropping his forehead against mine and surrendering to a trembled fear that rivaled my own.
“Jesus, Sarah.” He kissed me again. I clutched at his arms. “You have to stop me, and you have to stop me now.”
“Stop you?”
“Tell me you need me. Ask me to hold you. Beg me to stay.”
I stared into his eyes, lost in the protective gold. “Why?”
His breath panted in raw agony.
“Because if you let me go, I’ll kill my fucking father for hurting you.”
23
Nicholas
Rage.
I never experienced true rage before.
This was worse than anger. More violent than wrath. Less civilized than madness.
Hearing her scream iced my core. Witnessing how he tried to violate her clawed through everything composed, guarded, and rational inside me.
I hit him.
And it felt good.
It wasn’t enough.
I had never wanted blood before—not even when my mother died in front of me and my brothers howled in agony. Then, I wanted what all Bennetts craved.
Retribution. Justice. Revenge.
But I never murdered.
Not until my father touched what wasn’t his, hurt what he had no right to harm, and attempted to take what I’d already claimed.
Sarah refused my help until we reached the safety of my Mercedes. I helped her into the seat. She grimaced as she repositioned her skirt over her thighs.
We left her panties in my father’s office.
If I wasn’t careful, I’d wreck the car in a fit of unbridled fury.
I clutched the wheel but took her hand before she cowered too far from me. I kissed her delicate fingers. She trembled, but her breathing worried me even more, especially as she wasted her breath on crass insults reserved for my father.
I hated that I hadn’t cared enough for the woman in my possession to learn the signs and triggers of her illness. That was my fault.
“How is your asthma?” I asked. “Can you last until we’re home?”
“My home?” She shivered, but the steel in her eyes hardened the blue into refined grey.
Her life would be nothing but disappointment caused by my cowardice.
“No.”
Sarah’s lip quivered. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”
I doubted it, but I knew better than to argue with Sarah Atwood.
The silence pierced my head in a migraine of regret. The fear still held me. I’d forever endure nightmares about what might have happened. Reality finally struck both of us. She realized her fate. I saw what would become of my beautiful, brave Sarah once my father sated his l
ust.
The one thing she asked of us was to protect her from my father.
I failed her.
I should have protected her. She wasn’t hurt because I was too preoccupied with my own plans for her and my company. My father hadn’t outplayed us. I wasn’t weak or out of options.
I failed Sarah because I hid from her.
Nothing used to frighten me in this world, not when I had the wealth, power, and ambition to overcome any challenge. But I met my match.
I surrendered to Sarah Atwood.
She bound me so tightly in beauty and gentleness and grace I’d relinquished every means of escape. Her words teased. Her lips enthralled. Her body tempted.
My enemy. My opponent. My step-sister.
She’d forever destroy what had been the Bennett Empire, and, for the first time, I didn’t care.
I lost myself within her, and I’d give my name, my inheritance, and my last breath just for a chance to hold, taste, and love her.
Even if it was only for the fleeting moments while I kept her captive in my life.
I trapped her at the estate, scooping her into my arms and carrying her into her prison. She squirmed. She wanted to scrape her pride together, patchwork but functional. How she always survived.
Sarah protested, but her fingers curled into my suit. She held on as tight to me as I clung to her.
I’d never let her go again.
I hadn’t allowed her to trespass in my wing or explore my suite, and I didn’t grant her the opportunity now. I locked the door behind us and delivered her right to my bed.
Sarah trembled in the center of the classic poster bed—king sized for me but absurdly large for my captured fairy. She sunk onto the black sheets, her hair the only bit of pale brightness I’d permit in my bedroom. She glowed within the dark walls and draperies. My decor didn’t suit the little farm girl clutching the blankets. Then again, nothing inside the Bennett estate did. Sarah adapted to everything we forced upon her—her room, her schedule, her body.
I approached, cupping her face and studying the damned bruises that stained her perfect skin.
Who could mar such beauty?
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Can you forgive me?”
Sarah straddled the edge even when no one challenged her. She wept with desperation, but her voice hardened with every foolish resistance she reserved for me.
