by Lana Grayson
I tasted the profanity on my tongue, undignified and rich with venom.
I didn’t have a chance to say it.
“Darius, darling!”
I recognized the voice, that melodic, southern softness. For twenty years, that voice praised and comforted, mourned and wailed, but I never heard it call so lovingly for Darius Bennett.
Nicholas took my wrist if only to prevent me from crumbling to the floor in a mess of silk and chiffon. I stared at the thinning woman gliding over the ballroom.
“Mom?”
My mother eagerly kissed Darius, smiling at him with a grin that tore through my gut.
She never once looked at Dad like that.
“Oh, Sprout!” She extended her arms for a hug. “I had no idea you’d be here!”
Me either. I couldn’t move.
“Go on, my dear,” Darius said. “Give your mother a hug.”
The monster bound me to my shame with knotted ropes then led me to the one woman who had no idea of the danger he posed.
I didn’t care.
Mom was there. She was okay. She wasn’t hurt.
I collapsed in her arms.
She had lost weight, but the depression wasn’t entirely Darius’s fault, not when the funerals, pills, and empty house did more harm than anyone. Her eyes puffed with dark circles, but she covered them with enough makeup and false charm to hide her grief.
But her smile.
That was genuine.
And I didn’t realize how much I missed it until it aimed for Darius.
“Isn’t she just lovely?” She asked.
Darius nodded. “Takes after her mother.”
“Oh, you cad.”
I didn’t release her. “Mom, are you okay?”
“Of course, darling. I’m enjoying your brother’s wonderful party.”
I hugged her again, whispering in her ear. “Mom, really. You can tell me.”
“Sarah, what’s gotten into you?” She laughed. “You act like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Nicholas and Max mercifully remained silent. I tried again.
“Mom, I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Oh, hush, Sprout. It hasn’t been that long.”
My chest ached. “It’s been almost three months since…I left for the Bennett Estate.”
“Three months? Couldn’t be.”
“You haven’t seen me since then…even when I was in the hospital.”
“The hospital? For what?”
Nicholas took my hand. I was grateful. Mom frowned in confusion.
Darius kissed her temple. “Her asthma, remember? We took care of it though. Our daughter is good as new. And her brothers have tended to her needs.”
Vile.
Wicked.
Bastard.
“Poor thing,” Mom said. “Always did have such dreadful attacks. Mark hated it.”
“She’s safe with us. I told you I’d look after her.”
“Hopefully, she hasn’t been too much trouble.”
“Little Sprout?” Darius grinned. “Oh, she’s earned a very important spot in our family.”
She laughed, but her amusement bled with fatigue. Her hands trembled as she accepted a glass of champagne from a passing waitress. Darius carefully replaced it with a club soda instead. Mom drank without realizing the difference.
“Bethany—you can’t have alcohol with the new medication.”
“Right, right. So hard to remember these things.”
He brushed her hand. “I’ll remember for you, my love.”
This was sick and wrong.
The woman before me was a shell of my mother, and the bastard at her side prayed on her depression. He couldn’t love Mom. He used her for the money and company he never received. Now he bartered my body for her safety.
But she loved him.
Christ, if she only saw the monster he really was.
But I knew better. If she learned the one man she had left in the world was a demon who abused her only surviving child?
It’d destroy her.
Whatever remained of her.
“Oh, Nicholas, don’t you look dashing?” Mom teased him with a pat to his cheek. “And Max? I hardly recognize you. Sarah, couldn’t you just eat your brothers up?”
Sure, if they didn’t eat me first.
Reed’s timely appearance rescued us. He seized two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter just to force something into Max’s hand. He addressed my mother with pure charisma.
“Bethany.” He didn’t look at me. “I didn’t know you’d be here. Now the party can get started.”
Mom chuckled. She leaned against Darius once more.
“Now I know where he gets his charm.”
The cluster of Bennetts attracted a parade of tuxedos. They descended upon Darius. Nicholas edged between me and a man I remembered from the barbecue, pre-lemonade fiasco.
Bryant.
His greeting was laced with a sweetened threat. He was one of Darius’s primary partners, but something beyond the Bennett Corporation’s feud with my family darkened his gaze.
I didn’t appreciate his Cheshire grin. He stared so hard I feared he’d see the ropes, but he studied only the midline of my dress with a scrutiny unbecoming of a man who didn’t have an apologetic tumbler of hard liquor in his hand.
“So nice to see you again, Sarah Atwood.” He looked at me but spoke to Darius. “She gets prettier by the day.”
“She is a vision,” he agreed.
Nicholas squeezed my elbow. A warning to be cautious?
“How are you, Ms. Atwood?” Bryant asked. “Still enjoying your stay with your brothers?”
“Step-brothers.” Something in his tone demanded the qualification. “And I feel I’ve taken advantage of them for too long. I should return home soon, to be with my mother.”
“Oh, nonsense.” Mom laughed. “I won’t be a burden.”
Darius patted her hand. “Sarah, I can take care of your mother. You need only to focus on yourself. These past months were trying for you.”
“And yet, my stress remains.” I shook free of Nicholas’s arm. “I’m eager to return to work and focus on my company. I have many ideas for Atwood Industries in the coming year.”
And the Bennett Corporation.
Bryant sipped his champagne. “A lot of things can change in a year, Ms. Atwood.”
I didn’t like his tone. Something lingered in his words beyond the usual company arrogance.
Darius agreed. “Look at what happened just this year. Your father, your brothers, the asthma. You must concentrate on what’s important.”
The ropes pained me. I raised my chin. “And what would that be?”
“Family.”
“You can’t put a price on blood,” Bryant said.
I shivered. “But some might try.”
“If it’s in the company’s best interests.”
My stomach flipped. I edged closer to Nicholas.
The creeper’s tone screamed danger. He spoke with a veil over his thoughts but not his amusement. Mom didn’t notice. She pointed through the crowd.
“Now, Sprout…” Mom aimed her attention for a college aged man with tousled hair and a grin with too much tooth. “That’s the Livingston boy. Remember him? Robert?”
I remembered, even if she didn’t. “Richard.”
“Yes, Richard. That’s right. You should go talk to him.”
“Why?”
“He’s premed with a trust fund the size of our back field.”
“What?”
“You should start looking for a nice boy, Sarah.” She took Darius’s hand. “I wish I’d tried harder at your age. Things might have turned out differently.”
Bryant chuckled. “Bethany, don’t go pressuring the girl. I’m sure she’d rather enjoy her family now. Isn’t that right, Nick?”
This time, his words stuck with the subtlety of champagne thrown in my face. I chilled.
Mom shushed him. “Oh, Bryant, yo
u don’t know what it’s like. Both your children are grown and married. I won’t be happy until Sarah finds a nice boy and settles down.”
Bryant grinned. “Eager for those grandbabies?”
Darius slithered his arm over Mom’s shoulder. “Aren’t we all?”
I didn’t like this.
Not at all.
Something was wrong.
Nicholas pulled me from the cluster before they saw my shiver.
“Excuse us,” he said. “This is a party, after all. If Sarah would care to dance…?”
Mom’s aww was unnecessary. “Oh, Nick. And here I thought Reed was the charmer.”
This wasn’t charm. It was necessity. The ropes punished my sore slit and bruised breasts. I could hardly move, let alone dance, but Nicholas pulled me to the floor anyway. He held me like a proper gentleman, but he couldn’t hide me from Darius’s stare.
An entire ballroom or a thousand miles could separate us, and Darius Bennett’s menacing gaze would still find me.
Pin me.
Hurt me.
I squeezed Nicholas’s hand until my fingers turned white.
“You’re hiding something,” I said. “What haven’t you told me?”
He spun me in perfect rhythm, as though we were two friends, two siblings, enjoying the party, the music, the laughter of those admiring an Atwood and Bennett in harmony.
But it wasn’t harmony.
It was discord.
And it broke my heart.
“Darius’s partners know we’ve kidnapped you. They’ve demanded you remain at the estate until we secure the future of your company.”
The lights and music blended into a dizzy blur of noise and pain. I pretended to smile as we swayed to the music.
“How do they know?”
“My father told them.”
“He told them? Everything?”
Nicholas held me tighter. “Everything.”
I tasted the scream, but my lungs collapsed before I uttered a sound. “The Bennett Board of Directors ordered you and your brothers to breed me?”
Nicholas guided me through the dance, but I had no control over my steps. The ropes would hang me now. I couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t let me pull away. I could do nothing while we waltzed within a gala of close friends and allies, social partners and potential investors.
I was trapped.
“You didn’t tell me.” My words weakened as the ropes strangled me beneath my dress. “You didn’t tell Max or Reed.”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“Of course it does!”
“My father involved only the investors he trusts.”
“Nick, those are the ones who hold the majority.”
“Once you inherit the trust, this will be nothing,” he said. “You’ll control the board, regardless of what they’re doing to steal your company.”
Like it would matter.
Like I could face the men who damned me to a life of imprisonment and abuse.
“Don’t pretend, Nick.” My fingers clutched his arms, but it’d be my voice that sharpened enough to draw blood. “You did nothing to stop it. You agreed with the board and did everything they told you to do.”
“To save your life.”
“You haven’t saved me at all.”
I had to get away. The longer I stayed in his embrace, the more likely I’d collapse against him and use his strength instead of my own.
He had captured me that way once.
It wouldn’t happen again.
“I thought your father was evil. If I had known your entire company was this demented, I’d have set my farm on fire just to end this insanity.”
“Sarah—”
I couldn’t escape Nicholas’s arms. He led me into a swaying circle as though he planned for the dip in the music and charming swirl. “You kept this from us.”
“If Reed and Max knew, they might have attacked the board. Who knows what my father would have done.” He paused. “And I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“Well, I am frightened!” I searched his honeyed eyes for anything to protect me from the madness. “If they would plan my rape, they would plan my murder.”
“I won’t let it happen.”
But he let everything happen. He read my expression, and the truth slashed us both with regret, remorse, and despair.
I mourned the trust he’d never earn.
So did he.
“I have to stop this,” I said.
“If they suspect you know anything—”
“They’ll what? Inject me with fertility drugs? Force me to have sex with my three step-brothers? Let Darius beat me any time I try to fight? What else can they do to me?”
“Kill you.”
“Only if I don’t fight back.”
Our dance continued.
But my heart shattered.
The Bennetts didn’t know what happened when an Atwood was pushed past their limit.
Dad ignored me in favor of my brothers, but I inherited as much tenacity as Josiah or Mike. We would ring the sky for rain and tear through the earth to destroy any weed that strangled our crop.
The Bennett Corporation was the very definition of a weed. They were a coiling, tangling, worthless infection of rot that stole the sun from everything good and pure. They’d be ripped from the soil and cast in the heat to bake and wither.
Darius Bennett roamed the gala like a damned champion of charity and generosity. He was respected because of his name and status and where he sat in the board room.
I had surrendered to the Bennetts for long enough. Now it was my turn to take what I deserved. Justice wouldn’t cleanse my wounds. I demanded vengeance. I’d steal everything that was Darius’s and cast it into hell with him. And I knew just how to do it.
Roman Wescott.
I’d find him. Earn his vote. Secure the trust.
I’d free myself from my imprisonment.
Because I couldn’t depend on anyone else to do it for me.
“Good evening, everyone!” Reed took to the stage as the music ended. “I’m Reed Bennett, and I’d personally like to welcome you all to the 15th annual Bennett Foundation Charity Gala.”
The audience applauded. I stayed at Nicholas’s side, though I didn’t know if the ropes or his presence hurt me more.
“Just a little history for you guys,” Reed said. “My family started this charity when my brothers and I were children. I was eight years old when my mother was killed in a terrible car accident, and my brother and I were severely injured. Fortunately, my family is blessed with the resources to handle such traumatic events, including our numerous surgeries and long recovery.”
My chest tightened. What recovery? Darius subjected Reed to dozens of plastic surgeries to reduce the scarring to his face to preserve the Bennett image. Max should have lost his leg. Had his father been compassionate, he wouldn’t have lived in agony.
“Many families aren’t as fortunate as mine, and they need help to cover the costs of an unexpected emergency. The Bennett Foundation is in place to help those families focus on what’s important—healing, recovering, and getting children home where they belong.”
The gala clapped. Reed waved away the applause.
“Before we begin tonight, I have some good news to share,” he said. “The Foundation is pleased to announce we’ve already raised seven hundred thousand dollars, and our auction hasn’t even begun.”
Another applause, only this time, a man near the stage waved his hand.
“It’s for a good cause. I’ll give another ten thousand now!”
Reed winked. “What a totally generous and completely unplanted offer from Mr. Benjamin Hart.”
Another hand rose, this time a rugged, frightening man who didn’t belong in a tuxedo called out to Reed. “Fifteen thousand to my godson!”
Reed nodded. “And fifteen thousand from Tovial Aren, my godfather. Make sure you all bid on the Harley that Tovial and the Temple MC donated f
or the auction. This year, the bike actually has a VIN number!”
The gala laughed as Tovial curled a fist at his godson. Reed held up a hand to speak.
“In all seriousness. I’d like to thank our largest donors for their generosity. Of course, I have to recognize my father, Darius Bennett.”
The room exploded with applause. My stomach turned. He listed three other names, though only one dug into my mind like a bullet through my skull.
“Roman Wescott,” Reed announced. “You’ve always been a great supporter of this charity.”
The bindings either tightened or my asthma threatened me. Reed gestured to a photographer.
“Actually, if you all wouldn’t mind coming to the front for a picture.”
Two of the benefactors eagerly parted from their friends for a chance to gloat their generosity in the newspaper. Roman declined, though the cheers of the crowd pulled him from the back of the room.
My heart thunked with every step he took. Nicholas gripped my elbow.
“Don’t,” he warned. “Whatever you’re planning, don’t.”
“I’m not allowed to mingle?”
“No.”
“Your rule or your father’s?”
“Can’t it be both?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me.”
I meant it to hurt, but he was right. Neither of them would let me speak with the one investor who could award the Josmik Trust early. But if he didn’t see me now, Darius would stuff me into the limo and only the devil could predict what he’d do when I was imprisoned behind his walls once more.
I wasn’t waiting for Nicholas to earn his support. Not now. Not anymore.
This was my only opportunity.
I sucked in as deep a breath as the bindings allowed. My arm surged into the air.
“I’ll donate two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!”
The gala silenced.
Nicholas released me.
“Atwood Industries gives two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!”
“I…” Reed’s shock stole his confidence. What others would assume was excitement, I knew was dread. Because I felt it too. Darius’s prickling stare burned through me. “And two hundred and fifty thousand dollars from Sarah Atwood my, uh, supremely generous step-sister.”
The applause started stunned, but all attention turned to me. I did as Dad taught and accepted their cheers with the grace inherent to the Atwoods.
Nicholas stiffened. His voice growled, low.
