Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

  7

  Sarah

  Reed tapped a page in the baby book. “Hey, Sarah. Did you know—right now—your uterus is the size of a grapefruit?”

  I burst into tears.

  “Nice job.” Max ate his spaghetti but passed me the box of tissues. I grabbed one, but the last tissue pulled out too. I couldn’t reach it before it floated to the floor.

  Wasting that tissue was the worst thing that had ever happened to me.

  The tears kept coming.

  “Whoa.” Reed stuck a knife in his book to mark his place. “Chapter four warned about the mood swings. Probably should have been in chapter one.”

  He picked up the tissue and knelt beside my chair. The kitchen table was stocked with every variety of fruit, vegetable, ice cream, and pasta dish, but between the incessant crying and nausea, nothing set right with me except that box of tissues, and now they were gone, and I was pretty sure I went insane sometime in the last week.

  “Sorry, Sarah.” Reed rubbed my arm. “Your uterus is lovely.”

  He brushed lower, massaging my elbow before drifting to take my palm. He didn’t reach it. His hand circled my wrist.

  Then I did remember the worst thing to happen to me.

  And the disgust and shame disguised itself as morning sickness. I bolted to the bathroom.

  Max called after me. “There’s another box of tissues under the sink.”

  Great.

  Just what I needed.

  I made it two months without breaking down. Two months of strength, courage, and the mental fortitude to survive an attack from that monster.

  And I cried over a box of tissues.

  Also because I wanted scrambled eggs, but the color, smell, taste, texture, and birthing process of eggs now nauseated me.

  I wept over the sun rise in the morning, and then again later while thinking about the sunrise that morning. I freaked out when Reed offered me his spot on the couch when all I wanted to do was pout while standing because I couldn’t decide if I had to use the bathroom or if I needed a nap.

  And at night, I muffled my sobs in the pillow because Nicholas respected my wishes and hadn’t returned to my bedroom since the day I first arrived.

  That wasn’t hormones. That was legitimate heartbreak.

  I didn’t want him with me. I couldn’t imagine spending another night without him.

  It was a mistake to return, but after another asthma attack landed my butt on the couch with my step-brothers hovering with medicines, water, and Lamaze breathing instructions courtesy of Reed’s damn baby book, I made the right decision. For the moment, this was my safest place.

  I finally had a full-night’s sleep, but, when I woke, I was more alone than when I was running hotel to hotel.

  It had to be Nicholas’s baby.

  So why was I fighting him?

  I didn’t bother returning to the kitchen. Reed built his house with junk food —prepackaged meals and snacks and everything easy to toss into a bag before heading to the beach. None of it looked or smelled good. It was best to avoid food.

  I snuck back to my room. Why did a baby the size of a walnut make me so damn tired? I hadn’t read beyond my current What To Expect From Week Eleven part of the baby book, but I hoped once the kid started to look more human and less tadpole it’d stop draining my energy.

  I’d need it.

  Especially tonight.

  At least I wasn’t showing, even with my grapefruit uterus. I double-checked the little black cocktail dress to ensure it hid every secret.

  The baby wasn’t visible, but the rest of Sarah Atwood sure was. I gaped at the mirror as Nicholas knocked against the door frame.

  He noticed too.

  “I need a shawl.” I turned to the side. My chest busted out of the neckline. We were beyond full or perky. “This looks a little vulgar.”

  “Wow.” Nicholas cleared his throat. “You look beautiful.”

  I wasn’t prepared for his compliments, and I flinched at his touch. I twisted away before his fingers brushed my arms. The rush of adrenaline only aggravated me.

  The memories would stop drowning me at some point.

  Right?

  It had to end. I’d let myself bawl over a tissue, but I couldn’t reveal what happened. It was done, and I’d deal with it the way we should have months ago.

  By punishing the one responsible.

  Nicholas dressed in a designer suit, tailor cut to his frame of muscle, strength, and confidence. He held himself with the utmost poise, smiled with an endless reserve of patience, and behaved as a perfect gentleman despite the parts of me that plumped in a suddenly-sexy dress. He offered me two gifts from his jacket pocket.

  A small bag of ginger candy for my nausea and a personal pack of tissues.

  “We’ll leave shortly,” Nicholas said. “But we’re only staying at the art gallery for a few minutes.”

  I timidly sucked on a candy. Ginger wasn’t my favorite, but it did soothe my roiling stomach.

  “We have to be there for the unveiling.” I held Nicholas’s gaze. The amber sharpness was the only feature he didn’t inherit from Darius. “The artist was best friends with Josiah and Mike. They commissioned the painting right before the accident. I never imagined Atlas would finish it, not after…”

  “I understand.”

  Of course he did, and that made it worse. I couldn’t think of my brothers without imagining the terrible video footage Darius forced me to watch. I’d rather a hundred nights of what he did over witnessing another second of their deaths.

  I hid in a shawl as best I could. It didn’t work. Reed hooted the instant I rounded the corner. I squirmed under the attention, but pretended he flattered me. Neither Reed nor Max wore jackets, but they rocked the slacks and vests, clinging perfectly to Max’s bulging muscles and Reed’s leaner build. We burst back into the public eye in style, which is what I wanted. A unified front.

  We took a private plane to Cherrywood Valley, and a limo delivered us past the acres of my cornfields. My step-brothers offered as many tissues as I needed, but I would never weep over my farm, not when it was still undeniably in my possession.

  The limo pulled to the curb outside the retro-styled, remodeled factory-turned-art gallery. The artist in question, the famed Atlas Chase, preferred his art displayed in a…more rustic neighborhood. I doubted the warehouse workers or the bikers in the nefarious bar, Pixie, cared for his modern art. But Atlas never feared the darker parts of society.

  He once told me if it could be painted, it had value. Even a shadow, a splash of blood, a bruise…

  A grave had the most value of all.

  He had designed Josiah and Mike’s headstones.

  Nicholas offered his hand to emerge from the limo, but I couldn’t. I needed a moment. A second. A minute. It was the first time I’d appear in public since the attack, and if the simmering agoraphobia wasn’t bad enough, now my thoughts rolled with memories of my brothers.

  They gave me all the time I needed.

  “—Josiah and Mike tell me to watch in case Dad comes home. And I’m four, I have no idea what they’re doing in his liquor cabinet.” I abandoned my dinner to tell the story. My step-brothers continued to eat. “They grab his Macallan bottle and poured it into a half empty two-liter of Dr. Pepper.”

  “Classy,” Reed said.

  “I know, right? But then they start fighting, and they didn’t watch me. I liked soda, but Mom never let me have any. Said it’d rot my brain.” The irony was not lost on me. “I start chugging this bottle not realizing what’s in it. Mike catches me, but it’s too late. I am now a drunk, four-year old asthmatic, wobbling around the house just before my family hosted Senator Ruby for dinner.” I hummed. “Don’t remember much else, but it was the only time I’ve been drunk. Dad was m-a-d.”

  Dad was always mad, but the memory warmed me. I pushed the mashed potatoes around my plate and admitted what wasn’t really a secret.

  “I miss my brothers.”

&nb
sp; Nicholas nodded. Max left the table without a word.

  “You guys never got into trouble like that?” I asked.

  Reed exhaled. “We had that dangerous streak beaten out of us. We wouldn’t have gotten a little sister drunk.” He elbowed me. “Apparently, we fuck our sisters instead.”

  “Fantastic.”

  An aggravated shout insulted the Bennetts.

  I groaned as the dark-haired troublemaker in black wagged a finger at the limo. Atlas wasn’t as large as Max, but he was more agile than Reed, and his confidence erupted from raw talent instead of Nicholas’s accumulated power. Every part of him appeared chiseled under the most talented artist’s hand—which was probably his. He was as handsome now as I remembered him when I was little.

  “Oh, no.” Atlas spoke through a grin, but his words might have crumbled the gallery into dust. “Private party, gentlemen. You aren’t invited here.”

  Nicholas offered to shake his hand. Atlas slapped it away.

  “I don’t want any Bennett slime dripping over my art.”

  Max snorted. “Out of our fucking way, Picasso.”

  “Not a chance. You aren’t welcome here.”

  Oh, Christ. Another Atwood/Bennett turf war in the middle of the street. Not the best publicity as more limos pulled along the curb. I slipped from the backseat before I could untangle my shawl, but I prevented Max from planting his good leg and earning a misdemeanor.

  “Atlas, they’re with me.”

  He didn’t recognize me at first, at least, not surrounded by Bennetts.

  His jaw dropped. “Sprout?”

  Max swore as Atlas swung me in his arms for a hug—exactly the type he used to give me when I was still pint-sized and begging to watch movies with my older brothers and their friends. Hell, Atlas was like a third big brother. Even called me by my nickname, despite the frown tugging on Nicholas’s lips.

  “I didn’t think you’d come,” he said.

  “Sorry I didn’t RSVP. I’ve been traveling a bit.”

  “You are always welcome, Sarah.” Atlas eyed my entourage. “What’s with your…friends?”

  “Long story. But it’s okay.”

  He wrapped an arm over my shoulders, guiding me away from my step-brothers and into the gallery. “I have your brothers’ painting.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Good. They’d be happy.”

  The silence dropped between us like it had at their funerals, when it hurt too much to even breathe. He held me close.

  “Not the same without them.”

  I nodded, refusing to cry.

  Atlas offered me a tour through his sleek exhibit. He utilized every quirky space within the factory. Abstract paintings hung on the stairs, leading to a loft above and the open floor below. The murals featured spotlights which lit and shadowed the canvas with as much care as Atlas took to splash the paint. This I expected.

  What surprised me was the string quartet, led by a blonde violinist rocking a modernized, dub-step rendition of Bach. Waiters in tails serving hors d’oeuvres passed between formally dressed socialites.

  Atlas offered me a glass of champagne, and I wasn’t sure how to refuse without questions.

  “You hate all this fancy, pretentious stuff,” I whispered. “Said us elites never understood your work.”

  “I do hate it.” He winked and gestured over his posh guests. “But you all love me.”

  He frowned as a woman in a headset waved to him. He downed the champagne.

  “Looks like I have a sale. Go see the painting, Sprout. I have it in the far corner.” A crease formed in his forehead. He looked away. “Didn’t want everyone gawking at it.”

  He offered only a half-hearted nod to my step-brothers. The gallery applauded as he crossed the floor to greet an older man enamored by a soft painting of a nude woman tangled in flowing silk.

  “He’s…friendly,” Reed said.

  I pretended to be interested in my champagne. “He’s loyal to my family. He was best friends with my brothers, and he understood exactly how much trouble Darius caused the farm.”

  “He has a particular style.” Nicholas admired a painted image of a naked woman captured and struggling within bands of light. “It’s a theme, apparently.”

  Max pointed to his favorite—a darker canvas featuring a woman completely restrained in ropes. “I like it.”

  I was certain all of my step-brothers enjoyed these particular desires. I flushed.

  “Just his style. Everything is sensual with Atlas.” I bit my lip, glancing over the gallery. “I used to have such a crush on him when I was younger.”

  Reed rolled his eyes. “So that’s why we’re here. Better learn how to sketch, Nick.”

  I said nothing, avoiding the conversation to search for the commissioned painting. It wasn’t hard to find. In a room filled with carnal poses and vibrant, passionate murals, the lone landscape reserved a place of honor.

  “That’s your farm,” Reed said.

  I stared at the brushes of green, strokes of gold, and bursting reds. The corn, the barn, and house. It was all there, in picture perfect quality. Despite the hundreds of thousands of acres spread over California and the cattle ranches in Nevada, that farmhouse, that little section of soil, crop, and sky was everything my brothers and I believed our family was.

  It wasn’t about the money or the governmental lobbyists or the charity events.

  It was about the land.

  The painting showed a simplicity that no longer existed. My family was destroyed. My future threatened. My innocence stolen.

  It wasn’t an end, just another challenge. My family didn’t thrive because it was easy. My ancestors tilled every acre by hand, harvested crops in hail storms, and drew strength from the sun-parched, drought-stricken dirt. Every hardship was an opportunity to survive.

  My life was suddenly one hell of an opportunity.

  Max’s graveled question wasn’t meant as a warning, but my body laced with a chilled sickness.

  “What the hell is he doing here?”

  I didn’t look.

  After that night, I now felt when the monster entered a room—as though the lights dipped, the temperature plummeted, and every sound, every movement focused the attention on me.

  I imagined everyone knew. That they could see me, through me, imagine me without the dress and picture me bruised, bloodied, and covered in a man’s sweat.

  A part of me begged to run.

  I denied it.

  No more cowering. No more hiding. No more clinging to the shadows and praying he wasn’t stalking me in the darkness.

  “We’re leaving,” Nicholas said. “We’ll find another exit.”

  No, we weren’t. Not until I faced him.

  I expected tooth and claw, horn and hoof, but his true evil was veiled in secrecy. The greying, older man cloaked himself in a raw dignity earned at the expense of those he humiliated. He wasn’t ugly—not physically, but it was only because I saw so much of his sons in his features.

  Reed’s nose. Max’s shoulders.

  Nick’s…everything.

  The strong angles and hard jawline that drew me to Nicholas mirrored in the mask of humanity his father wore. Both men were dangerous. Only one vowed to hurt me.

  And he did. But it was over. I’d make sure it never happened again.

  Darius Bennett raped me. He left me bruised, terrified, and sick with dread. The baby I carried might have belonged to him.

  But now? He could do nothing else to me. I hit rock bottom, and landed on my feet, prepared to fight, kick, and claw my way out of this shame. Darius thought he won. The bastard didn’t realize the strength he gave me. I was beyond their evil now. I endured it. Every beat of my heart, every shed tear, every last scar I bore would forever damn him in his own arrogance.

  I carried a Bennett heir. If he harmed me, he’d only hurt his own blood and ruin the Bennett legacy.

  I was no longer the Sarah Atwood fretting over coursework and mourning her lost f
amily. I wasn’t the captured girl denying her pleasure. I wasn’t the lost victim huddled in dingy hotels while hiding the truth about the life inside me.

  The terror, pain, and suffering hadn’t destroyed me. Darius Bennett could do nothing to me that I hadn’t already survived.

  I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

  But he would forever fear me.

  I clutched the untasted champagne flute with fingers clenched white. My voice lowered, strengthened with a newfound confidence.

  “Let’s go greet Daddy.”

  I stormed the gallery with my step-brothers rushing to my side. Darius saw me before I reached him, those loathsome brown eyes meeting mine with utter vindication.

  He was more intimidating within arm’s reach, but I dared him to force me to my knees in the middle of the crowded gallery. He didn’t touch me. But he looked.

  His stare drank over my body, like he savored a rich wine. I waited for him to spit it out, used and wasted, like every other tasting he had of me.

  He didn’t.

  He enjoyed me. His prickling attention lingered over my plumped chest.

  “Sarah, my dear.” His voice sliced me, flaying my skin like the belt he used to subdue me. “What in the world happened to you? I’ve been worried sick.”

  “I’ve been traveling,” I said. Nicholas edged me into the safety of my step-brothers’ reach. “What are you doing here?”

  “You don’t call, you don’t write...” He tore his gaze from my chest. “Your mother was so concerned that poor Atlas Chase would have no Atwoods to collect his painting. She sent me. I’m glad I came for you.” He nodded to Nicholas. “I suppose I should thank you for returning your sister home?”

  “I returned on my own,” I said.

  “Did you?” His words thickened over his fat tongue. “What a brave little whore.”

  Max attempted to pull me away. Reed stepped between us.

  Nicholas and I stood still.

  And I waited as the nausea swelled.

  He wouldn’t tell them what he had done. Not here. Not now. Darius meant to keep the assault secret until it benefited him, just as I’d keep my silence to protect the men it’d drive to madness.