by Lana Grayson
“Mom, it’s fine.”
“Don’t you it’s fine me, young lady. You think you know what’s best for me, but until you have a child of your own burst in and out of your life whenever she damn well pleases, you don’t get to decide what is best for me.”
“I was worried.”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Mom said. “I have Darius now.”
Just the thought curdled my stomach. “You don’t understand.”
“He’s your father.”
“He’s not.”
Darius shrugged. “Our relationship is hard to classify, Bethany. Sarah acts defiant, but, I assure you, when we’re alone, she’s much warmer. We’ve spent some very special moments together.”
Sick bastard.
I wavered. I needed to sit. I wanted to run.
I longed for the chance to cause Darius even a moment of the misery he inflicted on me.
“A relief,” Mom said. “She’s been acting so strange lately. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”
Darius folded his hands. “Sarah, perhaps it is best that you tell your mother.”
“Tell me, what? For pity’s sake, Darius. Is everyone keeping secrets?”
Why was he doing this? Just to watch me squirm? To destroy me? To destroy her?
I swallowed. Mom gave me her most expectant look, one that even Josiah and Mike couldn’t fight.
He planned this.
The bastard knew I’d rush home. He meant to trap me once more in my own humiliation as I revealed the pregnancy to Mom.
I considered refusing him, but my dress already felt snug. I could hide it for another month, maybe two, but she’d find out soon enough. And then she’d suffer the consequences the same as me, the same for the farm, the company.
Our future and livelihood.
But she was my mother.
And the father of my baby might have been her devoted husband.
Darius’s expression hadn’t wavered, the twisted empathy of a man who faked every human emotion to benefit himself and his cruelty. I wouldn’t let him gain any sick enjoyment from my hesitance. He expected me to live in shame of the child, of the rape.
The baby wasn’t his.
And the rape was in the past.
And I would never, ever let my child believe he was unwanted—not when I knew exactly how devastating that felt.
“Mom…” I wished my voice were stronger. “I have something to tell you.”
She waited. Her eyebrow perked—sass incarnate. So that’s where I got it.
“I’m not sure you’re going to like it.”
“Out with it, Sprout. I haven’t got all day.”
The words tumbled from my lips.
“I’m pregnant.”
Darius’s victorious grin sickened me. I stepped closer to Nicholas, but I didn’t accept any of his offered strength.
I survived the conception. What pain could the announcement bring?
More than I expected.
Mom’s expression twisted. Her frown etched deep into her face, darkening her new wrinkles and highlighting the grey that streaked her curls. She sunk into her chair, hands trembling.
“You’re pregnant?”
“Yes.”
I steeled myself for her reaction.
It wasn’t enough.
“You little whore.”
The disapproval rocked us all. Darius coughed. I fell backwards, colliding with an equally shocked Nicholas.
“Mom, no…”
“Little whore.”
Darius cleared his throat before leaning close. “Bethany, no. This is a good thing. Our Sarah is starting a family of her own. We should be celebrating.”
I didn’t recognize the frustration in her eyes, the harsh catch in her voice.
Oh God, I couldn’t handle disappointing her, even when it wasn’t my fault.
“Sarah, how could you be so careless? I raised you better than this.”
Careless?
She wasn’t the only one who’d assume it was carelessness.
Not that I was kidnapped and imprisoned, abused and raped.
Not that my step-father forced himself upon me, or that the man I loved, my own step-brother had…
It wasn’t carelessness.
My chest ached, blending sorrow and panic and stinging rage into a breathless gasp.
The world would never know that darkness.
“And the father?” Mom asked. “Where is he? I don’t see him standing here, holding your hand, admitting what he did to you.”
Nicholas was holding me. Darius stroked her fingers.
“This isn’t about the father,” I said. “It’s still early, Mom. I haven’t revealed it yet.”
“Oh, Sarah.” She shook her head. “There is so much to consider. Have you spoken with our attorney?”
I hedged that concern. “We don’t need to tell Anthony yet.”
“Of course we do. This company will turn on its head.” She covered her cheeks. “Oh, Lord. This will cause such strife. We hadn’t prepared for this at all, Sprout.”
“I know.”
Darius leaned close. “Now, Bethany. Surely Atwood Industries assumed this day would come. They’ve been waiting for a male heir to take the company ever since Josiah and Mike passed.”
“We never planned for it. Why would we?” Mom sighed. I tried to stop her, but the secret slipped before I could interrupt. “Sarah is supposed to be infertile.”
Goddamn it.
Darius’s jaw tensed so hard it popped.
Had we been alone, had he still trapped me within the confines of the Bennett Estate, nothing—not even the possibility of his child—would have protected me from a vicious strike.
If he hadn’t killed me for deceiving him.
Nicholas nodded to his father.
“Infertile….” Darius murmured. “How fortuitous then.”
Mom snorted, but the edge weeded from of her voice. “I suppose so. Oh, Sarah. You never did like to take the easy path, did you? Well…”
She smiled, weak, but it was there.
“A baby is a miracle, especially when we never expected to be blessed. And we are certainly in a position to accommodate a little one, despite the scandal.” She sighed. “You’ll have to join at the estate then. We’ll shield you from a bit of the talk. Besides, Darius raised his own children there before, I’m sure he would love to have a baby around again.”
I didn’t trust the darkness in his words. “Of course, darling. I’ve been planning on it.”
Too much. It was too much. I swallowed.
“I have to get going,” I said. “I just…wanted to check in on you, Mom.”
“You aren’t staying?”
So I could stare into the eyes of a man who would eagerly slice the child from my stomach once he was strong enough to live on his own? A man who threatened my mother’s life with dangerous medications? A man who’d murder all three of his sons because they defied his insanity?
No. I wasn’t staying.
And neither was she.
I would kill Darius before he dared to harm those I loved, and the only reason I didn’t dive for a knife was to spare my fragile mother the horror of witnessing yet another husband’s death.
“I’ll call you,” I said. “Check in and make sure you’re okay.”
“I’ll be fine. I have Darius to look after me.”
She gave the devil the keys to the church and waded in the ashes he cast on the altar. I backed from the kitchen, but Darius scooted out of his chair.
“I’ll walk them out.”
Mom sighed. “You’re such a sweetheart, Darius. Truly.”
Nicholas edged between us, but I didn’t let Darius get close. My vision blurred with rage as I slammed through the front door. I lifted a rock from the rose planter, but it was my own bodyguard who prevented me from slamming it across Darius’s temple.
Nicholas seized me, securing me with an arm around my waist.
�
��You are a monster.” I twisted against his hold. “What are you going to do? Kill my mother? Murder your own wife?”
“Nicholas, please.” Darius buttoned his suit jacket. “Control the girl. I won’t have her endangering my unborn son.”
Goddamn him! I struggled, but Nicholas’s grip was as strong as his own iron will. He faced his father with absolute silence. I hardly recognized his stoic, intimidating challenge.
“It’s not your son,” I said. “You have no right to be here, no right to control my mother.”
Darius gazed over my cornfields, stared at my barn and my machinery tending to the crops in the fields. “Soon enough, this farm will belong to the Bennetts, as it should have months ago.”
“Never.”
“I don’t mind it, actually.” He took a deep breath. “The estate is rather isolated, but this…this is a different type of peace. A shame it breeds such insolence in the children who play in its dirt. My son will need to grow and learn discipline in the estate, but I think I’ll retire here.”
“You will never take my child.”
“I’ll clear some of the…debris from the fields though.” Darius met my gaze. “Too many Atwoods poisoning the grounds. Once your father and what remains of his bastard sons are disposed of properly, this land will be suitable for the Bennetts.”
It was too much. Too cruel and too deliberate to watch me burst with the indignity and agony of my family’s deaths. I twisted, pushing against Nicholas.
Darius hadn’t broken me before.
He wouldn’t now.
“I think I’ll keep you here too, my dear,” he said. “If you agree to behave. You’ve done so well now, accepting my seed and swelling with my child. I might let you live. You can stay locked in a room here on your land. And we’ll see if that infertility was a one-time blessing. Why stop at one son when I can replace the lot of them?”
His words weren’t meant for me. He stared at his son, his eldest, his heir. He waited for the moment that Nicholas would finally break and challenge him.
Nicholas said nothing, only simmered in the ravenous, feral silence of animal facing a threat.
“You can have her for now, Nicholas,” Darius said. “Take her. Care for her. Fuck her. Do whatever you wish. But understand. The estate, the companies, the fortunes are mine. I will not mourn those who defy me. Not if I have a new son to inherit both the Bennett and Atwood names.”
“This child is not yours.” Nicholas spoke with confidence, certainty.
“Nicholas, you had months to breed the girl, and nothing came from it. You’ve studied probability and statistics.” Darius leaned closer, his words meant to draw me back into the nightmare he created. “You realize she was still slick with your seed when I took her? But that doesn’t matter. I enjoyed her more times than you did that night.”
I would be sick, but Nicholas didn’t degrade himself in anger or react to Darius’s attempted humiliation.
“I plan to kill you,” Nicholas said. “Prepare for it.”
His words were not threat or promise, but the still coldness of near-premonition.
More frightening than any strike from Darius’s hand or the moments of despair under his control was the sound of Nicholas Bennett’s honest and promised vengeance, as though the graves were already dug and the crimes purged from our memories.
Darius’s cruelty cast us into shadow, but Nicholas now existed in the merciless efficiency of a wronged man protecting the ones he loved.
Not for his own satisfaction. Not to appease his sadism.
But because blood answered in blood.
And we would make the final slice.
He led me to the limo, kissed my hand, and shielded me—shielded us—from his father.
I had no doubt Nicholas would make good on his threat.
I only prayed we didn’t have to wait.
14
Nicholas
The gun rested in my suit jacket, but my father yet lived.
I didn’t regret my decision, and I hadn’t looked in the mirror as the limo pulled from the farm.
The time would come for revenge. The money had already exchanged and my brothers prepared for the plan. In a few weeks, it would no longer matter.
Still, I coiled in rage. My father attempted to harass me. He wanted to exert what little control he held over me and my brothers by manipulating the woman we strived to protect.
He claimed the child was his.
Harming Sarah was crime enough. Taking my son? He would die for even considering it. He would die for the pain he inflicted, the nightmares he caused, and the life he attempted to ruin. The brutal, disgusting words he spoke of Sarah would be his last opportunity to insult her.
A Bennett’s greatest suffering was not the final beat of a heart, but the world forgetting his name.
My father would not be remembered. The tyranny he cast over my family would end, and Sarah and my son would share a life with me free of that pain.
If she would have me.
Sarah curled in her seat, staring out the window as the plane ascended and stole her from the comforts of her family, her home, her land. I permitted her silence. The few words we whispered during the night revealed far more than any momentary confession or pressured conversation would offer.
She knew I wanted her. That I loved her. That I loved the baby.
And she did too. Her hand curled over her tummy as she rested.
“How’s Bumper?”
The nickname grew on me. She smirked. Sprout and her Bumper Crop. Entirely too cute for a Bennett boy, especially as it took years before I accepted the shortening of my name to Nick. But our family traditions and conventions could change. They would change.
“He’s okay,” she said.
I didn’t want okay. I wanted great, fantastic, healthy. Once we rid the world of my father, Sarah would only need to worry about the sheer amount of toys, clothing, and baby equipment I planned to buy for our child.
She’d only have to consider loving me once more. Accepting my offer of family.
Staying with me. Always.
The plane landed, and Sarah fell asleep in the limo on the way home. She wasn’t comfortable, but the confrontation overwhelmed her. I expected it.
I feared it.
My father’s insults were meant for me. He cared little about Sarah’s reaction, only that she continued to carry the child he considered more asset than family. But she bore his words with equal indignation and endured his torment with Atwood impetuousness, not Bennett patience.
She needed no other reason to act out in violence. She simply waited for the opportunity.
And we’d all suffer as a result.
We returned to my penthouse. My brothers greeted Sarah the only way they knew. Reed offered her a bottle of water. Max, a seat and blanket. Neither could speak to her about the horrors she faced at my father’s hand. Still, they tried to help. I appreciated it.
“What happened?” Reed asked. “Everything okay?”
“Mom’s fine.” Sarah’s words tightened in frustration. “I need to rest. I have a headache.”
I waited until the door to the bedroom closed before casting off my jacket and stealing the whiskey from Max’s hands. Noon was too early for either of us to drink. At least I had stopped at some point during the night. Hungover, sober, or drunk, Max’s eyes remained bloodshot. I could only imagine the condition of his liver.
“What the fuck happened?” Max grunted.
“Bethany wasn’t alone.”
“Dad?” Reed guessed.
“Waiting for us,” I said. “Bethany’s memory is ruined, and the dementia is getting worse. He threatened her with her medications.”
“Why?”
I gritted my teeth. “Because he expected Sarah to rush to her mother without me.”
Max crossed his arms. “And then?”
“He’s convinced the child is his.” I took a seat. Reed perched on the side of the sofa, but Max preferred to pace. “
He’s planning to take Sarah and steal the baby.”
“And if he succeeds?”
It would never happen. “Either he’ll kill Sarah…or he’ll keep her to make another child.”
“Fuck me,” Reed whispered. “Does Sarah know?”
“He made his intentions clear.”
“What do we do?”
Max answered for me. “Just what we’re doing. Stick to the plan. We kill the son of a bitch.”
“No.” I lowered my voice. “I kill him.”
Reed frowned. “Like it fucking matters who points the gun.”
“It does to me.”
“We all want a shot at him—”
I didn’t need to interrupt him. My gaze silenced Reed. “I will do it.”
Max understood, which meant he would forever challenge my decisions. He glanced over his shoulder, ensuring the door shut tightly behind Sarah.
“No, you mean she won’t do it.”
I nodded.
“You aren’t even going to tell her what you’re planning?”
“No.”
Reed waved his hands, grabbing another baby book from the stack he kept on the coffee table.
“That’s it. I’m out. Unless you want her aiming for us too, you better let Sarah Atwood in on this plan.”
“If I can spare her the trauma, I will.”
“It’s not about trauma,” Max said. “You want the kill shot because Dad hurt her. Fuck, I want to do it too.”
“It’s not about the rape.” The word soured on my tongue. I resolved never to say it again.
Max never knew when to drop a subject. “Then what is it? Sarah’s been through enough trauma. This shit would be fucking therapeutic for her.”
“Sarah is pregnant, and not by choice. She’s scared, she’s exhausted, and the asthma and stress will only make her weaker.” I pointed to Reed’s books. “What do those chapters say about a healthy pregnancy? I guarantee there’s no talk about assaults, beatings, and corporate takeovers between the benefits of cloth or disposable diapers.”
“And you don’t think she’d take pleasure in murdering that asshole?” Max voiced the obvious. “She’s a goddamned Atwood. They’re raised from birth to want to draw our blood.”
