While They Watch

by Sosie Frost

  “I want my father back.” My voice hardened. “And I want Darius Bennett rotting in jail for his murder.”

  2

  Sarah

  “Did you win?” Dad asked.

  I hid the red ribbon behind my back.

  “Almost.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Second place. But most of the kids were older than me. Like, fifteen. They were in high school.”

  He waited. I offered him my prize. He didn’t take it.

  “I can’t display that in my office. Throw it away.”

  “But, Dad, it…it’s still good. They said so.”

  “I don’t want you to make me look good.” He packed his briefcase and left me at his desk. “You’re an Atwood. You’re meant to make me look great. You’ll have to try harder.”

  “I will. I promise.”

  He didn’t answer, but I earned his proud nod.

  It was better than any stupid ribbon.

  I grabbed my keys from Anthony’s secretary and hit my inhaler the instant I reached my car.

  Early summer was a bad season with all the pollen on the farm. Staying at school was easier on my lungs, but Mom made the worst decision of a lifetime without me being there. I moved home and thought I could balance both school and my family’s mess.

  I learned that lesson fast.

  The add/drop forms were signed by sympathetic professors, but I hadn’t returned it to the administrative offices. Dad said Atwoods never quit. As long as we had sun, water, and dirt, we’d survive.

  But Dad never took thermodynamics and organic chemistry while managing the entire corporation. Dad hadn’t dealt with Mom slicing her wrists the day of her sons’ funerals. Dad never had to bathe her, dress her, and force her to eat. He didn’t watch as a loathsome man more snake than human took advantage of her depression with superficial words.

  Ten miles outside of Cherrywood Valley, and our fields traded the buildings, industrial districts, and diners for swaths of green. We owned acres upon acres, but the corn, alfalfa, and almonds still felt like Dad’s, not mine. At least when Josiah and Mike squandered most of our money, they hadn’t lost the most important things: the property, the soil, the crops.

  Our future.

  My phone rang. I couldn’t avoid her forever.

  Mom’s sweet voice dulled—about three hours into her latest dose and already itching for another.

  “Sweetheart,” Mom said. “Are you coming home?”

  Her newest obsession was always knowing my exact location. I couldn’t blame her. We hadn’t realized Josiah and Mike went to Vegas until the cable news channels broke with a story about their private plane crash. The police called an hour later.

  “Just turned into the driveway.”

  “Good. I have a surprise for you.”

  If she meant to smile, it didn’t translate over the phone. Mom’s grin used to schmooze Dad’s business partners. Dad said I had her features, but I saw more of him in me—especially our hair, as pale as corn peeking up in the fields. Mom’s went grey before Dad’s diagnosis. She pulled most of it out when he died.

  Fortunately, it grew back for the wedding.

  She didn’t let me hang up and prattled on about Grandma’s fancy china she found in storage. She’d be using the plates for dinner, but I didn’t question why.

  Then I saw the limo.

  I didn’t bother pulling into the garage. I wouldn’t be staying long.

  The curtains were pulled back. Mom gave me a wave from the foyer. I didn’t return it.

  “Is he here?” I demanded.

  “Who?”

  “Him.”

  “Your father?”

  I couldn’t tell if it was the drugs or her warped mind that made the mistake.

  “Step-father.”

  Mom cleared her voice. “I hoped it’d be a surprise—”

  I disconnected the call. She waited by the window. My once beautiful mother, reduced to a dumb shell of a woman, orange pill bottle clutched in her hand.

  I parked the car and counted my blessings.

  Darius was here, and it would be easier than I thought to shut him down. Whatever game he played, whatever trigger he threatened to pull, it wouldn’t matter. The Atwood fortune and company was as secure as kicking his ass out of my house and locking the door behind him.

  Mom ushered me through the foyer, boasting about her roasted pork loin.

  “Your father’s favorite,” she said.

  It wasn’t. Dad liked veal.

  “Where is he?” I asked. She pointed to the kitchen—the little dinette area she begged Dad to remodel for her.

  Dad favored the finer things. Large houses. Nice cars. Expensive trips overseas. Mom liked the simple, country living that supported the Atwoods for generations. They compromised. Mom got her farm house—Dad had his luxury. I grew up in a southern plantation antebellum home—columns and wraparound porches, winding staircases and sitting parlors.

  The kitchen bathed in a down-to-earth, folksy atmosphere. The wooden table sat eight, far more than the blended atrocity that was my new family. Mom begged me to drop my bag and change before attending dinner.

  No dice.

  I pushed the doors open, but my steps crashed to a halt.

  Darius wasn’t alone.

  “My dear!” His fake, plastic expression was better suited for ribbon cuttings and photo-ops. He didn’t hide his distaste well. “I’m glad you’ve decided to join us.”

  Mom curled behind me, squeezing my hand. “Isn’t this great? Your brothers are all here, for the first time since the wedding!”

  They weren’t my brothers.

  My brothers were dead and buried.

  These men were Bennetts.

  Mom had toasted me at the wedding—sloshed on wine and dulled to incoherence with pills—claiming I was lucky to have five older brothers now. At the time, Josiah and Mike refused to answer. My new brothers—Nicholas, Maxwell, and Reed—weren’t thrilled about the addition either.

  Darius and his sons trespassed in my kitchen. The house was big, but in his oppressive presence, the walls shrunk and the ceilings collapsed. Every bit of air I managed to sneak into my lungs squeezed out, useless and stale.

  Four Bennetts or four million. It didn’t matter. I had Dad’s will and final wishes.

  I had won.

  “You remember Nicholas, Max, and Reed?” Mom acted as if the men in her kitchen were life-long friends or her own flesh and blood. “Well, say hello, Sarah!”

  “Hi.”

  Darius grinned. I hadn’t seen them since the wedding four months ago. I considered it a good thing, especially as my mother pushed me into each of their arms for a dance while Josiah drank himself into a stupor and Mike stormed out after the ceremony.

  Nicholas was the oldest at twenty-nine, and he was everything I expected from Darius Bennett’s heir. Handsome. Cultivated. Reserved. He danced with me first at the reception, and I hated how polite he acted. He mentioned nothing of the marriage or how I wore the same mourning blacks I had for my father’s funeral.

  Without the aid of the champagne, I had nothing to brace me against his stare. Nicholas didn’t share his father’s eyes. His strong jaw and dark hair framed a majestically golden gaze—almost a toasted almond and far warmer than I expected.

  He nodded but didn’t offer more. That was fine. Nicholas had every reputation of his father. Word on the street was he was as ambitious as he was cruel. Our business partners warned when Nicholas assumed leadership of his family, I’d have one hell of a rival.

  He didn’t scare me.

  In fact, had I encountered him on campus? I might have blushed instead of glared.

  “Max, darling,” Mom said. “Your drink is empty. Sarah, get your brother more iced tea?”

  Max chuckled. Not a gentle, hospitable laugh.

  He extended the glass, forcing me to cross the kitchen to pour him tea from the pitcher right beside him on the counter.

  But that was Max. At the wedding, he had
been an absolute force of masculinity and testosterone. His dance was an experiment to see how rough he could lead before I pushed from his arms and stalked away. He didn’t even dance correctly. His steps jolted stiff, and he practically dragged his leg when he moved. Probably deliberate, just to annoy me. I might have slapped him, but I hadn’t trusted the dark bands of tattoos swirling up his arms. Even now, the stylish dress shirt beneath his vest couldn’t hide the hint of his ink. He seemed much older than twenty-seven.

  He didn’t scare me either, but I wondered if he should have.

  “Tea it is.” I gave him a refill of the chilled lemon tea. Max’s dark eyes studied me. I ignored him. “Anyone else?”

  Darius rattled his glass. The ice clinked. “Another whiskey, my dear.”

  I froze. Mom nodded toward the dining room.

  She wasn’t serious.

  Dad’s whiskey? The last of the special cask? The whiskey wasn’t just rare—it wasn’t made anymore. Dad savored each and every drop and reserved it only for special occasions like births or funerals or major, multi-million dollar deals.

  And Darius had the nerve to slosh it around his glass like two bit moonshine.

  I seized his tumbler, but the final straw rested at the feet of Reed.

  Hamlet—my fuzzy goldendoodle—betrayed me. He rolled over and begged for tummy rubs from the youngest of my step-brothers.

  Reed shared his father’s callous poise, but when he grinned he seemed playful, a brightness that belonged at a beach barbeque, not boardroom. He had a dimple, but only one, on his left cheek. His right side tugged his smile differently, and a scar tore from his neck through his ear. But it didn’t disfigure him.

  I remembered he had actually enjoyed the wedding. Unlike Nicholas and Max, he danced most of the night with whatever girl was available. He grabbed me twice. Grandma loved him and lamented that a twenty-four year old man was a bit too young for her.

  He was charming for a Bennett. Then again, Reed and Hamlet probably shared the same litter. Reed scratched his tummy, Hamlet fluttered his leg, and that was all the bullshit I was about to tolerate.

  “Hamlet.” I had to snap his name twice before he peeled himself from Reed. I pointed to the corner. “Go lay down.”

  “He wasn’t bothering me,” Reed winked. “Nice pup.”

  I slammed the tumbler against the table. Darius folded his hands.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Sprout, Darius has a rule,” Mom whispered. My step-brothers smirked at the nickname. Great. “No business at dinner.”

  And my real father had his own rules. Don’t put off what needs to be done. The corn would rot without harvest, and the animals would suffer without water. Atwood Industries wasn’t a business. It was a living, breathing ecosystem that would wither and die in the hands of Darius Bennett.

  “It’s okay, Bethany,” Darius said. “I expected this from Sarah.”

  Max crossed his arms, but Reed ignored the conversation. Nicholas gestured for me to sit.

  I declined.

  “I watched your press conference today, Darius.” I tried to speak civilly and failed. A soft cough forced its way out. I hid it behind my hand.

  “Are you well, my dear?”

  “You had no authority to speak for Atwood Industries.”

  “With all due respect...” Nicholas said. His voice rumbled deep with the smoothness of melting wax. God, it was disarming. “My father was speaking for the Bennett Corporation.”

  “About us.”

  Mom started to fret. She stumbled over Hamlet and trembled to the stove. She reached in, forgetting the oven mitts. Reed stopped her before she grabbed the roasting pan. He stole a towel from the counter and removed the dish. Mom thanked him, and he grinned again.

  “Aren’t you sweet,” she said.

  “Just hungry.” He took the carving knife from Mom before she picked it up by the blade. “Let me?”

  “Sarah, come sit so we can eat,” she said.

  “I don’t have much an appetite, thanks.” I reached into my bag, but Darius interrupted me before I pulled the will.

  “My dear, I intend to buy your company.”

  The words sliced through me, as if he ripped my heart out and stuffed it in our fields’ tilled dirt.

  He thought my father’s legacy was for sale, that he could scrape out the memories and hard work and blood from our own kitchen with a handshake and serpentine leer.

  “Get out of my house.”

  Mom covered her mouth. “Sarah, listen to your father.”

  “He is not my father.”

  “And she will never see me as such, Bethany. I told you she would be hostile to this idea.”

  “Hostile?” Now I did sit if only so the few breaths of air cramming into my lungs did their work. “You come in my home after making statements about my family’s company as if you are a spokesperson instead of a goddamned demon. How dare you!”

  Nicholas raised a hand, as if he could silence me with the graceful motion.

  He could, but that didn’t mean I’d ever surrender to their proposal.

  “Ms. Atwood. We’ve prepared a very generous offer for your company. Above and beyond its value, and more than what your father would have considered an accurate reflection of your assets. We aren’t trying to undermine you.”

  I knew better than to trust a Bennett, even when Nicholas’s steady demeanor shared none of the false bravado Darius wielded as both sword and shield.

  “I’m not interested.”

  Mom touched my shoulder. “Sarah, we were never meant to manage this company.”

  “Mom, you aren’t running the company. I am. And I’m not selling.”

  Darius chuckled. “Child, what you do know of directing a multi-billion dollar business?”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “Your mother is right. You aren’t meant to control Atwood Industries.”

  “Neither are you.”

  Nicholas braced me with a glance before reaching into the laptop bag.

  “We aren’t insulting you.” He let the vindictive bite in my words pass. How much patience did he possess? “This is an opportunity to secure your future.”

  He pushed the contract toward me. I didn’t read it, but I hadn’t pulled my gaze from his quick enough. His confidence might have been attractive if he hadn’t thought himself infallible. Nicholas actually believed his presented offense was an offer of freedom, wealth, and charity.

  I didn’t need Bennett charity.

  And I wasn’t comfortable trapped within the shadow of his stare or the buttery smoothness of his voice.

  “When my father died...” I let the word linger. Darius, the bastard snake he was, didn’t flinch. “His will was very specific.”

  “And we’ll do our best to honor his conditions,” Nicholas said.

  No golden eyes or caramel cadence could save his deal. I set the will on the table. Darius inhaled.

  Josiah managed to get power of attorney before Mom married. That passed to me, and I locked the will up tight from Darius with a perverse pleasure. My step-brothers watched as I flipped the pages to the clause that would either protect or damn my father’s company.

  I pushed the document to Darius. His expression slimed into a forced civility.

  “In the event of Mark Gabriel Atwood’s death, Atwood Industries and all assets as defined in Section 3 (a), shall be passed to his blood male heir.”

  “A male heir?” Darius’s voice scraped over the word.

  Nicholas cast a glance to his brothers. Max frowned. Reed tossed Hamlet a piece of the pork loin. I waited for the hammer to fall or a mic to drop.

  “A technicality, my dear,” Darius said. He cleared his throat. “He didn’t specifically name any of his children. And rightly so. He believed the company would pass to one of his sons, but no one anticipated their untimely deaths.”

  “The clause stands.” I hoped I was doing the right thing. “And I’ll honor my father’s w
ishes. As of today, I will hold Atwood Industries in a trust until I have a son.”

  Mom shook another pill from the bottle. Darius said nothing, but the rage, condemnation, and frustration in his clenching jaw read easier than the rest of my father’s will.

  The only thing more glorious than Darius’s failure would have been to witnessed such hatred with him behind bars, where the murdering son of a bitch belonged.

  Nicholas wasn’t deterred. He flipped through the rest of the pages with a cursory glance.

  “You could fight this,” he said. “Ms. Atwood, I understand your aggravation, but we are offering you...everything.”

  “Everything can’t bring my father back.” I stared at Darius. He took my mother’s hand, bringing her fingers to his lips with a sneer. “But this is his land. His legacy. Selling it would be no better than selling his memory. I won’t do it.”

  I stood. Nicholas followed, but Darius burned where he sat.

  “I have work at the office,” I said. It was true, I just wasn’t sure how to do any of it. Damage control, investors to call, reports to write, labs to turn in at school. I nodded toward my brothers and relished a deep breath that rejuvenated me more than any hit from my inhaler. “Excuse me, I won’t be able to stay for dinner.”

  I lashed the bag over my shoulder. Darius didn’t dare watch me leave, but my step-brothers stared as I stalked from the room. Suddenly, I wasn’t the only one tense in Darius’s presence.

  Nicholas, Max, and Reed silenced, minding their father like the good little sons of the devil they were. Victory tasted sweet, but I didn’t envy their ride home.

  I made it to the car before the bittersweet laugh bubbled inside me. Dad would have been proud. My brothers ecstatic.

  But me?

  I collapsed in the driver’s seat, staring at a home where I couldn’t stay and land I relinquished to an imaginary son that bluffed my way to momentary freedom.

  But at least the Atwood name, fortune, and future were safe. I almost hoped the Bennetts would try to fight for what didn’t belong to them.

  If only to watch them fail.

  3