by Sosie Frost
“Two minutes,” Darius said. “Easy, my dear. This might be a happy occasion.”
It would be.
For me.
I washed my trembling hands, pretending not to notice how close the Bennetts crowded within the doorway to the powder room.
I also ignored the stick. The box. The instructions. Even the time. Reed counted, though his silent numbers audibly rushed toward the end. He nudged Nicholas.
“Okay,” he said. “Check it.”
I didn’t help. Nicholas edged in front of his father. His eyes caught mine in the mirror.
I rewarded the false warmth of his golden gaze with a knowing perk of my eyebrow.
“Negative,” he said.
My mouth dropped in mock surprise. “Really? No way?”
“Negative?” Darius ripped the applicator from his son’s hand. “How the hell is that possible. All three of you fucked her.”
I sighed. “Well, you know how these things go.”
The men stood in a stunned silence. I escaped from the powder room and shrugged.
“There’s a lot of things that factor into it. Stress and diet and environment. Sometimes getting raped repeatedly by your own brothers just won’t do it.”
“Enough,” Nicholas said. “We’ll take another one in a few days. It’s still early.”
He didn’t understand. He didn’t want to understand.
“I’ll piss on everything you give me, Nicholas Bennett, it won’t change a thing.”
Darius checked his watch. “Nicholas, handle this. I have a meeting.”
I grinned as my step-father bristled, stomping from the room. I called after him with a sweet smile.
“Bye, Dad.”
“Jesus Christ.” Nicholas took my hand. I jerked, but he hauled me into the smoking room. He hissed at Max and Reed, and they chased after Darius.
I fought him, but Nicholas tossed me on the couch and covered me with a blanket. The door slammed shut. His mocha voice strained over an ill-concealed anger.
“Are you insane? My father looks for reasons to hurt you!”
“Everyone’s hurt me lately.” I wrapped the blanket over my breasts. “Why shouldn’t Darius have a chance too?”
“Don’t tempt him. It’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous enough that he’d beat me, strip me, and force his sons upon me?” I waited for Nicholas to show one ounce of remorse. That damn stillness. He’d turn to stone before betraying what he thought. “I think I understand just how dangerous he is.”
“You give him a chance, and he will burn you alive, Sarah.”
“Then why doesn’t he?”
“Because you’re still useful to us. He threw you in a sixty degree cellar for three hours today because you insulted him. And that’s him holding back.”
I curled my arms over the blanket. The fuzzy warmth calmed me, hiding everything Nicholas had seen, touched, and taken before I realized I slept with the devil.
“You said it yourself. He’s going to keep me alive. He wants my child.”
“No. He’s punishing the Atwoods. Breeding you is just part of his sadism.”
I gritted my teeth. “Hasn’t he already done enough? I’m trapped here. My brothers are dead. He killed my father.”
“He never touched your father.”
Liar.
The son of a bitch liar looked me directly in the eyes with a cinnamon promise and melting voice and lied to me.
He had no shame, no honor, no dignity.
There wasn’t a profanity strong enough.
“He didn’t murder your father, Sarah,” Nicholas said.
My chest tightened, stealing my words from me. That was good. He didn’t deserve a single sound from my lips.
“Do you want to know how your father died? Do you really want to know?”
Nicholas leaned in, his arms pressing into the sofa. He trapped me and still spoke lies.
“Your father died from natural causes. He died because he had complications from the cancer.”
“How dare you.”
“He died,” Nicholas continued, “because he was an old man who endured more chemotherapy than he could withstand. He went into remission, but he died because his body was weakened.”
“That’s not true.”
“You are looking for someone to blame. You’ve imagined every way you could pin his death on the Bennetts.”
“Because Darius killed him!”
“No. That’s not the reason.” Nicholas stared at me, through me, into me. “You weren’t as close to your father as you thought you were.”
“Let me up.”
“He didn’t love you as much as you loved him.”
I yelled, but my voice broke. “How dare you!”
“Mark Atwood didn’t name you in his will. He passed every cent of the family’s fortune to his sons.”
“They were older than me!”
“But he wrote no provision for you. No trusts. Nothing! He left the money, company, and land to Josiah and Michael. He let them decide if you were worth a pittance.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“He had plans for you. Just like my father had plans for me and my brothers. You were meant for R&D. Always. He put you in science camps and tutoring. He forced you to choose genetics as your field of study.”
“He didn’t force me,” I said.
“You did it because he wanted you to. Because you did everything to get noticed by your father, and he paid absolutely no attention to you beyond what he could profit.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.”
Nicholas frowned. “If you knew what he had planned for your research? What he already did? You wouldn’t have stepped foot in that lab. You’d be relieved my father stole your research journal.”
The pain in my chest was more than just the asthma catching my breath. I accidentally clutched my neck. Nicholas pulled a spare inhaler from his pocket. He held it up before handing it to me.
“Your father hid your asthma. Why?”
I didn’t take a hit of the medicine. “Because it was my illness. Why share what weakens us?”
“He was ashamed of you.”
“I swear to God, if you don’t stop talking right now—”
“Mark Atwood wanted a son,” he said. “A third son. To mirror the Bennetts. Instead he had you. He made do with what he was given.”
“My father loved me.”
“He was incapable of love.”
“What the hell would a Bennett know about compassion?” My lungs would crush before they allowed a scream. I tried anyway. “You’re a monster, Nick. You’re twisting his memory.”
“He was twisted when he was alive.”
I trembled. Everywhere. Why didn’t he just beat me? Hurt me? Break my heart again?
Anything but this.
“You’re lying,” I said. “Every word is a lie. You’re trying to confuse me, but I know Darius killed my father.”
“I wish he had.”
I slapped him. Nicholas didn’t react. He took my hand, and I whimpered in rage and fear and a helpless urge to strike him again.
“My father isn’t the murderer.” His voice lowered. “Yours is.”
I stilled. Both of us heaved useless breaths. I shook my head.
“What are you talking about?”
“Mark Atwood is a murderer.”
“That’s not true.”
The gold in his eyes faded into a murky, dire sorrow that coated me in forlorn misery. I lost him in that moment, a memory that stole him to a place that frightened him more than his father.
“Mark Atwood murdered my mother.”
He should have just struck me. I gripped the couch.
The Bennetts never told the truth. They never followed through on their words. He was lying.
He had to be.
“I was twelve years old. Max was ten. Reed eight. We weren’t supposed to be in the car with her.”
“Car?”
“The crash took her life and nearly killed my brothers as well.”
“I don’t understand. How did my father murder your mother if she died in a car crash?”
Nicholas didn’t hesitate. Sincerity frosted his voice. “He paid a laborer from your farm to sever the break line. Once the job was done, Mark reported him as one of the many illegal day workers under your employ and had him deported.”
“Bullshit.”
“We didn’t realize the car was compromised until she hit the highway. By that point, there was nothing we could do.” A soft echo of pain shadowed his words. I didn’t want to listen anymore. “The car flipped twice before landing in an embankment. I was thrown clear. My brothers weren’t as lucky.”
I tried to escape. He held me against the sofa.
“I saved Max first because he screamed the most.”
“Oh, God.”
“I dove into the wreckage and chiseled my brother from between the seats. His leg was pinned and turned to jelly. It dislocated as I pulled him out.” His voice hollowed. “He never passed out. Not even when the paramedics vomited in the grass after realizing every bone in his right leg was pulverized.”
Christ.
Max’s limp. The crash. His plans for the military.
“Reed was trapped. His face broke through the glass. He had major lacerations, so bad I could see his jaw through his cheek. He went into shock before I even got him out of his seatbelt. Nearly died on the way to the hospital.” He paused. “Ask him how many plastic surgeons we saw before they could piece his face together well enough for him to smile.”
God. Reed only had one dimple. The scars had faded, but I hadn’t asked how he got them.
Nicholas’s pain manifested in a quiet anger. I trembled in his silence.
He was a good liar. A really good liar.
He had to be lying.
“And my mother…” He heaved a breath. “I saved my brothers before going after her because she would have wanted me to help them before her. It was how I was raised. I was the oldest, and I had a responsibility to take care of them.”
I couldn’t handle any more. He didn’t let me look away.
“The car caught on fire before I could free her, and the flames spread too fast for me to do anything. I didn’t get close before it was engulfed.” He hesitated but forced through the memory. “I heard her screaming.”
“Oh god, Nick. I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t need an Atwood’s pity.”
“It’s not pity.” I said. “It’s sympathy. No one should have to experience that.”
A shaking breath rattled his body before exhaling into nothing.
“Your father was evil and heartless,” he said. “He murdered my mother, and it still wasn’t enough. Everything he did was meant to hurt my family.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” I whispered. “But my father wasn’t the man you’re saying he is.”
“I’m not wasting my breath convincing you. What happened, happened. Nothing can change it.”
Callous. Cold. Like all the Bennetts.
“And if it is true?” I let the question linger. “Does that justify what you’re doing to me?”
Nicholas hesitated. The pain in his expression mirrored mine. I clutched the inhaler.
I wished I could hold him instead.
“It has to.”
A final strike. My heart thudded in hope only to shatter upon his cruelty. Nicholas said nothing else. He rose and left me to my medication. At least he knew not to ask if the tightness in my chest was the illness or the agony of his total abandonment.
“Sarah, for Christ’s sake.”
Dad stole the inhaler from my hand and pitched it into the living room. The few engineers he guided into his office flinched as the case shattered against the wall.
“We’re Atwoods. We don’t wheeze. Do that somewhere no one can see.”
Mike picked up the inhaler and tugged me from Dad’s meeting and into the bathroom where the cigarette smoke hadn’t permeated.
“Don’t worry, Sprout.” Mike winked at me. “One day, I’ll be in charge. And you can huff and puff anywhere you want.”
I wasted the medicine on a sob.
The second dose helped, but it didn’t ease the grinding nausea eroding my stomach. I held tight to the blanket.
Nicholas Bennett was a liar.
He hadn’t helped me, he hadn’t protected me, and he used me only for his own gain.
I couldn’t believe a word he said. I wouldn’t. Not when everything that happened to me within their grasp was meant to break my spirit.
It hadn’t worked.
He hadn’t won, even after he and his brothers took turns attempting to ruin me.
I lived, and I would keep on living because Nicholas Bennett was a liar.
I wouldn’t believe his deception.
Not when I endured everything they stole, abused, and hurt to defend the name of a monster.
22
Sarah
I’d never find evidence that Darius killed my father.
Nothing incriminating existed in the Bennett Estate. The only crimes within its walls were the ones they did to me.
The ones I did to myself.
I thought I could handle it. I imagined walking into a den of depraved beasts and staring evil in the eye until I got the answers I wanted and the respect I deserved.
Hard lessons.
I wouldn’t discover a bloody weapon in Darius’s drawers, but the Bennetts obsessed over something else. The company. Wealth. My family.
Maybe I wouldn’t find proof of murder, but money was just as damning. I had to follow that trail.
It was the only option I had left.
I snuck through the estate, ensuring Max’s suite door was pushed tightly closed before I edged into the theater. The Playstation 4 had an internet browser. Something the Bennetts obviously didn’t remember.
I hadn’t had a chance to use the console alone, and I counted the seconds it took to power on. I swore at the damn controller as the cursor inched across the screen and typed the URL character by aching character.
I held my breath. The email client popped up. I checked the clock. I probably had less than ten minutes to get my answers and rush back to the room before they realized I had access to the outside world. I couldn’t imagine the punishment if they caught me.
Of all the people in the world to contact, I emailed my lawyer.
God, I was getting corporate.
Anthony, I need everything on Josmik Holdings. Now. –S
Radio silence was not conducive to a proper attorney/client relationship. Anthony’s response came immediately.
S—Are you safe? Your mother said you were staying with the Bennetts. I can be there by the afternoon to get you home. –A
Anthony had a sixth sense for danger. Usually it worked well in negotiations, but I couldn’t let him jeopardize my mother’s safety to rescue me from Darius’s torment.
A—I’ve got it under control. Don’t come. Need an answer –S
We wasted time. I jiggled the controller and begged the screen for something to pop up.
S—Nothing’s available to us. Whatever deal your brothers made existed outside my firm. Got information on a secret trust. They didn’t want you to know.–A
The hairs on my neck rose. Something lurked within Josmik holdings that terrified every one of the Bennetts. So why did my brothers hide it from me?
A—The Bennetts have more information on Josmik than us. They know something. Why?—S
The email replied immediately.
S—They must be involved in the trust. Your brothers were working on a business plan—I don’t know what. They disregarded most of my advice after your father died.—A
Damn. I thumped my head against the controller.
I had another question, but each press of the letters twisted me into a greater knot. I stole my inhaler from my pocket before I pressed send. I p
referred the tight coughing over the dread clutching my chest.
A—Helena Bennett died in a car crash in 1998. Do you know anything about it?—S
I refreshed the browser twice. Three times. Nothing returned. I checked the time. My step-family never wasted the day, not when there was money to earn. Each second past seven o’clock gave them cause to look for me. I refreshed again, my heart stalling as the email appeared.
Sarah—I don’t advise questions of that nature. Forget you asked it.
Like hell. I responded quick.
Why?
I held my breath until the email flashed.
Because you won’t like what you find.—A
“Goddamn it.”
I tossed the controller.
I didn’t trust Nicholas Bennett, his brothers, or his father, but Anthony? My father relied more on our attorney than his damn oncologists.
Sickness washed over me. I flipped the Playstation off and rushed from the theater, bolting to my room just as my stomach heaved. I fell to the bathroom floor.
My father—a murderer?
It wasn’t possible. My father wasn’t terribly kind, but he didn’t have time for kindness. He worked hard for the company—for the family. There wasn’t a crime in that.
And he hated the Bennetts, but he would never have tried to murder them.
Not a woman.
Certainly not her young children.
No one could be that evil.
The memory buried deep. My mother rushing into my room when I was little. Three, not even four years old. Mike and Josiah tagged along, sleepy and irritable.
“Up, Sarah. Get up.” Mom sang Grandma’s milking song for the cows to get me out of bed. “We have to go. Off the farm.”
But I liked the farm. She tugged a little book bag filled with clothes over my shoulders and told me we were going on vacation.
I yelled and stomped and ran from her. She shouted, but Dad welcomed me with open arms. Mom hurried after me with tear-stained cheeks and a flurry of angry words I wasn’t allowed to repeat.
“Take your sister.” Dad pushed me at Josiah. “Beth, we need to talk.”
“It’s on the news,” she spat. “She’s dead.”
The door slammed. Mike covered my ears as the smack echoed and Mom yelped.
