Rules of Bennett: The Complete Collection

by Ember Michaels

  He was quiet for a long moment before he dropped his head. “It’ll be easy to protect you there than it is here. I’ll worry about everything else; you just focus on healing.”

  Everything was quiet for a moment before a small grin pulled at my lips. “At least you don’t have to worry about me getting into trouble with all my injuries,” I teased with a giggle, the action hurting my ribs.

  He chuckled. “Pretty sure you’ll manage to get into some shit even on your death bed, so I’m not loosening the reins on you just yet,” he said. “No more talking. Get some rest.”

  I closed my eyes with a light sigh and tried to empty my mind of the memories of tonight, hoping to fall into a dreamless slumber.

  I awoke again with a gasp a few hours later when a sharp pain went up my leg. My eyes flew open to see Bennett hovered over me, trying to scoop me up into his arms as best as he could without hurting me. Noticing my bewildered eyes, he paused.

  "We have to get out of here," he said, his voice low. “It’s only a matter of time before the Russians send another wave to attack. We're going to head home while the coast is clear right now, so I need to get you to the garage and in the car."

  My brain was too foggy to even begin to argue with him. Sunlight filtered through the window, making me squint as my head throbbed. "It hurts," I croaked, my voice raspy and cracking.

  "I'll get you something when I get you settled in the car, but we have to get the fuck out of here," he said.

  I fought the urge to scream when he picked me up. Someone else came into the bedroom.

  "Just gassed up the car in the garage. Do you need me to do anything else before we leave?" they asked.

  I couldn't process their voice to know who spoke. Instead, I buried my face in Bennett's chest to block out the light that made my head feel as if it would split in half.

  "Did you get rid of the evidence that was still in the fire pit this morning?" he asked. I couldn't help but wonder what kind of evidence it was. Did they burn the body of the man from the bathroom? Were there multiple bodies?

  "Yeah, I took that out around six and buried them further back on the property." The voice was quiet for a moment. "Is she going to be okay?”

  "We'll be able to further assess things when we get home and the doctor can run more tests," Bennett said with a sigh as he began to walk. "Hard to deal with situations like this in a safe house. I'm just glad he was able to get here as fast as he did."

  I kept my face buried in his chest, wanting to avoid sight of the aftermath of everything that'd happened last night. The last thing I wanted was to be triggered again with the memories that would probably torment me for the rest of my life. The temperature suddenly changed from warm to cool, Bennett's steps echoing around us.

  "Get the door for me, will you?" he murmured.

  Someone walked past him and opened the door to the car and Bennett walked over, carefully putting me the passenger seat as best as he could. I bit back a cry of pain, settling on the cool leather seat as tears filled my eyes.

  His eyes were blank of any emotion as he looked at me, his mouth set in a thin, hard line. The defiant woman in me wanted to roll my eyes. Even when I was injured from a bullshit situation he created, he didn't seem as if he gave a damn either way. It was almost as if he didn't care that I was hurt.

  I almost wished I'd had more bullets left in the gun last night, so I could’ve put a few into him for good measure.

  Bennett closed the door and jogged up the couple of steps back into the house. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the headrest. My skull felt as though it might crack in two, and I still felt fatigued beyond anything I'd felt before.

  All I wanted in that moment was to go back to the main house and go back to sleep. My dreams used to be the only freedom and solitude I had, but even those were plagued with nightmares.

  I groaned in despair. My life had gone up in flames with Bennett standing in the middle of it. The sound of his shoes echoed through the garage as he came back down the stairs and forced me to open my eyes. He opened my car door and passed me a glass of water and a pill.

  "That'll keep you comfortable on the ride home," he said.

  I gulped the pill down, wincing at how sore my throat was. He placed the glass of water on the roof of the car before leaning back in. I flinched as he reached over me to fasten my seatbelt and recline my seat. "Try to go to sleep."

  I nodded lazily, not that he had to tell me to do that. The rest of the men walked out of the house and headed to the SUVs in the front yard. By the time Bennett got in the car, my mind was a hazy cloud of nothing, my earlier pain dissolving again as the medicine kicked in.

  I walked through the safe house, a quiet fire crackling in the fireplace of the living room. A woman stood in front of it, pushing the logs around with a fire poker. Her blonde hair hung down to the middle of her back, her lean body clad in a long white satin robe.

  "Hello?" I said cautiously, my index finger flexing on the trigger of the gun I held.

  After my incident with the Russian mafia, I no longer walked anywhere in the house without something to protect me. The woman didn't immediately respond. She only straightened her posture and returned the fire poker with the rest of them.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as she began to hum a melody I didn't recognize. I watched as she slid a finger along the mantle above the fireplace as she walked to the other end of it. She finally turned to look at me and the humming stopped, her expression indifferent. I recognized her. Even in the dim lighting of the room, I recognized her signature blue eyes.

  "Stephanie?" I asked. "What are you doing here? Aren't you dead?"

  Her gaze swept along my form, a mixture of emotions flashing through her eyes.

  "Hello," she finally said and gave me a small smile. "I haven't seen you in so long. You grew up to be just as beautiful as I thought you would." She gave me a cheeky smile. "I mean look at us, we got good genes from our parents."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" I asked, now completely confused.

  She moved across the room so gracefully that it was as if she were floating. When she was in front of me, she cocked her head and reached up to stroke my cheek with the back of her hand, her cool skin sending a shiver through me.

  "I know it's been a long time, but don't tell me you've forgotten about your big sister already," she said with a smirk.

  I took a step back from her. I didn't have a sister. I'd always been an only child for as long as I could remember, right?

  "I think you may have me mistaken with someone else," I said slowly.

  She took a step forward and shook her head. "Just because you don't remember doesn't make it less true." She held out her palm to show me a faint scar she had in the middle of it. "Remember the night before I left? We made a sister pact that we'd find each other when we got older."

  My heart raced in my chest when she took my right hand into hers and turned it over, revealing a matching scar. "This wasn't supposed to be your life, Aurora. I was the one promised to Moreno, not you."

  "But...this isn't even possible. I don't have a fucking sister," I snapped, snatching my hand away from her.

  Genuine sadness filled her eyes as she wrapped her arms around herself. I was so confused, trying to force my brain to remember any other children that my parents had. Stephanie only stared at me, as if waiting for me to finally have my epiphany.

  The eight years I spent with my parents, I couldn't remember anyone who...

  My heart nearly stopped in my chest as I stared at Stephanie. There was only one child I remembered, one who'd come to our house one night after my father argued with a woman outside. I'd hid on the stairwell listening, seeing a sad, scared young girl standing in the foyer.

  I remembered my mother rushing out of the kitchen and arguing with my father about "love children," but I didn't know what that meant. She'd all but ignored the little girl, telling my father that it was his problem. Her blonde
hair was in tight curls and pushed back with a white headband. She wore a pink romper and white tennis shoes, one hand clutching a ratty old bunny rabbit and the other hand clutching the handle of a suitcase covered in ponies.

  "Our father kept a lot of secrets," Stephanie said as I stared at her in bewilderment.

  Even though she'd lived with us, my father never introduced her as my sister. He'd only said she had to stay with us for a little while until he could find her a safe home.

  "But if you were the one who was supposed to be here...wait, I....this is too fucking much," I exclaimed and moved over to the couch, sitting down and putting my head in my hands.

  It didn't make sense. If she was right about being my sister and being the one meant for this life, why the hell was I here?

  As if reading my thoughts, Stephanie came over to sit next to me. "I'm sure you already know how bad Wilson can be. I believe he either may have tricked Dad into signing a contract that gave Wilson more than Dad intended to give him, or he took you illegally."

  I shook my head. That couldn't be right. If it were a mistake or if Wilson took me illegally, my father wouldn't have apologized to me in the video Bennett made. Those apologies weren't apologies of an innocent man.

  Stephanie stood and walked back over to the fireplace. "You have to figure a way out," she said, her voice low.

  I jumped to my feet and frowned at her. "You know there's no way out of here," I said.

  She placed her hand on the mantle, her eyes focused on a picture of her and Bennett.

  "There's a way out of everything," she said and vanished.

  I jumped awake and looked around, Bennett glancing over at me as he drove with a raised brow.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked, frowning at me.

  "N-nothing," I stammered, relaxing back into my seat. After glancing at me for a few moments, he only shook his head and continued to drive.

  I slowly released my breath, trying to calm my racing heart. It wasn't unusual to have weird dreams after taking pain meds, but that felt entirely too specific. I actually remembered the young girl who lived with us for a while before she suddenly left our home. After she left, it was only a couple of months later before I was sent to live with a friend of my father's in South Carolina.

  Stephanie isn't my sister, I thought myself, looking up at the trees that passed through the window.

  Maybe I only dreamed of her since I'd seen her pictures. That was the only thing that made sense. It was probably a hallucination from the pain medicine that made me dream something like that.

  Feeling around on the side of my seat, I found the lever to bring my seat back into an upright position, wincing when my body ached at the movement. I glanced down at my hand, my heart skipping a beat to see the faint scar in the middle of my palm.

  It'd happened so long ago that the girl was a distance memory. I couldn't even remember her name anymore. Maybe the dream was just a result of the pain medicine. I’d gone through a lot in the last twenty-four hours; it wouldn’t be unusual for my mind to create outrageous situations that didn’t really happen. But as I looked at the scar and remembered how I got it, it was a bit hard to completely explain the dream away.

  I glanced over at Bennett, who kept his eyes fixed on the road. There was no way in hell I could tell him about something like that. Even though it didn't make sense, it made me curious. What if I didn't really belong with him? What if Wilson fucked my father over and tried to get a two-for-one bargain with both of his daughters?

  But that would mean I agree that Stephanie's my sister, I told myself.

  With a soft sigh, I wrapped my arms around myself, a million thoughts running through my mind. I wouldn't put it past Wilson to do something like that. But to give me to Bennett after what happened to Stephanie...that was at the top of the "Fucked Up Things to Do" list.

  I wracked my mind to think of people I could talk to without Bennett getting involved, and I had to stop the grin that pulled at my lips. The only person who would talk about Stephanie was Carrie. If I could get her help to figure some things out, maybe I could get the answers I was looking for.

  If it turned out that I was just having a trippy dream, then there was nothing that needed to be done. But if it turned out that this situation was much bigger than I was and that something was wrong, then it could change everything. It could turn the tide of the war between Bennett and his father. I looked over at him again.

  If my dream turned out to be true, the dynamic between Bennett and I could possibly change as well. If I were him, I'd feel weird having the sister of my dead lover as a pet. I wasn't too sure how I felt about that, but I knew I needed answers.

  Fast.

  BENNETT

  I leaned against the dresser as I watched Aurora sleep, a million different things in my mind. My body was tired, but my mind wouldn’t allow me to sleep, not when I couldn’t shake the feeling I had a traitor amongst my ranks.

  My mind flipped through the events of last night. One minute I was on the front porch with Aurora, and the next, there was a shootout. I ground my teeth.

  When everything cooled down, Saint had gone to check the gates to see how they’d gotten through in the first place, but he found no damage. KC didn’t find any signs of hacking, and there was no physical damage to suggest they broke through. The only way they could’ve gotten in was if they had the code to the gate.

  Kyler was the only one who had the code since he was the only who’d gone out of the gate by himself. My gut told me that something wasn’t right about him, and there was no way in hell I could stay in that safe house with him. I couldn’t endanger my men by making the decision, and I couldn’t put Aurora through that again.

  I sighed deeply and put my hands in my pocket. Things could’ve been so much worse for her. I still couldn’t even figure out how that guy even slipped past me to get into the house to get to her in the first place. She fought for her life in there, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was proud of how she held her own in there.

  When I heard the gunshots coming from the house, my blood ran cold. Even when I called out her name and didn’t hear her respond, I expected the worse. I expected to see her gunned down in the bathroom, my gun already cocked and raised as I made my way to where she was. But when I reached the bathroom and saw that burly man on the floor in his own blood, I put my gun away and went to her.

  She trembled on the floor, still pointing the gun at the man dead at her feet. Her breaths came quick, her eyes in a daze. When she finally met my gaze, everything seemed to drain from her, as if she was confused as to what had happened.

  She passed out moments after I took the gun from her, probably from the shock of everything. I had to give her props. She took down a man twice her size and strength on her own. Maybe she was stronger than I gave her credit for.

  A knock on the door broke through my thoughts, grounding me to the present. I released a deep sigh and turned to open the door. Carrie stood on the other side with a thick manila envelope in her hand, the look in her eyes telling me what I needed to know without her saying a word. She peeked around me to see Aurora, her lips pulling into a frown.

  “How is she?” she asked as I stepped out into the hallway with her.

  “She’ll be fine,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets as I leaned against the door. Carrie looked around the hall and then back to me.

  “Well, can we go somewhere to talk about some stuff?” she asked.

  After what’d happened at the safe house, I couldn’t trust anyone to watch or protect Aurora. I hadn’t left her side since we’d returned to the house, even though she’d been asleep the whole time.

  “We’ll have to talk in here. I can’t leave her alone right now,” I murmured as I opened the door. Carrie smirked at me as she walked into the bedroom, watching as I closed and locked the door behind her. I met her gaze and frowned. “What?”

  “Someone’s awfully protective of someone’s who’s just a ‘pe
t’,” she mused. She sat on the chaise lounge while I sat on the ottoman. “Did…something else happen at the safehouse before all the madness?”

  “No.” I ran a hand down my face. “When I heard the gunshots in the bathroom, I thought I was going to walk in on another scene like I did with Stephanie.” Even saying the words out loud was surreal.

  Carrie looked over at Aurora’s sleeping form. “What’s the verdict on her injuries?” she asked.

  “The cut on her thigh will heal fine. The one along her calf was a little bit deeper, so that’ll take some time. Other than that, she has some bruises that’ll get better with time.”

  “And she killed the guy on her own?”

  “Yep.”

  “Wow,” Carrie mused. “Impressive.”

  “Yeah. But we’re not here to talk about her. We’re here to talk about other important matters,” I reminded her, nodding toward the envelope she held.

  “Oh, right, right,” she said and began pulling out papers. “But first, I want to hear you say that I was right.”

  I furrowed my brow in confusion. “Right about what?”

  “When I first brought up the possibility of your father being a snake, you got mad and cussed at me. But now you’re calling me to ask what I’ve found, as if you’ve changed your mind.”

  The smirk on her face irritated the shit out of me, but I couldn’t say she was wrong. I stared at her for a long moment, but she didn’t continue to speak. Instead, she waited for me to say something, the smirk on her lips never wavering.

  “Well?” she said.

  I ground my teeth and exhaled deeply. “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine? Fine what?” Her green eyes sparkled with amusement as she watched me, her smirk turning into a smile. “Come on, I know you can do it. It’s just three little words. Say it with me: you were right.”

  “You were right,” I mumbled.

  She cupped her ear and leaned forward. “What was that? I can’t hear you too well.”