Rules of Bennett: The Complete Collection

by Ember Michaels

  “You have to have a special machine to hear it,” I said, stroking her hair. She looked up at me with bright brown eyes.

  “Can we go get it?”

  “Only the doctor has it. He’ll be here again in a few days and you’ll be able to hear it,” I promised. She clasped her little hands together.

  “Yay!” she exclaimed. “Are we going to see Uncle Benny today?”

  I nodded, giggling when she bounced off the bed. It was amazing how much energy children had first thing in the morning. I’d always thought kids were further down the road for me when I was creating my life’s plan. The only thing I’d been focused on at the time was building my company. But after everything that happened, maybe having an innocent baby would finally lift the dark cloud from this place. Having Giselle running around the house already made it so much brighter; I couldn’t wait to see what our own baby would do.

  We’d visited Bennett for the past week, even stopping by to see Saint. Though he was still asleep, his condition was finally improving, which was promising. I’d been there for him ever since he came out of surgery, my feelings conflicted. A part of me wanted to take the opportunity and leave as soon as I was able to. But whether or not I liked it, I’d started growing unintentional roots here. As this baby grew inside of me, my desire to leave lessened.

  “Don’t worry. When it’s time to leave, I’ll make sure we do,” my darker alter hissed in the corners of my mind.

  “Aurora, are we going?” Giselle asked, pushing her curly hair from her eyes.

  “Yes. We just have to get dressed and have breakfast first,” I said, finally throwing the blankets off of my legs. Carrie had gotten her so many adorable outfits lately; it was like dressing up my own living doll. My arm was a bit sore this morning, but I grit through the pain. Being pregnant made it harder to take the medicines that would work better for pain, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make. I ran my hand along my growing belly, a small smile on my lips. As Giselle excitedly pointed at what she wanted to wear, a part of me hoped that I’d have a little girl. Watching my daughter have Bennett wrapped around her finger would be the best karma he could get at this point.

  “Can I wear this one? Please, please, please? I like Hello Kitty on it!” she exclaimed. It was a purple Hello Kitty t-shirt with white leggings.

  “I think that’s a great choice,” I said. “What shoes do you want to wear?”

  “The sparkly ones!” she exclaimed, running over to her row of shoes. She grabbed a pair of white tennis shoes with silver glitter on the sides. “Are these good?”

  “They’re perfect, doll,” I said with a smile. I could only imagine how happy this interaction made her. She’d been so used to Saint doing these things with her; I wasn’t sure if Saint had dated after her mother died, but maybe she enjoyed doing this with a woman. She always looked at me for approval, becoming sad if I didn’t seem too excited. Even if she didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought she did, I was definitely enjoying the practice.

  “I’m gonna put them right here,” she said, putting the clothes on the shoes on the bed. I took her hand.

  “Okay. Let’s go eat breakfast and then we can get ready to see Uncle Benny for a little while,” I said. I could hear a slight commotion downstairs as soon as I stepped out of the hallway, putting me on edge. I listened hard and noticed that people were cheering.

  “What’s happening?” Giselle whispered, squeezing my hand a little tighter.

  “I’m not sure. Stay right here, okay?”

  She nodded and stood by the bedroom door as I walked to the start of the staircase. People were talking in excited voices as they crowded around someone in the living room. Then I saw him. He looked up at me and smiled. He still looked a little bit pale and exhausted, but he was on his feet and home.

  “Hey there, gorgeous. Are you going to come down and say hi or continue staring at me?” Bennett teased. I looked to Giselle and waved her over. She cautiously walked over to me, squealing when she saw Bennett.

  “Uncle Benny!” she shrieked and ran down the stairs.

  “Careful, Giselle,” I called out after her. She slowed down to a quick walk and I couldn’t help but to grin.

  I sound like such a mom, I thought to myself. Bennett squatted down as Giselle ran over to him, but she stopped just before she touched him.

  “Are you still hurt?” she asked, cocking her head to the side.

  “Only a little bit,” he said and smiled at her. “But you can still hug me if you can be really careful.”

  She smiled and walked into his arms, hugging his neck. He winced a bit but hugged her tight. When he let her go, she looked up at me.

  “We were gonna come see you!” she said. “Are you gonna eat breakfast with us?”

  “Sure, little dove,” he said and looked to me, his eyes drifting down to my belly. Every time I’d visited him, I wore sweaters and loose-fitting shirts. Now I wore a fitting nightgown that showed my growing bump, a physical sign of the life growing inside of me. He walked to the foot of the stairs. “Are you gonna come here or do I have to come up there to kiss you?”

  I couldn’t help the cheesy grin that pulled at my lips as I descended down the last few steps. He wrapped his good arm around me and kissed me with so much passion that it nearly knocked me off my feet. Ever since he’d woken up, he’d been unusually affectionate. I was starting to wonder if he’d also suffered a concussion along with a gunshot wound when we hit the ground.

  He let go of me and placed a kiss on my belly. “I see you, buddy,” he murmured as he rubbed it.

  “Well, I’m hungry. Giselle and I were just about to have breakfast,” I said, walking over to her and taking her hand.

  “I want toast sticks again!” she said as she hopped alongside me.

  “French toast sticks?” I corrected.

  “Yeah, French toast sticks!” she said. We all walked to the dining room, where Savannah and a couple of other girls were putting breakfast on the table already. Savannah placed Giselle’s plate on the table and picked her up, putting her in her booster seat at the table. She wasted no time digging into her breakfast, humming with each bite.

  “And breakfast for you and baby,” Savannah said to me, patting my belly.

  “Thanks,” I said with a small smile.

  “Would you like me to make you something?” Savannah asked Bennett. He shook his head, sitting down beside me.

  “I’m good, thanks,” he said. He and Giselle talked as she ate, his hand rubbing circles on my belly.

  “The sooner we deal with Wilson, the sooner we can get the hell out of here,” my alter said.

  “After breakfast, we have some business to talk about,” Bennett whispered in my ear before he got up. I nodded to let him know I heard him, watching as he walked away with Nyxin and Bruce.

  “Aurora, are we gonna play outside today since Uncle Benny is home now?” she asked before taking a sip of her juice.

  “Maybe a little later, doll. I have to go to work today.”

  “I’ll take you outside,” Carrie said as she came into the dining room. Giselle giggled as Carrie ruffled her hair. “Are you all finished with your breakfast?”

  “I have to finish my juice,” she said and quickly drank the rest of her orange juice. “Okay, all gone!” Carrie helped her out of her booster seat and took her hand.

  “Let’s go get dressed and then you can go outside.”

  “Please wipe her face,” I said as they started to walk out of the dining room.

  Carrie grinned at me. “You’re getting into the mom role pretty well, you know,” she said.

  Giselle looked back at me, her mouth sticky with syrup. “Bye, Aurora!”

  “Bye, sweetie. I’ll see you a little later. Be good for Carrie!” I called out behind them. Soon as I was in the dining room alone until Savannah came back to clear Giselle’s dishes. I pushed my eggs around my plate, feeling Savannah’s eyes on me. I already had a feeling about what “business” Benne
tt was talking about. We’d have to finally deal with Wilson, which would finally put an end to everything that’d made my life hell. Once that was over, I’d have to face the music of something I’d been avoiding since he gave me the option.

  And I was nowhere closer to a decision than I’d been when he first told me about my options.

  “You okay?” Savannah asked, pulling out the chair next to me and sitting down.

  I sighed softly and shrugged. “I don’t know anymore,” I murmured. “Just confused, I guess.”

  “Confused about what?”

  “The options Bennett gave me that I told you about.”

  “Oh yeah.” She nodded. “I mean you’re pregnant. It would make sense to stay, right?”

  “I don’t know anymore.” We were both quiet for a moment before I continued. “I was so set on leaving before I knew I was pregnant. A part of me still wants to but another part of me would feel guilty if I did, you know?”

  “Considering everything he’s done to you, why would you?”

  I couldn’t explain the strange sense of loyalty I felt to this organization, even to him. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones making me feel a little more emotional than before, but a decision that was once so easy to make no longer seemed so simple.

  “I don’t know. I can’t really explain it.” I sighed. “I know he’s going to want an answer once we deal with his father. I just don’t want to make the wrong choice.”

  Savannah took my hands into her and gaze them a light squeeze. “At the end of the day, you have to do what’s best for you and your baby. If that’s deciding to stay here, then great! If you decide to leave and try to get some kind of semblance of a normal life back, that’s great too.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  She scoffed. “What about me?”

  “If I leave, I mean. What about you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said and smiled. “Once you and Bennett end this once and for all, Bruce and I are going to live in his townhouse on the back of the property. I’m excited about it.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “You actually want to stay here?” I asked, my voice flat.

  “You know, before all this happened, I kept meeting douchebag after douchebag. There were the physically abusive douchebags, the cheating douchebags, and asshole douchebag. Bruce is the first man to respect me and treat me the way I wished my ex boyfriends would have. Like I said before, it sucks that I had to go through all I did in order to meet him, but I wouldn’t change a single second if it meant I’d always get to meet him at the end of that suffering,” she said. The way she talked about him with so much love in her voice and on her face nearly made me jealous.

  “You’re so pathetic that it’s frustrating sometimes,” my alter scoffed in disgust. “Do you want to be in love with that maniac just because you’re pregnant? Being a single parent is a thing.”

  But why be one when he’s willing and wanting to be a father?

  “Oh…I don’t know…because he’s a fucking dick and we still hate him for what he’s done?”

  Just be quiet for now, I scolded.

  “I’m happy for you,” I finally said to Savannah, forcing a smile on my lips. “I’m glad you’ve found someone that makes you happy.”

  “Besides, you’ve been here and a part of this life for almost a year. Wouldn’t it be…weird to go back to a normal life? I know it would be for me,” Savannah said and visibly shuddered. “Wouldn’t you be concerned about the police hounding you about Heath’s death? Because that’s definitely going to come up. Unless you plan to tell them about Bennett, that could backfire on you.”

  I exhaled deeply. I hadn’t even thought about the questions I’d have to answer about my old life if I resurfaced. South Carolina had been first on my list of places to go if I ever got out of here. If my disappearance was as public as Bennett made it seem—especially after he leaked the video—it probably wasn’t in my best interest to back there. But I wanted to see the memories I’d left behind and get all my important documents like my passport and other identifying records.

  “I don’t know. I still need to think about it, I guess,” I finally said. “I should probably get ready to meet with Bennett.”

  We both stood from the table. She hugged me tight and gave me a reassuring smile. “No matter what you choose, I’ll be okay,” she said.

  I felt as if I was on autopilot as I went to my bedroom to get dressed, just putting on a pair of jeans and a shirt. Even though it was technically a special occasion, I didn’t want to get dressed up. Bennett was standing in the doorway when I looked up. He gave me a soft smile as he crossed the room and wrapped an arm around me.

  “You sure you want to do this?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I’m sure.”

  He looked at me for a long moment. “So…have you decided what you’re going to do?” he asked.

  I giggled and stood on my tip toes to kiss him. “Why are you even worried about that right now? We’re about to do something you’ve been waiting to do for a while—what we’ve both been waiting to do.”

  “Because it’s all I can think about it,” he murmured. “I just wanted to know where your head was at.”

  I gave him a small smile, feeling a tiny bit guilty. “My head’s in a good place,” I said, though I knew it was far from the truth. And when he smiled, I knew that when I finally left, it would probably shatter him. I mean that was what I’d wanted, to destroy him.

  “I’m glad to hear that,” he said and kissed me. “When this is over, maybe we can take that trip to Hawaii like we planned.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I said with a smile.

  He let go of me. “Well, let’s get this done once and for all, gorgeous.”

  Bennett and I walked down to the bunker, flashbacks of the last events popping up into my mind. I pushed them away and held my head high as we walked down to the stone room that I’d spent many days of Hell week in. Wilson had been locked down here for the past month just waiting for his execution, which was torture all by itself. When Bruce opened the door, Wilson squinted up at us from the floor, shielding his eyes from the hallway light that flooded the doorway. He’d been stripped of his clothes, just as I was when I was down here for days. He growled when he saw me.

  “What do you want, you cunt?” he snapped. “Are you here to actually do something to me or do you wanna waste time making empty threats?”

  I cocked my head to the side. “What empty threats did I make?” I asked, motioning for Bruce to follow me. Wilson’s eyes tracked my movements as Bruce brought in the leather punishment bench. I ground my teeth as I thought about the first time I strapped to it. Bennett had raped me so severely that I needed several stitches. I looked to Wilson. “I asked you a question.”

  “You’re not my fucking queen. I don’t owe you shit,” he sneered. I looked to Bruce and Nyxin.

  “Make him assume the position,” I ordered. Bennett leaned against the doorframe as he watched, not saying a word. I wanted him to suffer as I had since being here. I wanted him to feel what I felt. I couldn’t make him go through seven days of Hell, as I didn’t have the patience to wait another seven days to kill him, but I definitely had other things in mind.

  Wilson fought against Bruce and Nyxin as they dragged him over to the bench, quickly strapping him down. He jerked against the restraints glaring at me with his red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes.

  “You better pray you kill me, bitch. If you don’t, not even my pathetic son will be able to save you,” he growled, loud enough to where I could clearly hear him, but low enough to where Bennett couldn’t.

  I gave him a sweet smile. “Trust me, I will.” I circled around him a couple of times before I stopped in front of him. “You know, when your son put me on this bench, he nearly killed me.”

  “He should’ve,” Wilson snapped. “Had he done so, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

  “No, this would’ve still happened,” I said, shaking my head. “Carrie w
as already onto you; it was only a matter of time before Bennett came to the same conclusion.”

  Wilson glared over at Bennett. "Are you just going to let your wife do your dirty work like a coward?" he asked. "If you're going to murder me, at least be a man and do it yourself.”

  "Don't worry; my turn is coming up. But right now? Now it's my wife's turn,” he replied. Nyxin walked out into the hall and re-entered with the sex machine. He strolled across the room and situated himself behind Wilson, adjusting the sex machine.

  As I looked at him, I thought of him being the cause of everything bad that’d happened in my life since I was eight years old: my parents sending me away, years of looking over my shoulder, my life being stripped away, my family and Heath murdered. All of that because this dickhead was greedy and wanted more than he was given.

  “The attachment please,” I said to Bruce. He walked over to me and handed me a wooden box. Turning my attention to Wilson, I said, “When I told you I was going to rip you a new asshole…do you think I was making an empty threat?”

  Wilson scoffed. “You’re full of shit. You’re weak like your pathetic father. You don’t have the balls to do anything,” he ground out.

  I opened the small box. “It’s unfortunate that you think such a thing.” I pulled out the dildo attachment. His eyes widened when he saw the sharpened studs on the side of it. “Ripping you a new asshole doesn’t seem so much like an empty threat now, does it?”

  “You fucking bitch!” he spat, jerking against his restraints wildly as I walked behind him and put the attachment on the sex machine. “I swear if you think about touching me, my number two in command will hunt every single one of you fucks down!”

  “Your number two?” Bennett repeated, cocking his head to the side. “You mean this number two?” A beaten, and bloodied man with his hands tied and mouth duct taped stumbled into the room, Josh holding a gun to his head. “Is this the number two you’re talking about?”

  Wilson only glared at him as Bennett smiled.

  “In case, you think you’re still getting over on me, here’s your number three, four, and your potential four,” Bennett continued. Three more men in the same position were pushed into the room by more of Bennett’s men, all of them with a gun to their heads. “So, what were you saying about them hunting us down?”