Текст книги "Capital Risk"

Автор книги: Lana Grayson

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“Did you fucking kill her?”

My father’s office door crashed against the wall. Chunks of wood from the frame shattered, striking the ceiling, the windows. They tumbled still before his desk.

I stared the monster in the eye.

He didn’t blink.

I repeated myself. My words echoed in fierce accusation, layering in the freezing hiss of a desperate man without patience, without hope.

Without answers.

Without her.

“Did you kill her?”

My father’s thin lips peeled into a smile. He folded his hands into his lap, just waiting, hesitating as the silence tightened my fists.

“Kill who, son?”

I wasn’t a man who lost his temper. My father was a man who didn’t deserve the air he breathed.

I swore, ripping the laptop and papers from his desk. The computer crashed in a disappointing fizzle, but the roaring blood in my ears promised a greater calamity once his bones cracked and skin ripped.

“You seem tense,” my father said.

I grunted as I hauled him from his chair. He wasn’t feeble, but he didn’t fight as I slammed him against the window and weighed my failing patience against his uncompromising stare. His head smacked against the glass. It wasn’t enough.

Outside, San Jose glimmered in the twilight. The cracking glass would have shattered the quiet, but I longed for every murderous second of Heaven as his body careened to the pavement below.

I gripped his suit. His eyebrow arched.

I should have driven his head through the window.

But I had to know.

For two months, I lived in ignorance, pessimism, and a denied mourning. She vanished, completely. Emails unanswered and phones disconnected. A private investigator revealed nothing.

Max warned we’d need to hire a coroner.

It was the first time I struck my brother. He lost a tooth. I thought I lost my mind.

Either the grief would break me, shadow me in crimson regret and endless solitude, or that failing slice of hope would cut through the insanity.

If she were safe, we’d all survive.

The only force more powerful than greed was hate. Money didn’t transfer into the afterlife. Hate did. Vengeance did. If he murdered her, I’d follow him to hell and become his own personal devil.

“Did you kill Sarah Atwood?”

“You think I would kill my own daughter?”

“Don’t fuck with me. Is she dead?”

My father grinned. “Why do you ask, Nicholas? Has your little sister gone missing?”

If he dared to take that perverted tone about Sarah once more, he’d pray to land in a puddle of glass forty stories below.

“Answer the question. Did you have her killed?”

My father declined to respond. His attention drifted over my shoulder. I dropped him and ducked, avoiding the fist of one of his newly hired bodyguards. He stepped aside as the second guard imbedded his foot in my gut.

I swung. My punch caught one in the chin as the other slammed my ear. I fell to my knee, but not before gripping a pair of scissors cast from the desk. I jammed the blade into the thigh of the bastard gripping my neck.

The monsters my father hired were as emotionless and cruel as he. If they bled, it was black and putrid. The stain spread over his thigh, but he didn’t swear. His grip tightened, and the other bodyguard struck me in the chest. The air hissed from my lungs.

I didn’t give my father the satisfaction of groaning. Not like I had the air to make the sound anyway.

“Don’t bruise his face.” My father readjusted his suit before claiming his seat. “But teach him this lesson.”

As with everything my father expected, his guards were ruthless, efficient, and obeyed his every order. A kick to the chest was nothing. The jab to the kidney drove me to my knees. My stomach heaved. I didn’t vomit.

Yet.

The funeral guests left when the ambulance arrived for my hysterical step-mother. My father grunted, wiping the blood from his hands with a handkerchief.

“Bethany sliced her wrists in the bathtub. I’m going with her to the hospital. You stay at the farm until what whatever remains of those bastards are buried.”

As if I had a choice. Two men were dead, lost souls in a feud with no visible end. The least they deserved was an acknowledgement of our guilt.

The crowds paid their respects, and the caskets lowered into the farmland, beside the wretched body of their father. A murderer didn’t deserve a grave as beautiful as the landscape surrounding the Atwood farms.

The guests tucked away their tissues and paraded to their cars.

But she stayed.

The beautiful blonde with hair as pale as her corn’s silk and blue eyes faded with tears. She sat in the dirt and wept for her brothers. For her life. For everything that was now hers.

Sarah Atwood’s sorrow broke my heart.

I wished we weren’t the cause.

A rib cracked. The sharp slice echoed over the room. I gasped, but my escaping words didn’t beg for pity. My father loathed mercy and begging excited him. My brothers and I shared enough scars to understand his sadism.

And now so did Sarah.

If she were still alive.

I left her at the chalet, but I promised her I’d return. We’d planned to sell her shares of the company, appease the board, and find a way to shield her from my father.

But maybe she didn’t believe me? Maybe she ran before the bastard had a chance to locate her.

Or maybe she was dead.

And then my father would need more than two Russian mutes with bloodied fists to protect him.

“Where is she?” I rasped through the pain. “Answer me.”

My father nodded. The monster on my right struck where the rib already shattered.

“First, you steal my daughter and hide her far from where her daddy can find her.” My father’s voice was far too calm for the filth he spoke. “And now you storm into my office fussing like a toddler. Why? Is it because she’s run from you too? Tell me, Nicholas. What’s happened to this family? To you?”

“Nothing you didn’t cause.”

“Me?” he actually laughed. “How is this disaster my fault? Be honest, son. You fell in love with your sister. You bargained with everyone’s lives to save hers. You gave her the stock, and you were the one to threaten Roman Wescott into giving you every last share.”

He nodded to his guard. I braced for it, but the fist to my gut roiled every pain with my simmering disgust. I grunted and spat. The second guard backhanded me for the insolence of making a mess in my father’s office.

That would bruise. He didn’t care.

“That little Atwood slut climbed into your bed, gave you a ride, and then ran away with the entirety of the Josmik Trust. Didn’t she tell the love of her life where she went? Are you really surprised?”

“Sarah was selling the stock to the board. She didn’t want to keep it.”

His eyebrow arched. “She fucked you good, Nicholas. At least you got off while it lasted.”

I tasted blood. It wasn’t from the beating. “You killed her. You found her and murdered her.”

“Son, I assure you. The last time I saw Sarah Atwood was the last time you did.”

He didn’t know about the chalet. He didn’t know I’d confessed my love to her, begged her forgiveness for the horrible pain my brothers and I caused, and ordered her to stay and wait for my return.

My father gestured for his men to strike me again. The punch bent me in two. The hit to my chest popped me upright in the chair.

“I should have killed her, but I didn’t think the little whore would ever bolt.” My father sighed, unflinching, as he observed my beating. “To be perfectly honest, my daughter charmed me. I let her off easy, but I’ve always had a soft heart.”

My breathing hurt, but I deserved the ragged drag of air through my lungs. Sarah suffered through worse for us—her own broken ribs and injuries, terrors and captivity.

Of course she’d leave.

Of course she’d run.

What promises of mine would ever comfort a woman so mistreated? I never saw her body without bruises. I vowed to keep her safe, but my word hadn’t prevented any injury or sacrifice. And the day I freed her from my possession, the instant the collar unclipped from her neck, the devil rose from hell to recover the innocent soul he nearly lost.

What my brothers and I did to her was unforgiveable. And even in the dark and quiet, when I returned to fall back within her, as I offered her my heart with every passionate thrust, she made her choice.

Sarah ran to save herself. And she took the only leverage she had to ensure her safety—the very fate of the company she vowed to destroy.

My father dismissed the guards he had hired specifically to defend him from our retaliation. Not a day went by that Max and Reed didn’t demand some form of satisfaction. For them, it had been three months since the night he put the gun to her head and forced us to ruin her.

They weren’t the same men I remembered.

Neither was I.

The bodyguards wouldn’t protect my father. The only reason he breathed was because I couldn’t take the chance that he’d found Sarah and imprisoned her without our knowledge.

“I asked for one thing, son.” He dabbed his handkerchief over the blood that smudged his desk. “Sarah Atwood’s heir. We were in agreement. You all fucked the girl, and yet here we are. Months later, and our company is still in jeopardy. I’m disappointed with this turn of events.”

My grief and misery faded. I believed him. He hadn’t found her. She was safe.

So why did she run from me?

“I don’t care if I disappoint you,” I said.

“Yes, you do. All of my sons do. It’s the reason Reed has yet to abandon his name, and why Max bloodied his hands so often. Even you, Nicholas. Until that little bitch staked her claim on your cock, you served me with every expectation I had of my heir.”

“I don’t serve anyone.”

“You made a fine lapdog for Sarah Atwood.” He spat the words. “And a better one for me these past few weeks. No more arguing. No more complications in the board meetings. It’s refreshing. Almost as if you remembered you were my son.”

“It’s not for you. I vote with you like we agreed.”

“Do you regret this now?”

“It kept her safe.”

A pause. My father’s lips pressed into another smile I didn’t trust. He leaned forward.

“For how much longer, Nicholas? Do you really think you can protect her from the board?”

No. She inherited the shares early, but she hadn’t signed the sales agreement to transfer the wealth to the board. Her fate was decided.

But if Sarah had attempted to harm the Bennett Corporation, she’d already be dead. Instead, she acted stupidly and recklessly, which meant everything was going according to her plan.

“They will kill her,” my father said. “And you and I won’t be able to save her.”

The disgust was worse than the blood and sweat beaten from me. “You don’t want to save her. You want to hurt her.”

“Sarah Atwood was always meant to be bred. Her own father didn’t label her as an heir, and her brothers named her as there was no one else in their line. Her sole purpose in this world was to carry whatever son you planted in her womb.” He snorted. “But you couldn’t even do that.”

And I was grateful. The last punishment Sarah deserved was the dehumanizing realization that we twisted her body with such a repulsive desire.

“The idea was mad from the start,” I said. “And now we have more problems than her.”

“The board?” His voice lightened. “They have a plan to regain those shares. They’ll capture her, kill her. She’ll be lucky if she dies before they take a taste of her for their troubles.”

My stomach turned. The men on the board, men like Bryant Maddox who’d do just as my father predicted, would make her suffer for their lost investments. My mind raged, blitzing into both pain and ruptured aggression.

No one would ever touch her. Not after what my brothers and I did.

Sarah endured enough without a man forcing himself upon her.

The thought sickened me, but my father watched my every flinch. It wasn’t a weakness to love, but it wasn’t a strength that would protect her from vile intentions.

“If Sarah Atwood were killed…” My father seemed pleased by the implication. “The trust would transfer to her mother. As Bethany’s husband, Sarah’s power of attorney would defer to me. So, Nicholas, if you wish to save your little whore, I’d recommend finding her soon.”

“And what would you do to her if I did?”

“She knows what she must do. First, she sells the shares—that’s non-negotiable. Then she’d have a choice.”

“You’ve never given her a choice.”

“She can either be bred, or she will be killed.” He rapped his fingers against his desk. “And, son? I think that decision might be harder for her than you believe.”

“You will not hurt her.”

He held my gaze. “I’ve acquired a taste for her pain. I’m sure I’ll sample it again. Soon.”

No more madness. I heard all I needed to hear. I stood, wracked with the ache of my broken ribs and enough internal bruising to piss blood. My father ordered his guards to escort me from the office.

“Board meeting tomorrow, Nicholas. Tricky vote. I’ll need your support on those few employee terminations we’ve discussed.”

I gritted my teeth. Seven hundred employees weren’t a few. Whatever legacy I’d inherit smoldered in the wreckage of his leadership.

I turned to the door, but I didn’t move quickly enough. The pleasure in my father’s voice gurgled like an oozing wound.

“I’m sure she’ll return soon, son.” He laughed. “And she’ll have so many stories to tell you.”

My father’s guards forced me into the elevator, but I waited until the doors closed before sinking against the mirrored wall. I attempted to check my ribs in the mirror. Twisting to untuck the dress shirt agonized me. I imagined what I’d see instead.

I escaped into the parking garage but waited until I was in the car before dialing Max on the pre-paid phone.

He answered after one ring.

“What’d you find out?”

I hid the pain. “He doesn’t have her.”

“You sure?”

“I have two broken ribs and instructions on how to vote at the meeting tomorrow. He doesn’t know where she is. Sarah’s still alive. She’s okay.”

“Then where the fuck is she?” Max asked.

Good question.

His voice lowered. “And why the hell is she running from you?”

Better question.

“Are you ready to move?” I clutched the steering wheel. “Tonight is our best opportunity. Not many people in the office.”

Max swore. “I’m ready. Got a problem though.”

“I don’t want to hear the word problem.”

“Reed hasn’t picked up his packages.”

Son of a bitch. I slammed a hand against the console. My ribs immediately punished me.

The silenced pistols, unregistered and imported from Max’s contact in Mexico, waited for their first and only use. We left the helicopter on the Bennett Corporation roof, fueled and serviced. I’d pilot. Max would contain the cargo. Once we reached the yacht, Reed and I arranged for a drop in the deep, darker parts of the ocean. Ten million dollars, but they promised discretion.

They also wanted it in cash. And if Reed hadn’t secured the duffle bag…

“Where the hell is he?” I spat my words. “What’s he doing?”

“Hasn’t said. He’s gotta get there in less than an hour. I knew we couldn’t count on him, Nick. He’s still fucked up from raping Sarah.”

“Goddamn it. If he wants to atone for it, this is the only way.”

I seized my primary cell phone as it rang. Reed’s name flashed over the display.

“Hold on. I found him.”

Max swore. I answered the call.

“Nick.” Reed spoke slowly, too steady. “Something came up.”

“You have a job to do,” I said.

“I know.”

“Where are you?”

“Getting ready to board a plane.”

“A plane?”

“Listen to me. Something important happened. Get out of San Jose. Meet me at my house.”

“Reed—”

“I’m not fucking around.”

I had two broken ribs and not nearly enough patience for his games. “What about the plan?”

“Forget it.”

“We won’t get this chance again. Not for a while.”

“Call it off. Believe me. We might not get this chance again.”

Reed hung up. I swore again before returning to Max.

“Reed’s out,” I said.

“Should we do it alone?”

We couldn’t. I organized it for three men. Each of us had our part.

“He said to meet him at his house,” I said.

“On the coast?”

“Apparently.”

“What about Dad?”

“He said this was bigger.”

Max hesitated. “What do you think?”

No greater injustice existed than my father’s beating heart. I grunted.

“Call it off. We’ll have other opportunities.” I stared through a darkened windshield, to the private elevator to the executive floor. “He thinks he’s untouchable.”

“He is. You know the risks.”

And I was willing to bear them all. The frustration beat at me from the inside, punishing that which already bruised and bled.

It had almost been over.

And we risked it all to see it done.

But I knew what would happen as a result. The investigations. The money. The will.

The company.

We might have lost everything. I prepared to trade my freedom for hers.

If it even mattered. She was an Atwood. She probably found a way to destroy us all in her own twisted revenge.

I had trusted her. For the first time in our relationship, I trusted her.

And she betrayed me. She kept the shares. She damned me to a board that would kill me for my treachery just as they’d slit her throat.

It was becoming too difficult to keep track of the favors and excuses. She owed me an explanation. I owed her a life free from pain and suffering. One of us would break first.

“We’ll meet at Reed’s place,” I said. “And he better have a damn good excuse for ruining this.”

“Are you sure?”

“Killing Dad is the only way I can keep Sarah safe. If that doesn’t prove how much I love her, then nothing will.”

“What if she doesn’t want you?” Max asked. “What if after all this bullshit she’d decided to split, save herself, and fuck us all over?”

“It won’t happen.”

“Why?”

The simple truth heated my blood and stilled my heart.

“I will have Sarah Atwood. Not because she belongs to me, but because I cannot exist without her.”

Three knocks rattled the hotel door.

Hamlet growled. He remembered what happened the last time someone came for me.

My chest squeezed. Monsters didn’t live in closets. They roamed free in the world, hunting and torturing their victims with gnarled fingers and a sing-song sickness in their voice.

But the man knocking wasn’t evil. He was the one Bennett I’d face without shattering under the weight of the truth. It wasn’t Darius’s perverted crimes that frightened me anymore. It was what they’d think of me once I faced the shame.

What Nicholas would think.

My hand trembled as I checked the peephole. I recognized the sea-green eyes, but I opened the door with the chain, just to ensure he was alone.

The baby wasn’t the only consequence of my naivety. Paranoia conquered me. And distrust.

Reed waited until the door swung wide. Then I was captured in his embrace.

“Hi, Re—”

I stuffed my tears into the roiling pit of nausea in my stomach. Reed squeezed me too hard. I dug my fingers into his shoulder and hoped I wouldn’t reveal the pregnancy in a most undignified manner.

Reed didn’t smile. He touched my face, kissed my forehead.

“Jesus Christ, Sarah, we were worried about you! Where the hell have you been?”

He didn’t release me, and I tolerated the touch, if only because the last time he held me was in a brief, horrible goodbye after my step-brothers secured a chartered flight to escape from Darius. Reed gave me five thousand dollars and broke down because he could do nothing else.

Nothing to make up for how they hurt me.

But it wasn’t his fault. Not when the gun was pointed at my head, and the bullets etched with their names. I didn’t blame them. It was all Darius. Every time. Every moment.

But even Reed’s embrace was too much, too confining. I escaped from his pinning hug. He patted Hamlet behind the ears.

“You okay?” Reed brushed my cheek.

I flinched, and he immediately apologized. The guilt and shame flushed my cheeks.

I dreaded what he’d say next. The pity. The remorse.

Instead he smiled, his dimple so teasing and playful. “Enjoying your whirlwind vacation?”

I…hadn’t expected that.

“Vacation?”

He winked. “I figured you’d get tired of us sooner or later.”

“Tired of you?”

“Nick’s been so worried, holy Christ. You ran with all those shares. Max thought you’d sell and buy a one-way ticket to some tropical island paradise.” Reed grinned. “I told him you’d use it for startup capital to develop some sort of genetically modified monster corn.”

My stomach rolled. I pushed further from Reed.

“You thought I left with the stock from the Josmik Trust,” I said. “You thought I…”

Betrayed them.

Oh, God.

They didn’t know.

Nicholas didn’t know.

Darius’s attack wasn’t the only nightmare that haunted me. I dreaded how he’d gloat, what he’d say, how he’d utterly destroy my step-brothers when he revealed just how easily he…

They didn’t know their father raped me.

My stomach heaved.

“Hold on…” I clapped a hand over my mouth and rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door as I landed on my knees.

They didn’t know.

The relief expelled every awful memory, the lingering fear, the imaginary hands gripping my hips.

Darius didn’t tell them.

And neither would I.

I had an opportunity to end the reign of a monster. If we killed Darius, they would never know, and I would be safe from harm and humiliation.

Reed rapped on the door. “Hey, Typhoid Mary. I’m glad you called, but if you get me sick…”

I washed my face. “You won’t catch it.”

“Better not.”

I edged from the bathroom with a shrug. His eyebrow rose as he cuddled with Hamlet.

“You okay?” His smile faded.

No. “Yeah.”

“You don’t look good.” He gestured around the hotel room. “And you can afford better digs.”

Not if I wanted to hide in one of the thousands of indistinguishable hotels where a billionaire would never think to search.

“It’s been fine,” I said.

Reed didn’t believe me, but he nodded. “I’m glad you’re coming back.”

He wouldn’t be, not once he learned the reasons why. He hopped from the bed to take the bag I lifted. The strap caught on the table and jostled the zipper.

The rattling bottle bounced against the floor. I dove for it, but Reed seized it first, handing it to me.

“Almost dropped your—”

The bottle clenched in his hand. He read the label. I froze.

Prenatal vitamins.

His expression shifted—a momentary confusion that cleared quickly, as if I struck him against the temple with the bottle. I met his gaze.

And pleaded in silence.

I wasn’t ready to say it.

Not yet. Not aloud. Not to anyone but Hamlet and the compassionate nurse practitioner at the free clinic who offered to help even when I wouldn’t give her my name.

I’d carried the secret for two months, and the only man who deserved to hear it was the one I was too terrified to call.

I stilled. Reed stared at me, and three, four, five agonizing seconds of silence transformed his confused frown to wide-eyed shock.

He offered to run with me once, but I thought I’d control my own fate and end it before anyone got hurt. One fluttering heartbeat changed everything.

I took the vitamins from Reed’s hand.

He exhaled. His eyebrow twitched, but whatever he prepared to say silenced between clenched teeth. Reed was as good a brother as Josiah or Mike. He nodded and clipped the leash on Hamlet.

“Ready to go?” he asked.

I would have thanked him, but it wasn’t necessary. He’d do anything for me. Reed shouldered my book bag too.

“Does he know I’m coming?” I couldn’t say his name.

“I kept it on the DL. I’ll Nick them from the airport and tell him to meet us at my house.”

“And it’s…” I hated the tremble in my voice. “It’ll be safe there?”

His expression darkened. Reed clenched his jaw.

“Nothing’s gonna happen to you.” He handed me Hamlet’s leash. “Come on. Tonight was a bad night to be wrangling you.”

“Why?”

“Just a lot happening. Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of you.”

Take care of me? They had their chance to take care of me. That time had come, gone, and was lost in blood and bruises.

Now they had one job. One promise they could finally keep, and then I’d leave forever.

Darius Bennett would die.

And my child would be safe.

“You should eat, Ms. Atwood.”

Nicholas dared to speak to me. He offered a sandwich, a bottle of water, and an apple. It wasn’t a kindness, not when he unlocked my bedroom door from the outside to deliver my first meal within the Bennett Estate.

“Go on,” he said. “It isn’t poisoned.”

As if that would reassure me, as if the trauma from a kidnapping and imprisonment would be alleviated because Nicholas Bennett offered me a ham sandwich.

“If you want your vengeance, you’ll need your strength,” he teased. The plate clattered on the nightstand. “I want a fair fight, Ms. Atwood.”

“Nothing’s fair about this.”

“No, it’s not.”

I didn’t move. Nicholas existed in a perfect, intimidating stillness, but I refused to let it frighten me.

“You haven’t won yet,” I said. “You’ve only just started a war. Whatever insanity existed between our fathers is done and buried. You’ve instigated something far worse.”

“Ms. Atwood—”

“You should consider the consequences of this kidnapping. If you succeed and a child is born?” I whispered the threat. “I will burn this prison to the ground and scorch my enemies into ash before I let you become a father to my son.”

Reed crowded my bags and dog into his rental car. I’d traveled from the Poconos west, running from Pennsylvania to Minnesota. We had to take a private plane to California.

I tried not to think of Josiah and Mike. Tried not to remember the footage of their plane crash Darius forced me to watch.

It didn’t work. Weepy and sick and exhausted, I collapsed in my seat. Reed said nothing as I darted to the bathroom twice. I curled up beside him and let the hours pass with inoffensive small-talk about Hamlet.

I couldn’t ask about Nicholas.

The plane descended into a tiny airport off the California coast. Reed lived West of San Jose, in a little ocean town known for the surfing community. He loaded me into a private car and pointed out his favorite board shop, coffee house, and the road he took to get to the Mavericks, a crazy surfing spot half a mile out into the ocean.

Reed rubbed the scar on his cheek. “You think that’s bad, you should see a twenty foot wave crashing over your head.”

Yeah, not something I would have done even before I landed in my current condition. “Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Sure, but that’s the fun of it. It’s an adrenaline rush. Nothing like it.”

“Not my type of adrenaline rush.”

“What’s yours?”

It used to be nights spent passed between each of my step-brothers. Now it was just nights running in fear. I was tired of that particular rush.

Reed turned from the main drag and headed up a secondary road leading away from town to the quiet hills overlooking the ocean. It was a beautiful place—peaceful, but exciting. Very Reed.

“I’m surprised you left here to live at the estate,” I said.

His fingers tightened over the wheel. “Didn’t have a choice. When Dad says come home…”

I shivered. “Right.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got security systems and everything working. It’s safer than Max’s penthouse.”

Nowhere was safe, but I appreciated his concern. We parked outside a beautiful, modern house, with more windows than walls. Hard angles and a classy, tight design blended it into the hill. The ocean was in clear view from a balcony stretching over the sloping hillside. The house rested in a forest of scrub and dark shadow.

I didn’t wait for him. I edged from the car and whistled for Hamlet. Reed followed with my bags.

“I won’t lie,” he said “They’re going to be upset.”

Not for long.

The front door creaked open. Hamlet burst inside as if he had lived there his whole life.

Max paced in the living room. Hamlet, of course, launched at his weak leg. The hulking, beast of a man crashed against the couch with a pained profanity. The fluffy goldendoodle gave him a sloppy lick.

Reed dropped my bags in the doorway. He pushed me in front of him.

Traitor.

“Look who I found,” he said.

“Jesus, fuck!” Max swore, rubbing the tension from his face with a thick hand. The muscles over his arm tensed, and the pattern of dark ink stretched tight. “Christ, am I glad to see you, baby.”

I didn’t answer.

The words refused to whisper.

He stood before the window overlooking the moon-kissed ocean, bathed in shadow and wrought with a strength I once thought would protect me from everything.

The golden halo of his eyes burned within the dimness of the house, captured in a moment’s rage and relief. The color dazzled, sharpened, and cracked as frustration trapped his expression. The rugged line of his jaw hardened, and the regal angles of his face encased him with a poised grace.

But beneath the edge of sophistication, I saw what I’d ignored for so long.

The thin curl of his lips.

The slope of his nose.

The angle of his brow, and the dark strength that held his body in perfect, disciplined ruthlessness.

Nicholas Bennett looked so much like his father.

And the words he uttered rasped with the same quick demands.

“Sarah.” He spoke my name with an unchallenged authority, as though I were just another of his billions of possessions. “Where—”

I didn’t let him finish.

I broke down and ran to him, beat against his chest. I blamed the hormones. I blamed the pregnancy. I blamed him.

For two months I fled from the secrets, the truth, and the pain.

In two seconds, I understood everything I needed to do.

Everything I had to lose, and what I had to protect.

My heart broke into pieces, a shard of regret for what I’d let happen and a splinter of what might have been.

For so long, I’d protected my captor and indulged the insanity. It was for nothing. My love for Nicholas existed in a moment of forsaken freedom. My kiss pardoned his crimes. My touch defended his abuse. And my submission damned us all.

I couldn’t imagine a life without Nicholas Bennett, but heartbreak was safer than the death throes of his ruthless family, betrayed and broken.

Nicholas held me. I savored his embrace.

It’d be the last time I let him so close.