Controlling Interests: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Series Book 2) (30 page)

Hope
.

“Sarah.” I called her name, ordered it, as I hid her within my suite. I set her on the vanity counter and drew a bath. “It’s over. I’m here now.”

Nothing.

The water splashed into the tub and steamed, filling the bathroom with an oppressive heat that usually helped her lungs…had she not given up trying.

Her breathing shuddered. She made no attempt to cough or choke or gasp against the closing of her throat. Her lips trembled in blue tightness. Her eyes—the sharpest gaze which ever dared to challenge mine—faded to a sickly grey.

I wasn’t letting this happen.

My father wasn’t taking her from me.

Not like this. Not ever.

I pulled the dress off, but shivering rattled her body. What had once been tight with curves and feminine secret thinned too much. Stress and fear eroded her, hardening her from the girl I loved and into a woman who knew only pain and sorrow.

I ached with her, just as lost and sick and helpless to prevent crimes that never should have happened, to protect the blood that never should have spilled.

Sarah. Reed. Who was next? How long before my father murdered his sons in his quest for greed and dominance?

And what about my greed?

Blood destroyed my family’s bond. Narcissism corrupted what remained.

What was the point in having it all if I destroyed everything acquiring it?

Sarah coughed. The rasp would drive me insane. She suffered at night and now she suffered as she woke, trapped between reality and the horror of my father’s cruelty.

The tub filled. I didn’t bother removing my jeans or shirt. I settled with Sarah in the water, letting her rest between my legs.

The water stirred her, and she flinched as the warmth stung where the rope had bitten. I apologized, but I brushed handfuls of water over her chest, arms, and neck, cleansing her of the sickness and restoring the flush of warmth to her silken skin.

I wove my fingers in her hair. Her weeping quieted. She finally woke, squirming against my body, but edging closer. She hid her face within my soaked shirt.

“I don’t want popcorn again,” she said. “Ever.”

I had no idea what to say to that.

“Deal.”

Her voice wavered. “Why didn’t he just hurt me? Why would he do this?”

It wasn’t a question I wished her to ask.

It was an answer that only my father’s eldest son would understand.

Beating her did nothing to break a woman already broken by hatred. The only way my father could punish Sarah Atwood was to destroy what made her so determined to defeat us. Her family.

My father forever tarnished the memory of her brothers with a black and evil knowledge no one should have possessed. Their last moments were theirs, not a burden for her to bear.

“Where were you?” She whispered.

“Where I shouldn’t have been.” I tightened my arms over her. “I’m sorry, Sarah.”

“You’re always sorry.”

Honesty. It served no purpose but to feed my guilt. “I know. It changes now.”

“You always say that too.”

“Things are different now.”

“No.” Her voice hardened. “They’re exactly the same. We promise each other the world and then destroy those vows the instant a secret is easier to hide. We end up here, always. In pain.”

“No more secrets then. No more running. We’re stronger than he is.”

“Maybe. Now. But I’ve seen how this will end. We’ll fight to be together, swear our love, and then we’ll ruin each other because it isn’t possible for us to have everything.”

“Then I only want you.”

“You don’t mean it.”

“I do.”

“You’ve chased power your entire life. Why would you give it up now?”

Easy.

Easier than any deal I ever made, dollar I ever spent, and selfish desire I ever put before others.

“Because you are the one irreplaceable thing in my world. You
are
everything to me. And I swear to God, Sarah Atwood, I will spend every minute for the rest of my life proving it to you.”

“And your father? The fertility drugs? The companies?”

“Forget them. I only want you to be safe.”

“I don’t feel safe.”

And I hated myself for it. “You will.”

“What about trying to get me pregnant? This ridiculous scheme to keep me alive?”

“It’ll end.”

Sarah rested against me, the tears returning. “This won’t end until he’s gone.”

She whispered of our greatest problem and one of our only remaining solutions, but the risk wasn’t worth the complication. Not yet. Not until we had no other options.

I held her tighter.

But how much longer could I risk leaving her so vulnerable?

The rap at the door startled her. She dove against me, but Max’s voice eased her thrashing. She stilled as he entered. I nodded to the warming towel against the rack, and he helped to pulled her from the water. The towel bundled over her. He leaned down to hold her close.

I stilled, edging from the water as a sudden chill chased through my veins.

Max’s words shadowed with regret, remorse.

I didn’t trust Max’s restraint.

I didn’t know what he’d say.

“You will never understand how sorry I am.” His voice rumbled low. He covered her with the towel, but his hands fell limp to his sides before he helped to dry her. “Baby, I will never, ever forgive myself. You get me? I won’t rest until I earn your forgiveness.”

Sarah didn’t understand.

Max stole her to the bedroom. I peeled the dripping shirt from my skin. I kicked off the jeans, replacing them with a fresh pair of trousers as Sarah rested on the bed. She huddled against the blankets.

Reed sat in silence across the room, his stitches just as dark and ugly now as they were in the shadows of the garage. Sarah stared, her lip trembling as fresh tears rolled over her cheeks.

“He did that to you?” She whispered.

He nodded.

“My fault?”

His nod came slower. I’d have scolded him, but Sarah hadn’t regained enough strength for lies. Not yet. She covered her face with her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“It’s done,” I said. “And you’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

Her gaze hadn’t left Reed’s new scar. She tensed, her voice a deadened, frightening shade of resignation. “He tried to hurt me.”

He did hurt her, even if she wouldn’t admit it. Sarah took her first full breath. It chased the hollowness from her words.

“My brothers are dead.”

I looked at Max. He said nothing.

“It doesn’t matter how many times he tortured me with the video,” she said. “Even if I watched it a million times, they died only once.”

I brushed the hair from her face. “Don’t. You don’t have to be brave.”

“Yes, I do,” she said, holding each of our gazes. “I lost Josiah and Mike. But now I have three more brothers, three men I love. And you guys are still alive.”

Her eyes flashed, pinning me in place, promising the same intensity she once used to oppose me.

“And I won’t let Darius separate us. Not after he’s already taken so much from me.”

She let me pull her to my chest, though the limp and frightened girl was replaced with something more dangerous—someone volatile and more unpredictable now than before my father threatened her with the memory of her family.

“I’ll stop him,” she promised. Who was she convincing? I didn’t trust the hollow shock in her voice. “Before this is over, Darius Bennett will fear me. Nothing he does will ever hurt me again.”

Darius Bennett slept soundly in his bed.

I’d ensure he never woke up.

A knife twisted in my hand. A cleaver from the kitchen.

I didn’t remember stealing it. I didn’t remember anything.

It was too hard to think over the sound of my brothers’ screams. They ached in my head. An endless ringing. A demonic cry from beyond the grave. It echoed and twisted and would never end, even with the knife, even with the darkness, even with the images finally over…

Darius Bennett slept soundly.

He didn’t deserve that peace. Night after night, I slept in quivering terror. His hands never left me in my nightmares. I bled and fought and struggled
.

And I hated it.

I hated him.

I hated the
control
he wielded over me. Nothing he said, did, or hurt would ever compare to the horrors I imagined myself.

Darius was no longer a man. He was my ultimate fear.

He corrupted every strength I had and every future I might have possessed.

As long as he lived, I wouldn’t. As long as he breathed, I couldn’t.

No matter the ropes or threats or locked doors in the Bennett estate, the chains that bound me most effectively weren’t twisted over my body. They invaded my mind.

I stepped closer, but the knife weighed heavy in my hand.

I could do this. I
had
to do this. I had no other way to protect myself or the ones I loved.

Every day Darius’s eyes feasted on my curves. I knew what he wanted, what he imagined. I pretended to be brave. I stilled my trembles and cleared my voice and met his gaze. But every second spent peering into his blackened soul corrupted my courage.

Faking my bravery only exhausted me. Fear would kill me before it he did, if not from a strike too hard against my temple, then the asthma would do it for him.

I wasn’t going to live a life cowering from my shadow waiting for a demon to emerge from my own hell. Darius changed the game. It wasn’t just me getting hurt anymore.

Another step toward the bed. I stared at the monster. My hesitation was every mercy he refused his own son.

He’d hurt Reed in an effort to find me. But Reed proved to be as much my brother as Josiah or Mike. It didn’t matter though. How long until Darius’s blade slipped and the steel punctured his heart instead of the scars on his cheek?

How long until Darius blamed Max for my misbehavior and flayed him for my escape?

How long until he learned that it was Nicholas who gave me strength?

I loved Nicholas, but I hated myself for never trusting him. If I had, maybe a knife wouldn’t have trembled between my fingers, clutched white-knuckled in my hand.

I snuck from Nicholas arms, torn between nightmare and hallucination, only to stand before the origin of my every fear.

And I froze.

The spine-rending terror paralyzed me within the shadows of his lair. No surging forward. No retreat.

Just stillness.

Waiting.

Clutching a knife.

My brothers’ screams tore through my mind.

Hours. I endured it for hours. At least it was quick for them.

They died once in a flash and it was done.

I died with them thousands of times.

My heart stopped with theirs. My breathing staggered in their panic. I didn’t share their pain, but that was nothing. I’d suffered enough of Darius Bennett.

He was a demon for forcing me to watch the footage, but he was a fool for not realizing how much it would enrage me.

The knife twisted in my hand.

Darius Bennett slept soundly in his bed.

My brothers slept soundly in the ground.

That injustice would be righted.

“Well, go on then, my dear.”

Darius hadn’t shifted. The leeching darkness of his room blinded us, but his skulking stare tore over my skin. My heart shuddered, twisting from my chest as though I aimed the blade for me instead of Darius.

“I assume you’re here to kill me.” Darius’s voice crackled. “Unless you wish to warm my bed?”

My stomach heaved.

No doubt that’s what he wanted.

But why hadn’t he done it yet? The violent and lust-crazed Darius Bennett fostered a cunning and calmer monster—one who bided his time, punished with a caress, and preferred madness to blood.

He had me alone in his house, helpless against his strength, and he didn’t strike. He didn’t hurt.

He hadn’t touched me.

I didn’t understand. Darius acted as though I wasn’t a threat. He treated me like a child.

Or like he thought I was
carrying
a child.

The bastard infected my mind. He took pride in how every minute of his torment, of his
indifference
, silenced like a slap to the mouth.

“You’re a monster,” I whispered. “Do you know how cruel you are?”

“I have my limits,” he said. “I didn’t show the video to your mother.”

“But you could.”

“Why should I? I don’t need to break her.”

I swallowed. The lie thickened my tongue. “You haven’t broken me.”

“Yes, I have.”

“No.” I touched the knife with both hands, if only to reassure myself that the weapon was in my palm and not his words. “Never. I won’t let you.”

“Because you’ll kill me?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it.”

My eyes adjusted to the dim light. Darius slept without a shirt. Greying chest hair curled over his heart. He crossed his arms behind his head. I ignored the bulge between his legs.

“Come, my dear. Climb into bed. Stab me. Hurt me. Kill me.”

Do it.

I silently repeated the words, filling my mind with something other than the constant screaming of my brothers.