Knight (43 page)

“
Just a few months ago, I joined my family with the Atwood’s in a quiet ceremony, and this flicker of happiness has blossomed into a unique partnership between two souls lost in a life of darkness and...dare I say, solitude?”

I bit my lip and tasted blood. The copper twang of Atwood pride prevented me from pitching my water at the screen.

“
I wish to extend that partnership.
” Darius softened his voice for the camera. It sounded false and sour. “
The Bennett Corporation and Atwood Industries have lived in competition for far too long. As our families have merged, so have our hearts, ambitions, and visions for the future. Beginning today, I am announcing a new conversation—one between business partners. Friends. Family.”
He lingered over the implication. “
A business proposal between a father and his new daughter
.”

My profanity wasn’t dignified.

I didn’t remember standing. The room swirled a bit too quick, and my cough silenced the string of un-pleasantries bitter on my tongue.

Anthony stopped the video. The coughing intensified, but he respectfully waited until I recovered.

“Never,” I said.

He nodded. “I assumed as much. This is not a formal offer, but the message broadcast to your Board of Directors. Has your mother said anything about Bennett’s end game?”

“Mom’s not...” Not the mother I remembered. “I can’t talk to her. She trusts Darius. Always did, even before...”

Before she drugged herself beyond the pain of losing most of her family. I was still there, still trying to keep her in one piece. But she was the first battle I lost to Darius. It’d be the last.

“He has no claim over the company,” I said. “Doesn’t matter how many times Mom flashes the ring. Atwood Industries is independent of the family. He gets nothing but money. At least I can thank Josiah and Mike for being thoroughly irresponsible and losing it all.”

Anthony exhaled. “You aren’t destitute, Sarah. What money remains buys influence.”

“The Bennetts are wealthier than us. Always have been.”

“Certain members of your board might be interested in this partnership.” He anticipated my frown with a raised hand. “It would make for one very powerful, very wealthy company.”

“All under Darius Bennett’s control.”

“It doesn’t have to be—”

“It’s what he wants. Atwood Industries destroyed, ripped apart piece by piece. He doesn’t care about the money or the company. He can’t wait to cast us out into the street after he’s robbed us of our land.”

“He doesn’t have that power.”

“Nothing will stop him until he has it,” I said. “I’m not indulging this. He has no right to call me...to talk about me like I’m his...his...”

I wheezed. Anthony had the discretion to pretend he didn’t hear it.

My foot bumped my book-bag as I collapsed into the chair.

I was only twenty years old. Even Dad was closer to thirty when he took the company from Papa, and he had worked with him from his teens to learn the business.

I picked through my memories of dinners where Dad sat still long enough to offer wisdom. Never to me though. He looked to my brothers to protect the company like the warriors our success demanded. Atwood Industries wasn’t supposed to be mine, but it sure as hell wouldn’t fall prey to Darius Bennett.

“We have to make the clause public.”

Anthony rolled away from his desk. He shook his head, but he didn’t argue as he pulled my father’s will from his shelf. Until two years ago, I had never seen the damned thing. Now, it felt like all I did was pour over the intricacies of Mark Atwood’s Final Will and Testament and the poorly defined agreements my brothers had only started to organize for themselves.

“This clause makes it harder on you, Sarah,” Anthony said. “Legal issues, trusts, every difficulty. We could argue against it—the company can be yours.”

“I would rather lose everything than let Darius Bennett touch a single share.”

“This is your farm too, Sarah.”

“That’s why I’m doing this.” I took the copy of the will. “It’s what my father wanted.”

Anthony never showed frustration, but he tightened the dashing pony tail that swept most of his dark hair from his face. Neither of us was used to doing business with the other. Anthony was once just the charming attorney who visited us at home and brought Mom and me a box of chocolates before dealing with Dad and my brothers. Now? We were sick of each other—spending too many hours trying to fix too many problems. I hadn’t had a piece of chocolate since the plane crash.

“I’m well aware of what Mark wanted for your brothers and what he expected of you,” Anthony said. “But he’s gone. You can take control of your own life now. So the question is...what do
you
want?”

I stuffed the will in my bag next to the homework I had forgotten to complete and the paper I’d never turn in.

“I want my father back.” My voice hardened. “And I want Darius Bennett rotting in jail for his murder.”

“Did you win?” Dad asked.

I hid the red ribbon behind my back.

“Almost.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. “Second place. But most of the kids were older than me. Like, fifteen. They were in high school.”

He waited. I offered him my prize. He didn’t take it.

“I can’t display that in my office. Throw it away.”

“But, Dad, it…it’s still good. They said so.”

“I don’t want you to make me look good.” He packed his briefcase and left me at his desk. “You’re an Atwood. You’re meant to make me look great. You’ll have to try harder.”

“I will. I promise.”

He didn’t answer, but I earned his proud nod.

It was better than any stupid ribbon.

I grabbed my keys from Anthony’s secretary and hit my inhaler the instant I reached my car.

Early summer was a bad season with all the pollen on the farm. Staying at school was easier on my lungs, but Mom made the worst decision of a lifetime without me being there. I moved home and thought I could balance both school and my family’s mess.

I learned that lesson fast.

The add/drop forms were signed by sympathetic professors, but I hadn’t returned it to the administrative offices. Dad said Atwoods never quit. As long as we had sun, water, and dirt, we’d survive.

But Dad never took thermodynamics and organic chemistry while managing the entire corporation. Dad hadn’t dealt with Mom slicing her wrists the day of her sons’ funerals. Dad never had to bathe her, dress her, and force her to eat. He didn’t watch as a loathsome man more snake than human took advantage of her depression with superficial words.

Ten miles outside of Cherrywood Valley, and our fields traded the buildings, industrial districts, and diners for swaths of green. We owned acres upon acres, but the corn, alfalfa, and almonds still felt like Dad’s, not mine. At least when Josiah and Mike squandered most of our money, they hadn’t lost the most important things: the property, the soil, the crops.

Our future.

My phone rang. I couldn’t avoid her forever.

Mom’s sweet voice dulled—about three hours into her latest dose and already itching for another.

“Sweetheart,” Mom said. “Are you coming home?”

Her newest obsession was always knowing my exact location. I couldn’t blame her. We hadn’t realized Josiah and Mike went to Vegas until the cable news channels broke with a story about their private plane crash. The police called an hour later.

“Just turned into the driveway.”

“Good. I have a surprise for you.”

If she meant to smile, it didn’t translate over the phone. Mom’s grin used to schmooze Dad’s business partners. Dad said I had her features, but I saw more of him in me—especially our hair, as pale as corn peeking up in the fields. Mom’s went grey before Dad’s diagnosis. She pulled most of it out when he died.

Fortunately, it grew back for the wedding.

She didn’t let me hang up and prattled on about Grandma’s fancy china she found in storage. She’d be using the plates for dinner, but I didn’t question why.

Then I saw the limo.

I didn’t bother pulling into the garage. I wouldn’t be staying long.

The curtains were pulled back. Mom gave me a wave from the foyer. I didn’t return it.

“Is he here?” I demanded.

“Who?”

“
Him
.”

“Your father?”

I couldn’t tell if it was the drugs or her warped mind that made the mistake.

“
Step
-father.”

Mom cleared her voice. “I hoped it’d be a surprise—”

I disconnected the call. She waited by the window. My once beautiful mother, reduced to a dumb shell of a woman, orange pill bottle clutched in her hand.

I parked the car and counted my blessings.

Darius was here, and it would be easier than I thought to shut him down. Whatever game he played, whatever trigger he threatened to pull, it wouldn’t matter. The Atwood fortune and company was as secure as kicking his ass out of my house and locking the door behind him.

Mom ushered me through the foyer, boasting about her roasted pork loin.

“Your father’s favorite,” she said.

It wasn’t. Dad liked veal.

“Where is he?” I asked. She pointed to the kitchen—the little dinette area she begged Dad to remodel for her.

Dad favored the finer things. Large houses. Nice cars. Expensive trips overseas. Mom liked the simple, country living that supported the Atwoods for generations. They compromised. Mom got her farm house—Dad had his luxury. I grew up in a southern plantation antebellum home—columns and wraparound porches, winding staircases and sitting parlors.

The kitchen bathed in a down-to-earth, folksy atmosphere. The wooden table sat eight, far more than the blended atrocity that was my new family. Mom begged me to drop my bag and change before attending dinner.

No dice.

I pushed the doors open, but my steps crashed to a halt.

Darius wasn’t alone.

“My dear!” His fake, plastic expression was better suited for ribbon cuttings and photo-ops. He didn’t hide his distaste well. “I’m glad you’ve decided to join us.”

Mom curled behind me, squeezing my hand. “Isn’t this great? Your brothers are all here, for the first time since the wedding!”

They weren’t my
brothers
.

My brothers were dead and buried.

These men were Bennetts.

Mom had toasted me at the wedding—sloshed on wine and dulled to incoherence with pills—claiming I was lucky to have
five
older brothers now. At the time, Josiah and Mike refused to answer. My new
brothers
—Nicholas, Maxwell, and Reed—weren’t thrilled about the addition either.

Darius and his sons trespassed in my kitchen. The house was big, but in his oppressive presence, the walls shrunk and the ceilings collapsed. Every bit of air I managed to sneak into my lungs squeezed out, useless and stale.

Four Bennetts or four million. It didn’t matter. I had Dad’s will and final wishes.

I had won.

“You remember Nicholas, Max, and Reed?” Mom acted as if the men in her kitchen were life-long friends or her own flesh and blood. “Well, say hello, Sarah!”

“Hi.”

Darius grinned. I hadn’t seen them since the wedding four months ago. I considered it a good thing, especially as my mother pushed me into each of their arms for a dance while Josiah drank himself into a stupor and Mike stormed out after the ceremony.

Nicholas was the oldest at twenty-nine, and he was everything I expected from Darius Bennett’s heir. Handsome. Cultivated. Reserved. He danced with me first at the reception, and I hated how polite he acted. He mentioned nothing of the marriage or how I wore the same mourning blacks I had for my father’s funeral.

Without the aid of the champagne, I had nothing to brace me against his stare. Nicholas didn’t share his father’s eyes. His strong jaw and dark hair framed a majestically golden gaze—almost a toasted almond and far warmer than I expected.

He nodded but didn’t offer more. That was fine. Nicholas had every reputation of his father. Word on the street was he was as ambitious as he was cruel. Our business partners warned when Nicholas assumed leadership of his family, I’d have one hell of a rival.

He didn’t scare me.

In fact, had I encountered him on campus? I might have blushed instead of glared.

“Max, darling,” Mom said. “Your drink is empty. Sarah, get your brother more iced tea?”

Max chuckled. Not a gentle, hospitable laugh.

He extended the glass, forcing me to cross the kitchen to pour him tea from the pitcher right beside him on the counter.

But that was Max. At the wedding, he had been an absolute force of masculinity and testosterone. His dance was an experiment to see how rough he could lead before I pushed from his arms and stalked away. He didn’t even dance correctly. His steps jolted stiff, and he practically dragged his leg when he moved. Probably deliberate, just to annoy me. I might have slapped him, but I hadn’t trusted the dark bands of tattoos swirling up his arms. Even now, the stylish dress shirt beneath his vest couldn’t hide the hint of his ink. He seemed much older than twenty-seven.