“Then explain this shit to me, Sarah, because none of it makes sense.”
“Get the hell out of my room.”
“You gonna make me?”
I moved faster than Max anticipated. The smack centered hard on his cheek.
“Haven’t you done enough? Your family bred me. What else do you want? Blood? Pain?”
“Forgiveness.” Max gripped my hand and pushed me down on the bed.
For a moment, I feared he’d follow. The cold terror leeched through me. Even his familiar weight would tangle me in darkness.
But he didn’t. Only his voice hardened, a shield from the mournful shadow in his words.
“But you’re never gonna forgive us, are you, baby? You’re already looking for vengeance. You’re beyond mercy, aren’t you?”
“How can you ask me that? If you knew what happened—”
“A lot of bad shit happens to good people, Sarah, and the Bennetts cause it all. How much blood will make it right?”
“I’m pregnant, Max.”
“Yeah,” he said. “So fucking think about what’s best for that baby, growing up in the middle of a goddamned war he wasn’t supposed to cause. Think about what you really want. You aren’t a murderer. You’re stronger than that.”
I met his gaze. “No. I’m not. I won’t stop until Darius is punished for ruining my life, my family, my…everything. And don’t you dare tell me I shouldn’t do everything in my power to get justice.”
“And once he’s dead?” Max leaned in. “Who else are you going to punish?”
Myself.
“Anyone who dares to endanger my family.”
Max grunted. “Christ, you are an Atwood.”
“And you’re a Bennett.”
“And this is one weak-fucking truce.”
The door slammed behind him.
What was his fucking problem?
The blankets twisted under my feet. I kicked them away. I often felt used after my time with Max, but the words he said and the regretted hate in his voice were new.
Guilt blended with a new wave of weeping, but I’d be damned if either Max Bennett or my raging hormones forced me from the bed. Our conversation was over. I didn’t care if I got another apology, if I slapped him again, or if I finally figured out why he sounded so goddamned lost every time he talked to me.
Like he already mourned for me.
I wrapped the blanket over me just as a sizzling pop echoed through the beach house. The air conditioning squealed, and the grind of electronics abruptly silenced.
I hadn’t felt an earthquake. Why else would the electricity go out?
The silence didn’t settle. It crashed.
And I knew.
I burst from my room for Max—fight forgotten, ready to run.
“Sarah!”
Max shouted from the living room. I called back, but the splintering crash of glass muffled my cry. Hamlet yipped and ran with me to the kitchen. I forced my dog beneath the open island. He whined, but I covered him as a second torrent of shattering glass rained over the house. The crunch of wood slammed the front door against the wall.
The security system stayed silent. No explosive barrage of sirens and flashes that always tripped up Josiah when he snuck out at night.
Whoever broke into the house studied how to disconnect the system.
Max’s profanity roared. In the darkness, a shadow launched over the sofa and crashed into the coffee table, wrecking it into pieces. The man grunted, and the sickening crunch of fist against shattering jaw echoed through the room.
I screamed as an unfamiliar snarl bit through the night. Hamlet surged forward, knocking the second shadow to the ground. The man he attacked howled in pain.
“Sarah, run!”
Max’s order gurgled over bloodied words. I crawled from behind the counter. My chest tightened. I ignored it. Hamlet attacked again, lunging for the man holding Max. My step-brother’s choked grunt and pounded struggles snapped over the living room.
He told me to run.
But they’d kill him.
My fingers curled over the stool before I realized how stupid it was for me to try to fight. I rushed forward, crashing the chair over the head of one of the intruders. He groaned and collapsed.
The flash lit the living room.
The gunshot came immediately after.
I didn’t even scream. The shot fired so close to me the heat practically seared through my shirt.
It was too near to my tummy, and I realized what I almost lost.
Hamlet bolted, unharmed but terrified by the sound. He wasn’t the only one.
A second shot fired, but this one aimed for the intruder. He crumpled to the floor.
Dead.
I threw up. Max shouted.
“Sarah, get the fuck out of here!”
Max killed a man.
A man who hunted me.
This wasn’t happening.
I tripped backwards, kicking the fallen man as I blindly sprinted away from the guns, the blood, the body. I rushed into the night and kicked a path through the sand. The roaring surf muffled any other sounds from inside the beach house.
Then I found the second body.
Our security guard—garroted and left to rot in the sand by the water.
Oh God.
Everything had changed.
What had once been a feud between families now extended beyond our own walls.
He wouldn’t stop this time. Not until he waded in blood to finally capture me.
I turned from the body, repulsed and enraged, but I couldn’t get help easily. My family built the house a half mile from anyone—far enough to ensure our privacy and mimic the rural openness of the farm, far away from the crowded beaches. I left my phone charging by the bed.
I needed to find another way to call for help. For Nicholas. The police.
Like I should have done months ago if I hadn’t been so terrified of ruining the Atwood pride. If I hadn’t feared what Nicholas would do or think after he learned the truth.
I turned, rushing back to the road.
I never made it.
The hands clutched me from behind. So familiar.
Too familiar.
I kicked. It did nothing.
The cold barrel of a gun jammed against my side. The cloth dosed in chemicals covered my mouth and nose.
“Time to come home, my dear.”
Sarah didn’t answer her cell phone. I tried Max. Same issue.
Neither were exceptional morning people. Previously I had been threatened with grievous bodily harm and implements shoved in places best suited for men of other tastes. Max wasn’t pleasant when he woke either.
It meant nothing that I’d be ignored by them at five in the morning.
Or six.
But by seven, I worried. I left both voice mails and text messages, and I called Reed and ordered him to return to the Atwood’s ten thousand square foot “beach house.”
It was easy to forget how tremendously wealthy Sarah’s family was, and how much money, land, and investments one woman now owned. My father never forgot, and his obsession became mine.
She should have answered her phone.
I wasn’t waiting to find out why she was ignoring me this time. My real reason for leaving her was done. The arrangements for my father’s murder rescheduled once more.
It’d cost twenty million this time. Non-refundable. He didn’t like that we’d called off the last attempt so suddenly. He said it made him nervous. I didn’t care, so long as it didn’t make him sloppy.
But it took time. Another month, another drop, another series of gut-checking complications.
Then she’d be safe, and I could let her rest without calling her cell-phone every hour to check on her.
If she’d answer.
I didn’t trust it. I tried to reschedule the meeting, but my client asked to meet for breakfast instead. I waited for a chartered plane as my father currently flew in our private jet through Oregon. I had an hour to spare. My partner on this particular meeting wasn’t pleased by the change of plans.
Bryant Maddox uttered a few choice words as he berated me for my irresponsibility, but he met me within his chosen café a half hour prior to the meeting. He ordered the server to take us to the table he selected—a secluded location outside on the terrace, completely inappropriate for a business discussion. I permitted it only as I intended the meeting to be brief.