My family.
I would kill Darius Bennett, without hesitation this time. Without remorse.
The belt rose. I met his gaze.
“Go on. Hit me.”
He didn’t, but he reached for me, twisting me against his body. The belt rose high into the air.
He aimed for my stomach.
We both tensed.
“Daddy’s waiting, Sarah.”
For me to strip or confess? One was easier than the other, but not by much. I didn’t want to cower from the belt, but my hands accidentally covered my belly.
His eyebrow arched.
It was too much of a tell.
Now I had no choice.
Nicholas taught me the value of a concession to an enemy. I curled my fingers in my shirt. Better to delay him than tempt him to strike.
The shirt landed on the bed. My sports bra hardly contained my swelling chest. Goosebumps prickled my skin.
“And the pants,” he said.
They were only pajamas. I wore nothing underneath. I hesitated.
“Come now, Sarah. There’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
It was true, and it only made me hate him more. He had seen and touched and tasted me. What difference did it make now?
I kicked the pants away and stared him in the eye.
“Don’t be difficult,” he said. “The brassiere as well.”
The elastic dug into my skin, too small for how my body changed after twelve weeks of pregnancy. My tummy looked no different—still naturally thin, especially as my meals had yet to stay down.
But my chest?
My breasts were bigger. I pulled the bra off. Though my slit was bared for his inspection once more, my breasts were the part of me I wanted to hide.
I saw the differences, small as they were. The size. The shape. Even how my once pink nipples began to darken, richer and a bit swollen.
He last saw them in the dark, grabbed them not to feel but to hurt and reposition me. In the mirror, my body changed. But before Darius? I was just as tiny, frail, and completely immovable as ever.
I hoped he didn’t notice the changes.
The belt lowered. He relaxed—too distracted by the sight of his naked step-daughter to realize he shifted close to the bedside lamp. One smash against his head wouldn’t bring the monster down, but it’d give me time to run, hide, find a weapon.
End it.
And if I did it naked, so be it. It was better than any of the sundresses Darius laid out for me to wear.
“Now what?” I asked. “Are you going to rape me again? Hurt me some more? Humiliate me?”
“I do prefer it when you beg.”
“Never again.”
“A hard promise to keep.” He tilted his head. “Or perhaps it isn’t necessary to degrade ourselves this time.”
“Like it was necessary the first time?”
“Of course it was. Nicholas thought to hide my daughter from me. You thought you’d escape with all our stock, our future, and our empire in your hands.”
“You hurt me, and I still have all those things,” I said. “I bet that eats you up inside. I bet you can’t sleep at night knowing the damage I might cause to the Bennett Corporation and name.”
“I sleep quite well,” Darius leaned too close. “Your warmth satisfied me in many ways, my dear. That memory is a particular favorite.”
“You’re sick.”
“And you’re the perfect little whore, aren’t you?”
I edged away, as if to squirm and not reach for the lamp.
“I told you I would return for you.” His words menaced, luring me into a time I battled to forget. “You promised you’d be a good girl and wait for me.”
I would have promised him anything to get free, to push his weight off of me.
“You should have killed me,” I said.
“That wouldn’t have been nearly as fun.”
“You’ll regret it.”
“Doubtful. In fact, I am eager to try once more. I’ve thought of nothing but our time together since you dared to leave me.” He nuzzled my cheek. “I feared I hurt you, my dear.”
“You did.”
His sneer ached deep inside me. “Then you’ve learned not to struggle.”
“You won’t touch me.”
Darius unbuttoned his shirt. “I’ll do far more than touch.”
I believed him. My heart thudded too hard against my ribs, and the fear bound me in the thick slowness of a nightmare, wading through the possibilities and terror, endless pain and forsaken happiness.
I couldn’t let him hurt the baby.
I had to tell him. Even if he reveled in the victory of his abuses, what was one moment of humiliation now to spare me the horror of his touch once more?
But what would he do once he learned I was pregnant? What would he do to his sons? The men he hired to ransack my beach house aimed for Max. They tried to kill him.
The truth terrified me. Darius no longer cared about his own children. Not if he believed he had a new son, a more important son. A child that would inherit everything.
The security systems blared. Darius swore, distracted. He looked to the bedroom door. It was my only chance. I seized the antique lamp and cracked him over the head, shattering the glass fragments. Darius roared as a gush of blood spurted from his brow.
It didn’t thrill me. The surge of adrenaline and nausea poisoned me. I ran—naked and terrified—sprinting from the demon’s lair and through the halls of the familiar prison.
Nicholas shouted from the entry.
Reed echoed.
I didn’t hear Max.
Oh God. What’d happened to Max?
My steps thudded against the hall, but their voices abruptly silenced. I wound the corner at the top of the grand staircase.
Darius’s two bodyguards aimed their guns at Nicholas and Reed.
And my step-brothers steadied their own weapons.
“Sarah!” Nicholas didn’t take his eyes from the oversized brute pointing the barrel at his forehead. “Get out of here.”
The instant I rushed down the stairs was the moment I watched men I loved die. I stilled, covering myself from the leers of the two guards.
Darius seized me, ripping my hair and jerking my arm behind my back. He pushed me forward as if he’d march me down the stairs.
No.
Worse.
He teetered me over the top step, shaking my hair until I twisted, off-balance.
He’d push me.
He’d kill me.
“Sons,” Darius called. “Guns down, boys. No weapons in the house.”
Nicholas didn’t obey the order. “Let her go.”
“Are you certain?”
“You won’t kill her.”
“Probably not.” Darius proudly displayed my nudity to my step-brothers and the two guards he kept in his employ. “But maybe I’m not trying to kill her.”
He wouldn’t. He bluffed. His words twisted, and he nodded to the guards.
“Shoot them.”
“No!” I fought against his hold.
He jerked my body over the stairs. I shrieked, but his whisper violated my ear. He teased the words with a victorious smile.
“I have no need for those sons now, do I?”
“Don’t you dare.”
“What have you been hiding, my dear?” His voice lowered for only me to hear. “Tell me why you ran away. Why you’ve decided to face me now. Tell me what’s happened to you.”
“Go to hell.”
“Only once I’m certain that my name, my legacy, will live on in this world. Come now, Sarah. What secret are you keeping from your father?”
“You are going to die for this, I swear to God—”
He shook me, nearly losing his hold. “Don’t lie to me. I watched my wife swell with three sons and suffer through two miscarriages. Don’t insult me! Tell me what I want to know or—”
“You’ll kill me? Try it! Do it, Darius! Kill me if you’re so sure!”
Nicholas shouted for me. We both ignored it. Darius’s grip squeezed too painful. Blood dripped from his brow, splattering the stone and slickening my toes’ hold over the top step. His hands trembled, and his words edged with a venomous spite I heard only once before.
When he nearly took my life.
When he punished me with his body and returned for gluttonous seconds only moments after he had first pushed away. My aching cough and breathless pleas annoyed him, but he refused my inhaler. He shoved a pillow over my face to take his pleasure in peace.