Nothing about my newly purchased penthouse fit Sarah Atwood. Or me. For too long I lived at the Bennett Estate, and it scarred me more than the visible childhood injuries inflicted by my father. I left, but I had nothing of my own. I didn’t recognize Nicholas Bennett outside of the cold stone and shadows.
Not like Sarah. She knew exactly who she was. She stood, unbroken, and faced every horror with roots she dug deep into the ground, stretching from the farm to the estate. I couldn’t rival her tenacity. Not with my arrogance mistaken for pride.
God, I envied her.
She hesitated in the unfamiliar setting of my penthouse. Reed leaned against the wall, gently touching the torn skin around his neck. Neither spoke on the ride, too proud to ask for my help.
“Your place is a little…” Sarah studied the open floor plan of untouched furniture and unconnected electronics. The lamp closest to the leather L-shaped sofa wasn’t plugged in, and the recliner was still covered in plastic from its delivery. “Sparse.”
“I haven’t had time to settle in.” I locked the door. “I was too busy searching for you.”
It wasn’t meant to hurt her. I wouldn’t regret saying it. Not when it was the truth.
A first aid kit waited under the sink. I brewed tea for Sarah and prepared alcohol swabs and dressings for my brother. He’d never tolerate them. Reed nearly scratched out the stitches earned from our father’s blade, but I wasn’t letting his neck get infected so soon after I saved it.
Both of them were asleep before I returned. Sarah curled into a small knot on the sofa. I laid a blanket over her, but she didn’t notice, too exhausted to care that I was there.
Or maybe because she knew that I watched over her.
I failed her, but even when the trust wavered, she still looked for me, felt me, wanted me close.
So why did she push me away?
I nudged Reed. He groaned, but my patience wore thin. He cleaned up in the nearest powder room, flinching as the sea-green of his left eye clouded with the burst blood vessel.
“I’m gonna scare people like this.” He rinsed his neck.
“It’ll heal.”
“Thanks for the...rescue.”
I nodded.
He washed the cloth under the faucet, but left the water on to muffle the conversation. “We gotta check on Sarah.”
She needed a moment of peace first.
“She was naked,” Reed said.
My jaw tensed. It was the only way my father had to shame her.
Reed shuddered. “Nick, something’s wrong. She won’t say it. But something happened.”
“Reed—”
“I can’t.” He pitched the bandages in the sink. “He’s trying to kill us. He kidnapped her. Now he knows about the baby.”
“Calm down.”
“Calm down?” Reed swore. The powder room echoed the profanity. “You beat a man to death with your bare hands. You had a gun pointed at your face. And now Sarah is fucked up.”
“Don’t say it.”
“She is! Whether you want to admit it or not. Dad did something to her.”
“He wouldn’t endanger the child.”
“Fuck, who know how long it took Sarah to tell him she was pregnant. Look how long it took for her to tell us!”
“Reed, getting upset won’t solve anything.”
“Then I don’t know what else to do because she won’t let us help!”
My phone buzzed. Max called from outside the building. I pointed to Reed.
“Watch over her. But stay calm, for her. That’s what she needs now.”
“And then what?”
My stomach twisted. “She’ll tell us what she’s been hiding.”
Reed swore. He leaned over the sink, but he pushed away to hover over Sarah as she slept.
I met Max downstairs, but I hadn’t expected a bounding Hamlet. Then again, the dog was the only one of us who could make her smile.
Max looked like he had been through hell, but that only meant the men he faced fared worse.
“What happened?” I didn’t speak until the elevator doors shut. I pointed to the security cameras wrapped within the gold and red décor of the cabin. “Do we still have visitors?”
Max nursed a black eye, fat lip, and a limp that pained me. He complained about none of it.
“I’ll head back tomorrow,” he said. “Make the beds. Give the furniture a good dusting. Leave it in the condition the Atwoods wanted.”
“Good.”
“You?”
“Watch the news tonight?”
Max smirked. “Damn biker wars. Streets aren’t safe anymore. Reed?”
“The same.”
“He wanted us gone.”
“Yeah.”
The doors opened. Max didn’t let me out.
“And Sarah?” he asked. “What happened to her?”
“We’ll find out.”
“Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“It’s not about me now, Max,” I said. “It’s about her.”
My brother didn’t answer. I locked the door behind him. For as much as I wanted an armed guard, deadbolts, and every manner of security system, my father would try nothing else tonight.
Sarah was safe as long as she was pregnant. She’d be safer once I had him killed.
It was only a matter of time.
She stirred as we entered, twisting the blanket in her hand. “Hamlet!”
The goldendoodle bolted, launching over my brand new leather furniture in a flurry of yipping and excitement. He curled next to her, licking her face and settling his head in her lap. He rested over the softness of her stomach. He knew. Hamlet protected her better than any of us.
“Are you okay?” she asked Max. “What happened?”
“Don’t worry about me. Heard you had a rough night.”
She shrugged, stroking Hamlet’s ginger curls. She studied everything in the penthouse, but not me. I recognized her hesitance. My house was designed differently than Max’s, but the features remained the same. Balcony. Back bedrooms. Open kitchen. Bar in the corner. The best that money could buy varied the architecture, but not enough to banish the memories of another pain, another attack.
I had to know.
“Sarah, did he hurt you?” I asked.
She petted Hamlet. “No.”
“Is the baby okay?”
The thought stilled her hand. “Everything’s fine. I’m an Atwood. We’re resilient.”
Reed and Max sat across from her. She pretended not to shy from their attention, but I saw.
“Did he…” I didn’t want to say the words. “Did he touch you?”
Her silence struck us like bullets aimed for our temples.
“You’re all bleeding,” she finally said. “Nick, you’re covered in someone else’s blood. Reed, you look like death. And Max…I watched you kill a man. I nearly lost all three of you tonight. Would anybody be okay now?”
Reed shrugged. “We’re fine.”
“No. You’re not. None of us are. Why did Darius try to kill you guys?”
I exhaled. “He must have known you were pregnant.”
“Of course he knew I was pregnant. He figured that out at the art show.” She held her head in her hands. “And now he’ll kill you all because he got his heir. He doesn’t need his sons anymore.”
Reed and Max shifted. It was no secret that my father would have murdered them had I not forced them to take their turns with Sarah. They were disposable to him. Max, the cripple. Reed, too gentle for a Bennett.
But I was the eldest. I was the heir. The Bennetts didn’t skip generations. Father to son. Always. He had no cause to kill me unless he truly believed I’d let Sarah raise the baby as an Atwood and deny his true blood.
I’d be a better father than mine was, but I wasn’t a strong enough man to let her go.
“We can’t do this anymore,” Sarah said. “This is why I have to leave. He knows about the baby, and he’ll murder you all because you defied him. I won’t let my son live a life of fear.” Her voice softened. “And I won’t let Darius hurt any of you because of me.”
I frowned. “We can protect ourselves. Don’t worry about us.”
“I always worry about you!” The admission frustrated her, and she bit a profanity. “He threatened me tonight. He’ll do whatever it takes to steal this baby, even if that means killing his own children to secure his new heir.”