“You don’t have to see him,” Max said. “I don’t want you to face him. We can do it…another way.”
I already shamed my family’s name by running once. It wouldn’t happen again. Now was a time for quiet dignity and acceptance. I fought. I survived.
And now came the consequences.
“No,” I said. “It ends like this.”
He didn’t patronize me by asking if I were certain. I made my decision. If he understood it, he didn’t say, but I doubted a man like Max Bennett would ever recognize the dread of blood.
“You know what he expects.” It wasn’t a question or an apology. Max uncurled the leather collar and leash from his pocket. “Last time, baby.”
Even if the asthma hadn’t squeezed my lungs, I doubted I’d have fought the scrape of the collar against my neck. I had been free of it for months. It only made sense he’d inflict it on me again.
The leash clipped, the tiny metal click just as loud as any crash of metal bars in a cell or shudder of chains binding my body. It was humiliating and unnecessary. The asthma, nausea, and fear already quieted Bumper.
“It still looks good, baby.”
Captivity never looked good. It was ugly and grotesque and so very Bennett. I touched my tummy.
“At least she’ll never know.” I dared Max to speak. “My one consolation.”
“No one will know.”
That was the agreement. No legacy of mine would be tarnished with such terrible brutality. The Atwoods were proud. Strong. And too many of us were now victims.
“He expects you to fight.” Max stood still. His hand curled into a fist.
“You never asked my permission before.”
“This isn’t like before.”
“What’s different?”
His voice hollowed. “This is it.”
“So don’t change now.” I raised my chin for him. “We’re not making memories, Max. Don’t pretend to be noble—”
The backhand came quick, hard. He silenced me with the blow, and I tumbled to the bed. My gasp choked over ragged coughs, but he had what he wanted. A bloody lip. The bruise over my cheeks.
Most men liked their women pale, blushing with inexperience and timid excitement.
The Bennetts preferred me bleeding, bruised, and swollen in more ways than one.
Max didn’t apologize for it, but I added it to the list of his unforgivable offenses. The list grew by the second. He wrapped the leash over his hand, coiling it just to tug me close.
“That’s the last time I hurt you, baby.”
The words forced from an aching chest—tightening with sickness, asthma, and grief. “Every minute near you hurts me.”
“Yeah.” He jerked the leash. I nearly tripped. “Glad I won’t be torturing you anymore.”
I followed him from the bedroom and stared ahead into the darkness. The gentle glow of a nightlight in the nursery lit our path. I ignored it, and I forced myself to forget everything delicate and perfect, soft and wonderful within the lovely room. It wouldn’t help me now.
Hamlet padded to my side from the kitchen, his muzzle wet from a late-night drink. I scratched his head as he loyally followed.
“No, Hamlet,” I said. “You gotta stay here. Be good.”
Max urged me to move. “Let’s go. He’ll be okay.”
“Someone will make sure, right?”
“Yeah.”
Hamlet whined as the door closed.
Max didn’t bother trying to hold a conversation with me. He knew I’d give him nothing but silence. The car ride to the Bennett Estate sped through the cover of darkness. I remembered the path, memorized the trail to hell that led from beautiful mountains and into the growling maw of hell. The car parked outside the front door. He trusted I wouldn’t lose my composure and bolt.
Much had changed since the first time I escaped from the Bennett Estate. The chair through the broken window didn’t grant me freedom. It signified a new life for me, trapped in Nicholas’s will, abused by Darius’s intentions, and punished for every mistake and moment of disrespect by Max’s hand.
Maybe I once liked it. Maybe I once danced through the danger and fed off the adrenaline rush we both experienced from the crash of leather against my skin.
But what was fantasy to me existed as Max’s reality. He knew only bloodshed, just like his father.
That evil waited for me, lurking on the grand staircase inside the estate’s foyer.
Darius Bennett once tortured me with a smile and false gratitude.
No longer.
He crashed against the white marble of the staircase, and the clap of his heel echoed over the entirety of the mansion. His eyes stared—stark, menacing, and utterly empty. Just like his mansion, his halls, and the expanse of gluttonous extravagance within the manor.
He was just one man, and yet so much more.
Bastard and rival.
Murderer and abuser.
Rapist and father.
His very presence chilled my core. He once ripped through me. He stole every warmth, every hope, every ounce of my courage. His touch rendered me empty, but his cruelty didn’t break me. Instead, every hollowed and worthless scar filled with burning, rampant hatred.
I hated this man.
I hated his name. His power. His corruption. I hated the way his eyes lingered over my curves, as if he weren’t yet satisfied in my destruction and would seize me again.
He longed to hurt me.
And he had.
But that was then. He could do little else to me.
I re-forged my dignity to stand before him once more at the end.
And it was Darius who cracked instead.
“I should have simply killed you and ended this charade.” He spat the words. I knew he wished to strike me. Given time, he would. “But I thought you might be trusted to fulfill at least one purpose to one of your fathers.”
His steps punished the stair beneath his boot. If he wished to stomp me, no need for the theatrics. We were both beyond posturing now.
“So…” He forced me to look up and meet his chilling gaze. “Our baby is a girl?”
“It’s not your child.”
“I should hope. A daughter is of no use to me.” His hand caressed my cheek. “Even the simple pleasures fade after time.”
I shook him away. Max didn’t let me escape. The leash passed to his father.
“Even when you’re flat on your back you can do nothing right,” Darius said. “Or when you’re on your knees or pushed over a table. Tell me, my dear, when did you feel the most useless under me?”
“Did it make you feel powerful?” I asked. “Hurting a woman who couldn’t defend herself?”
“It felt good at the time. Even better now that I imagine you still feel it.”
Not that I’d admit. Darius reached for me. I flinched, but Max presented me to him. His hands wove over my tummy, daring to touch Bumper, waiting for my reaction.
He didn’t have a right to touch me, and every moment his hands lingered needled me with dread.
It was supposed to be faster than this.
He wasn’t supposed to touch me again.
“Come with me, Sarah. I have a surprise for you. I think you’ll like it.”
The leash tightened in his grip. He dragged me to the stairs, but I tripped. I twisted to land on my behind on the bottom step. Darius aimed to kick. I hid my belly, and he grazed my hip.
“You aren’t even waddling yet. Get up. You’re fine.”
Max didn’t help me. If he felt any guilt, any worry, it never crossed his features. In his father’s shadow, any bit of light, hope, or cry for redemption darkened into the same beaten submission Darius so often sought from me.
He did his part.
I expected nothing more from Maxwell Bennett. His part was done.
Darius forced me up the stairs, into the wing I only dared to enter in fits of madness. I didn’t believe in an afterlife, but demons were as real to me as any monster lurking in children’s tales or the nightmares of the tormented. My proof existed in the man leading me on a leash to a newly remodeled room adjoining his bedroom. He pushed me within.
Blue.
Stark, but blue.
A cold, institutional blue paint splashed the walls in fake cheer. The white crib and changing table, rocking chair and dresser did nothing to welcome a new life. Only coldness existed here. Only the same extravagant furniture and art chiseled from the Bennett’s wallet. The room decorated with everything stylish and designer, fit for a prince but not a loved son.