She beat at my arms. Hot embers burned, nearly engulfing my shirt. I forced the inhaler into her hands.
“Reed—” She panted in a choked rasp.
“Stay here!” I yelled. “Listen to me this time. Don’t fucking move. I’ll find him.”
Her hand cradled her belly. I gently rubbed the little swell, still too little and new. Bumper didn’t kick. The thought shattered my courage. I relied on pure adrenaline to move.
“This doesn’t end with us separated, Sarah. I love you.”
The asthma took her words. She touched me instead, brushing a hand over my cheek.
Her hand was burned. A fierce red streak over her fingers.
I’d never forgive myself.
I’d never forgive him.
I took my jacket and burst inside the estate, the material wrapped over my head as I pushed through the flames once more. Heading upstairs bordered on suicide, but I couldn’t leave my youngest brother to die.
Not when Max was already dead.
The thought slayed me—a chill in the suffocating heat.
I crawled the stairs, slinking low to the stone and breathing shallow gasps of the charring wood, grit, and dust.
We presented the estate as pristine at all times, in all ways. Never a speck of dirt. No children’s toys beyond our bedrooms, no rough-housing on the furniture, no running to scuff the floors. The estate was kept immaculate.
And now, the filth rotting it from the inside was exposed to the world.
The Bennett Estate harbored a vile core, a crumbling, blackened heart that feasted on the misery and pain of others. Greed was praised as ambition, and success disguised through sadism. The tenants of family and power corrupted our dignity into the pretense of honor.
I had none.
But I’d regain it. Find it. Keep it.
Teach my daughter the true meaning of honesty, integrity, and family.
The north wing of the house had yet to be consumed, but the smoke smeared everything in foul, polluted grime. I choked as I ran, blinking through stinging, watery eyes.
“Reed!”
Nothing. He wouldn’t hear me. The walls groaned and shuddered, popping with boiling heat and creaking through an old foundation. Even the stone heated to the touch.
I couldn’t save this estate.
I sprinted through the hall, aiming for a far staircase leading up and up, further into the swirling, frenzied mass of fire. Everything crumbled and stained, peeled and crushed.
It was supposed to be mine.
It was meant to be mine.
The estate and wealth, the prestige and pride.
I was Nicholas Bennett, and this was intended to be my legacy and my empire. It blackened to ash and collapsed upon the weight of the ideal and the dishonesty of the dream. Corruption fanned the flames.
But my future?
It was safe.
My life, my future, my everything was spared from the fires.
Sarah and the baby waited outside. They were the only riches, the only empire, the only future I needed.
I kicked the door to the roof. The air wept with toxic moisture, thick and heavy with the consuming stench of fuel. Reed retreated from the wreckage, crashing over charred metal. He screamed, begging for our brother to answer.
Max didn’t respond.
He wouldn’t.
My stomach heaved. I ran for my brother, pulling Reed from the unrecognizable carnage. He fought me, punching, kicking, flailing from my grasp to rush at the fires again. His hands burned on smoldering metal. He swore through the pain, tossing flaming debris aside.
The roof cracked, a warning fate delivered only because the devil had swept back to hell.
“Reed, we have to go!”
He swiped at me, like losing one brother would justify attacking his remaining family.
“Reed!”
“Max!” His voice grated, raw and muffled with agony. “Max!”
“Come on!” I pulled his arms, hauling him away. Reed fought me, refusing to leave the wreckage, screaming for a man who no longer existed. “Reed! The roof is going to collapse!”
“Max!”
Inconsolable.
Desperate.
I forced him to run, tripping his legs backwards, denying him the chance to throw his life away too.
“For Christ’s sake!” I shouted. “We have to get out of here. Sarah’s in trouble!”
Reed shuddered. Her name ran through us both, a fire catching and igniting our own fierce possessiveness. We rushed to the stairs, tumbling over them two at a time, crashing against the walls only to push off and sprint through halls that never heard pounded footsteps or shouting.
But they heard pain.
Too much pain.
And now the estate screamed too.
Fallen debris and crashed chunks of the ceiling blocked the grand staircase. The side stairs coiled with smoke too thick to see, to breathe.
Reed grabbed my arm and forced me down the south wing, his hall. He kicked open the door to his room, pitched off his jacket and rushed to the balcony.
I hardly recognized him, dusted with soot, burned with fire, beaten by his own mourning. He stepped onto the edge of the balcony and looked down.
“Feeling lucky?”
Not particularly, not as our childhood home and prison collapsed around us. I searched beneath us. The pool waited below.
Two stories below.
“Always wanted to try this,” Reed said. “Dad forbade it.”
“Dad’s dead.”
Now he smiled.
And leapt.
Christ.
He didn’t give me warning. The splash crashed over the entirety of the pool. I waited for my idiot brother to either surface or bleed out. He kicked off the side and shouted.
“Water’s fine!”
Fuck, he’d lost his goddamned mind.
I ripped the jacket off and poised over the edge. The balcony didn’t extend over the pool.
I didn’t have a choice.
I pushed from the railing and dove, smacking the water at full force, crushed by the impact. My vision flared white.
Burned and drowned.
Two deaths escaped.
I kicked from the bottom and burst through the surface. Reed grabbed my arm and hauled me onto the concrete. The salt-water seared my eyes, my lungs, the wounds.
“Sarah.”
I grunted, pushing myself up. We raced to the front of the house, but Sarah wasn’t where I left her. Of course. I shouted, and she answered, weakly, hiding behind the car. One hand wrapped over her belly, the other on the inhaler.
I wasn’t taking chances. She needed to go to a hospital.
“Max?” she wept, knowing the answer. “Where’s Max?”
I shook my head. Reed dove to her side, his own tears mixing with hers.
She crumpled. “But I didn’t…I hadn’t forgiven him…I didn’t say—”
I enveloped her in a hug. She sobbed against my shoulders, beating at me, weakening with each blow.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. I kissed her, again and again, rocking her in my arms. “It’s done. It’s over. You’re safe.”
Safe.
The orange flicker of fire destroyed and betrayed, weakened and collapsed. Just as Sarah promised, the very foundation of the Bennett Empire began to fall.
And I would help it. I’d break every stone, burn every wall, and crush every last memory.
Then I would restore our family in the image of what was most important.
Safety, trust, love.
Sarah and I would build it together.
Brick by brick.
Yeah, I really shouldn’t have been here, but someone had to come. Not sure why I volunteered.
We didn’t even mark the grave. What was there to say?
You’re gone.
The dirt was still fresh and smelled odd. But then again, all I smelled was soot and ash and dirt. And now salt. That was a relief. The beach wasn’t the beach without the ocean spray.
I hadn’t been to the shore in so long. I wasn’t permitted to loiter at the ocean. Names to uphold and parties to plan. Now I had a chance to go.
And I always did want to leave it all behind. Drop the name and expectations and get the hell out of that insanity before I earned yet another injury. I knew I was cute, but I was running out of canvas to keep clear of the scars.