Capital Risk Read Online Free PDF Page A

place,” I said. “And he better have a damn good excuse for ruining this.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Killing Dad is the only way I can keep Sarah safe. If that doesn’t prove how much I love her, then nothing will.”
    “What if she doesn’t want you?” Max asked. “What if after all this bullshit she’d decided to split, save herself, and fuck us all over?”
    “It won’t happen.”
    “Why?”
    The simple truth heated my blood and stilled my heart.
    “I will have Sarah Atwood. Not because she belongs to me, but because I cannot exist without her.”

Three knocks rattled the hotel door.
    Hamlet growled. He remembered what happened the last time someone came for me.
    My chest squeezed. Monsters didn’t live in closets. They roamed free in the world, hunting and torturing their victims with gnarled fingers and a sing-song sickness in their voice.
    But the man knocking wasn’t evil. He was the one Bennett I’d face without shattering under the weight of the truth. It wasn’t Darius’s perverted crimes that frightened me anymore. It was what they’d think of me once I faced the shame.
    What Nicholas would think.
    My hand trembled as I checked the peephole. I recognized the sea-green eyes, but I opened the door with the chain, just to ensure he was alone.
    The baby wasn’t the only consequence of my naivety. Paranoia conquered me. And distrust.
    Reed waited until the door swung wide. Then I was captured in his embrace.
    “Hi, Re—”
    I stuffed my tears into the roiling pit of nausea in my stomach. Reed squeezed me too hard. I dug my fingers into his shoulder and hoped I wouldn’t reveal the pregnancy in a most undignified manner.
    Reed didn’t smile. He touched my face, kissed my forehead.
    “Jesus Christ, Sarah, we were worried about you! Where the hell have you been?”
    He didn’t release me, and I tolerated the touch, if only because the last time he held me was in a brief, horrible goodbye after my step-brothers secured a chartered flight to escape from Darius. Reed gave me five thousand dollars and broke down because he could do nothing else.
    Nothing to make up for how they hurt me.
    But it wasn’t his fault. Not when the gun was pointed at my head, and the bullets etched with their names. I didn’t blame them. It was all Darius. Every time. Every moment.
    But even Reed’s embrace was too much, too confining. I escaped from his pinning hug. He patted Hamlet behind the ears.
    “You okay?” Reed brushed my cheek.
    I flinched, and he immediately apologized. The guilt and shame flushed my cheeks.
    I dreaded what he’d say next. The pity. The remorse.
    Instead he smiled, his dimple so teasing and playful. “Enjoying your whirlwind vacation?”
    I…hadn’t expected that.
    “Vacation?”
    He winked. “I figured you’d get tired of us sooner or later.”
    “Tired of you?”
    “Nick’s been so worried, holy Christ. You ran with all those shares. Max thought you’d sell and buy a one-way ticket to some tropical island paradise.” Reed grinned. “I told him you’d use it for startup capital to develop some sort of genetically modified monster corn.”
    My stomach rolled. I pushed further from Reed.
    “You thought I left with the stock from the Josmik Trust,” I said. “You thought I…”
    Betrayed them.
    Oh, God.
    They didn’t know.
    Nicholas didn’t know .
    Darius’s attack wasn’t the only nightmare that haunted me. I dreaded how he’d gloat, what he’d say, how he’d utterly destroy my step-brothers when he revealed just how easily he…
    They didn’t know their father raped me.
    My stomach heaved.
    “Hold on…” I clapped a hand over my mouth and rushed to the bathroom, slamming the door as I landed on my knees.
    They didn’t know.
    The relief expelled every awful memory, the lingering fear, the imaginary hands gripping my hips.
    Darius didn’t tell them.
    And neither would I.
    I had an opportunity to end the reign of a monster. If we killed Darius, they would never