Capital Risk Read Online Free PDF

know, and I would be safe from harm and humiliation.
    Reed rapped on the door. “Hey, Typhoid Mary. I’m glad you called, but if you get me sick…”
    I washed my face. “You won’t catch it.”
    “Better not.”
    I edged from the bathroom with a shrug. His eyebrow rose as he cuddled with Hamlet.
    “You okay?” His smile faded.
    No. “Yeah.”
    “You don’t look good.” He gestured around the hotel room. “And you can afford better digs.”
    Not if I wanted to hide in one of the thousands of indistinguishable hotels where a billionaire would never think to search.
    “It’s been fine,” I said.
    Reed didn’t believe me, but he nodded. “I’m glad you’re coming back.”
    He wouldn’t be, not once he learned the reasons why. He hopped from the bed to take the bag I lifted. The strap caught on the table and jostled the zipper.
    The rattling bottle bounced against the floor. I dove for it, but Reed seized it first, handing it to me.
    “Almost dropped your—”
    The bottle clenched in his hand. He read the label. I froze.
    Prenatal vitamins .
    His expression shifted—a momentary confusion that cleared quickly, as if I struck him against the temple with the bottle. I met his gaze.
    And pleaded in silence.
    I wasn’t ready to say it.
    Not yet. Not aloud. Not to anyone but Hamlet and the compassionate nurse practitioner at the free clinic who offered to help even when I wouldn’t give her my name.
    I’d carried the secret for two months, and the only man who deserved to hear it was the one I was too terrified to call.
    I stilled. Reed stared at me, and three, four, five agonizing seconds of silence transformed his confused frown to wide-eyed shock.
    He offered to run with me once, but I thought I’d control my own fate and end it before anyone got hurt. One fluttering heartbeat changed everything.
    I took the vitamins from Reed’s hand.
    He exhaled. His eyebrow twitched, but whatever he prepared to say silenced between clenched teeth. Reed was as good a brother as Josiah or Mike. He nodded and clipped the leash on Hamlet.
    “Ready to go?” he asked.
    I would have thanked him, but it wasn’t necessary. He’d do anything for me. Reed shouldered my book bag too.
    “Does he know I’m coming?” I couldn’t say his name.
    “I kept it on the DL. I’ll Nick them from the airport and tell him to meet us at my house.”
    “And it’s…” I hated the tremble in my voice. “It’ll be safe there?”
    His expression darkened. Reed clenched his jaw.
    “Nothing’s gonna happen to you.” He handed me Hamlet’s leash. “Come on. Tonight was a bad night to be wrangling you.”
    “Why?”
    “Just a lot happening. Don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of you.”
    Take care of me? They had their chance to take care of me. That time had come, gone, and was lost in blood and bruises.
    Now they had one job. One promise they could finally keep, and then I’d leave forever.
    Darius Bennett would die.
    And my child would be safe.

    “You should eat, Ms. Atwood.”
    Nicholas dared to speak to me. He offered a sandwich, a bottle of water, and an apple. It wasn’t a kindness, not when he unlocked my bedroom door from the outside to deliver my first meal within the Bennett Estate.
    “Go on,” he said. “It isn’t poisoned.”
    As if that would reassure me, as if the trauma from a kidnapping and imprisonment would be alleviated because Nicholas Bennett offered me a ham sandwich.
    “If you want your vengeance, you’ll need your strength,” he teased. The plate clattered on the nightstand. “I want a fair fight, Ms. Atwood.”
    “Nothing’s fair about this.”
    “No, it’s not.”
    I didn’t move. Nicholas existed in a perfect, intimidating stillness, but I refused to let it frighten me.
    “You haven’t won yet,” I said. “You’ve only just started a war. Whatever insanity existed between our fathers is done and buried. You’ve instigated something far worse.”
    “Ms. Atwood—”
    “You