Takeover: A Step-Brother Romance (The Legacy Book 1) by Lana Grayson Page A
Authors: Lana Grayson
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home. High-ceilinged hallways arched tall, beyond what seemed practical. My home was big, but this gothic-inspired, decadent prison wasn’t a house. It was an estate.
They maintained the mansion with a pride that had long shifted into arrogance. The dark rugs would have been stitched with gold if it was fashionable, and painstaking care crafted the lanterns on the walls, wiring electricity through the original sconces. The manor existed in a timeless, dreamlike perfection of antiquity and modern reflection.
A winding staircase yielded to a grand foyer. Chiseled tile and marble columns stretched well beyond the first floor, extending to a ceiling dominated by not one, but three extravagant chandeliers. Their prisms of light filled the impressive hall with a gentle radiance.
This was more than anything the Atwoods ever built. Who had this much money?
And why would someone so rich kidnap me?
The truth prickled at me. I ignored it.
My torn, bloodied clothes and muddied shoes didn’t belong in a hall this beautiful. Each step echoed in the isolation. I searched the hall expanding to my left. Every room sealed shut, formal and uninviting. The hostility radiated down the hall to the right as well, but a single door opened, and a cold, flickering firelight cast gold into the hall.
It wasn’t polite to force a guest to wander a home. It also wasn’t proper to kidnap her.
But it made sense.
I knew exactly who had me.
I burst through the doorway. The masculine study housed the obligatory bookcases and hearths, worldly mementos and every other indicator of old money they stuffed inside the bloated parlor. The elegance existed only to flaunt their wealth, and whatever beauty I thought existed within the estate rotted in the gluttony of Bennett greed.
“Of course it’s you,” I whispered.
Darius Bennett greeted me, a medieval king surveying the bounty of his hunt.
He claimed an executive leather chair and shadowed himself in the glow of the fireplace. His gaze revolted me. He looked at me like a piece of meat.
He wore a suit, but I expected the shining scales of a serpent to burst from the seams. He slithered down to his den like I was a mouse clamped in his jaws.
His sons waited for me as well.
Reed crumpled under my glare. Max wasn’t as easy, but I puffed with pride as he tucked an ice pack over his knee.
So he was the one who tried to pluck me from my lab?
I hoped he learned a valuable lesson.
But I ignored both Max and Reed. They weren’t the ones who deserved my ire.
Nicholas Bennett watched me in silence.
His inspection beat in my chest with a profound, unforgivable fury. I couldn’t easily breathe in his presence, and I hated that we shared the same air.
He traded the riding leathers of his motorcycle for a pristine, meticulously crafted suit. He looked just as good in the tight leather that cradled his every muscle as he did drafted in decadence.
But clean-cut and regal or muddy and violent, it didn’t matter. The Bennetts were criminals. I didn’t need a ranch’s worth of polished leather to prove their deviancy.
“How are you feeling, my dear?” Darius spoke only to watch me squirm.
He expected me to be frightened. I was, but damned if I’d let him see it.
“How dare you.” I hissed at the snake. He didn’t flinch. “Take me home, right now .”
Darius preferred his silence. My first breath stuttered. I coughed, but it was the last time he’d ever see that weakness. I borrowed Dad’s pride and stared down the men in the room.
They were supposed to be my step-family.
But step-families didn’t abduct their little sisters in the middle of the night.
They didn’t slash her tires and nearly kill her in a car crash. They didn’t drug her, transport her across the state, and sic doctors on very private, very off-limit areas.
Whatever game they played, whatever intimidation they planned, was absolutely inappropriate, illegal, and stupid. They’d learn quick I wasn’t just a twenty
They maintained the mansion with a pride that had long shifted into arrogance. The dark rugs would have been stitched with gold if it was fashionable, and painstaking care crafted the lanterns on the walls, wiring electricity through the original sconces. The manor existed in a timeless, dreamlike perfection of antiquity and modern reflection.
A winding staircase yielded to a grand foyer. Chiseled tile and marble columns stretched well beyond the first floor, extending to a ceiling dominated by not one, but three extravagant chandeliers. Their prisms of light filled the impressive hall with a gentle radiance.
This was more than anything the Atwoods ever built. Who had this much money?
And why would someone so rich kidnap me?
The truth prickled at me. I ignored it.
My torn, bloodied clothes and muddied shoes didn’t belong in a hall this beautiful. Each step echoed in the isolation. I searched the hall expanding to my left. Every room sealed shut, formal and uninviting. The hostility radiated down the hall to the right as well, but a single door opened, and a cold, flickering firelight cast gold into the hall.
It wasn’t polite to force a guest to wander a home. It also wasn’t proper to kidnap her.
But it made sense.
I knew exactly who had me.
I burst through the doorway. The masculine study housed the obligatory bookcases and hearths, worldly mementos and every other indicator of old money they stuffed inside the bloated parlor. The elegance existed only to flaunt their wealth, and whatever beauty I thought existed within the estate rotted in the gluttony of Bennett greed.
“Of course it’s you,” I whispered.
Darius Bennett greeted me, a medieval king surveying the bounty of his hunt.
He claimed an executive leather chair and shadowed himself in the glow of the fireplace. His gaze revolted me. He looked at me like a piece of meat.
He wore a suit, but I expected the shining scales of a serpent to burst from the seams. He slithered down to his den like I was a mouse clamped in his jaws.
His sons waited for me as well.
Reed crumpled under my glare. Max wasn’t as easy, but I puffed with pride as he tucked an ice pack over his knee.
So he was the one who tried to pluck me from my lab?
I hoped he learned a valuable lesson.
But I ignored both Max and Reed. They weren’t the ones who deserved my ire.
Nicholas Bennett watched me in silence.
His inspection beat in my chest with a profound, unforgivable fury. I couldn’t easily breathe in his presence, and I hated that we shared the same air.
He traded the riding leathers of his motorcycle for a pristine, meticulously crafted suit. He looked just as good in the tight leather that cradled his every muscle as he did drafted in decadence.
But clean-cut and regal or muddy and violent, it didn’t matter. The Bennetts were criminals. I didn’t need a ranch’s worth of polished leather to prove their deviancy.
“How are you feeling, my dear?” Darius spoke only to watch me squirm.
He expected me to be frightened. I was, but damned if I’d let him see it.
“How dare you.” I hissed at the snake. He didn’t flinch. “Take me home, right now .”
Darius preferred his silence. My first breath stuttered. I coughed, but it was the last time he’d ever see that weakness. I borrowed Dad’s pride and stared down the men in the room.
They were supposed to be my step-family.
But step-families didn’t abduct their little sisters in the middle of the night.
They didn’t slash her tires and nearly kill her in a car crash. They didn’t drug her, transport her across the state, and sic doctors on very private, very off-limit areas.
Whatever game they played, whatever intimidation they planned, was absolutely inappropriate, illegal, and stupid. They’d learn quick I wasn’t just a twenty
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