Ruin & Rule (Pure Corruption MC #1)(37)
Author: Pepper Winters

“Good. Thanks.”

Awkwardness settled and Kill’s fingers tightened around my wrist.

“Okay, Sarah. Guess this is good-bye.” Grasshopper’s voice reluctantly tugged me from my sad stupor.

I swallowed, keeping my head down and eyes averted. “Thanks. For trying, at least.”

Kill flinched. I hoped he heard the reprimand in my voice directed at him—for his lack of belief or decency of just listening to me.

Kill dragged me forward without another word.

Past the last magazine cover.

Past where I’d stood and stripped for him.

Through the compound and into the garage.

Cleo.

Her name was Cleo. It sounded right… but wrong.

Could I have remembered the wrong name?

Could all of this be undone if I just had more time to untangle my memories?

“Please, Kill. Don’t do this,” I whispered as he dragged me toward a black SUV.

Kill gritted his jaw but didn’t reply. His hand stayed latched around my wrist, his legs chewing up the floor as if he wanted to break into a sprint and run far away from me.

My heart stuttered at the hate reverberating from him. I didn’t fight—there was no point. But I wished he would just stop for one moment. Just stop and…

What? Expose himself from years’ worth of denial and put himself in a place of agony to try and believe? Something like that would take more strength than anything, and as much as I hated it, I could understand his reluctance.

It was easier to continue living a lie than deal with the consequences of what it would mean if I were Cleo. So many questions would then exist… How were we separated? Why did he think he killed me? What really happened all those years ago?

I reached out, wrapping my fingers around his arm where he held me. He didn’t stop or look down.

“I’m sorry, Arthur. I’m sorry for the pain you’re going through. I’m sorry to make you confront things you obviously aren’t able to. But please don’t do this. Let me go. Release me. I’ll never come back and you’ll never have to see me again, but please. Please don’t sell me.”

“Don’t use my name.” He tugged me faster, reaching the black 4WD and opening the back door.

My heart winged frantically. “You have to know I didn’t mean to hurt you! It’s all true inside my mind. Everything I feel for you—everything that happened, it’s all real.”

How is it real?

Did my mind steal someone else’s memories or was everything a story—told to keep myself from going insane with no past?

Kill refused to make eye contact. Grabbing me around my bronze-encased waist, he threw me onto the backseat of the car.

My teeth rattled as he punched the door closed, shaking the entire vehicle.

Two seconds later, he climbed behind the steering wheel and pressed the garage door opener.

Twisting the key in the ignition, the engine started with a growl, then slid seamlessly into gear and exploded from standstill to motion.

“Ah!” I slid wildly on the pristine tan leather as he floored the acceleration, shooting from the garage and into Florida sunshine. He drove like a damn lunatic, taking corners too fast, making the wheels squeal.

My stomach crashed against my insides. Nausea made me sweat as I fumbled for a seat belt.

Did he not care at all?

He’s such an… ass. An uncommunicative ass who doesn’t want to face the truth.

“Kill—”

He swiped his hand through his hair, pressing harder on the gas. “Don’t.”

I hugged my chest, slip-sliding even with the seat belt tight as he careened around a corner. “Please… you have to listen to me. I didn’t do it to hurt you! I honestly believe I know you. I can’t explain it—”

“You don’t need to explain it. You’re done here. You succeeded in seeing me again and you’ve made it worse for yourself.”

“How?”

He clutched the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. “I told you before that you wouldn’t get sweet or caring from me. I told you not to lie to me or to try and touch me. Yet, you did all of those fucking things. You dragged more emotion out of me in a few days than anyone’s been able to do in years and I fucking hate you for it. Not only did you force me to come back and listen to more of your lies, you think after everything you’ve done that I’ll just let you go?” He shook his head, chuckling sadly. “That’s not how sins work, sweetheart. They demand payment. Same fucking payment that I paid.”

He sped past street signs, driving like a reckless idiot.

“And vengeance? What of that?”

His head swiveled, green eyes latching onto mine before returning to the road. “You don’t know a fucking thing about vengeance. Don’t spin another tale. I’m done with your bullshit.”

“You’re right. I don’t know about revenge. I have no enemies—that I can remember. But I do know what they say about it. That carrying out harm to others not only hurts your intended victims, but yourself, too. You end up being hurt. Forgiveness—”

“Forgiveness?” he yelled, punching the steering wheel and making the horn blare. “You dare talk to me about forgiveness? You have no right—none—to try and preach how I should live my life. You don’t know a damn thing of what they did to me. To her. To my fucking future. They ruined me!”

The twisted agony in his tone turned my heart into a mangled, useless thing. I wanted to take his pain and cure him. I wanted him to let it go so it didn’t fester and kill him. The more time I spent with him, the more I wondered what happened to the simple, kind boy from my past.

“You don’t look ruined. Want to know what I see when I look at you?”

“No. Shut up.”

“I see a man who’s so intelligent I can imagine it’s exhausting living inside your brain. You’re wealthy, respected by both peers and government and media. You have it all.”

A vein throbbed dangerously in his neck as he shook his head, laughing under his breath. It sounded manic—like the tip of a volcano that was about to explode from the depths and rain molten lava. “Have it all?” I have it all?” He hunched over the wheel. “You have it wrong, Sarah. I have nothing. Fucking nothing because they took it all.”

“I know you’re hurting. And I won’t try and understand what you’re dealing with, but you can’t live your life blocked from feeling. You’ll snap.”

He’s already done that.

I feared for his sanity. I hadn’t meant to push him. But this would be my last opportunity. My farewell attempt to make him crack and listen.

He laughed coldly. “Snap? Sweetheart, I snapped years ago and don’t need any woman trying to make me fucking soft. I’m done and I’m gonna make sure I never have to lay eyes on you or hear your lies ever again.”

My shoulders slumped as standoffish silence filled the car. How could I make him see? He meant to sell me—get rid of me. What sort of man did that?

A broken one.

I just wanted to be freed. I would leave—I would give him my word he would never see me again. He didn’t need to ruin my life just like his was. “For a genius, you don’t seem to understand,” I whispered.

He gritted his jaw, refusing to reply.

My mind raced with ways to get him to pay attention—something had to trigger inside him. I just had to keep pushing. “What happened in the changing room that day? Explain to me the connection. That kiss, Killian… It was more than two strangers lusting after each other. It had layers… history.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“No.”

His jaw tightened, the vein in his neck still throbbing crazily. “You’re only making this worse.”

“For you or for me? Tell me what you felt. Tell me what you were thinking when you kissed me.”

He growled under his breath. “What happened is none of your—”

“Goddamn business,” I finished for him. Throwing my hands up, I snarled, “I already know, genius. It’s because of her. Me! You’re so damn in love with a dead girl that you can’t—just for a single moment—allow yourself to enjoy another woman. Even if that other woman is her!”

He attacked the steering wheel. Whirling it to the right, he shot from traffic and slammed to a stop in a turning lane. Spinning in his seat, he brought the wrath of hell upon me. His arm shot forward, smacking my thigh so hard my muscle smarted through the bronze dress. My skin pricked with heat from the reprimand—of being hit like a disobedient child.

“You aren’t her. Why the fuck won’t you get that?”

“I agree I can’t remember the right name, but explain the rest. Please, I’m begging you—explain the rest, so it makes sense, because right now the only conclusion I can see is that I’m the girl you think you killed.”

His face went white. Holding up a shaking finger, he hissed, “You mention her again or speak to me like that and we’ll have a serious fucking problem.”

Tears burned my eyes; my lip wobbled. “What happened to you?”

What happened to the genius boy who stole my heart and gave me his? What happened to us?