Ruin & Rule (Pure Corruption MC #1)(48)
Author: Pepper Winters

“I made you fall in love with me?”

He chuckled. “Cleo, you made me fucking dedicate my world to you.”

Cleo.

Cleo.

My world fractured and I fell through the cracks.

“Cleo, baby, we’re having a dinner for the other members tonight. Go put on your best jeans and come and help with the decorations.” My mother’s bright red hair shone beneath the kitchen spotlights.

Memories twisted and collided.

“Ah, so you want me to call you Cleo now? What happens if I want to continue calling you Buttercup?” My father poked me in the ribs, trying to make me laugh but only annoying me further.

“I’m not a kid anymore, Dad. Call me Cleo.”

I swirled deeper and deeper into my hidden past.

“Cleo Price, I love you with all my heart and soul. You’re my Sagittarius and I’ll always be your Libran.” Art stole my cheeks in his warm hands and kissed me with sweetness, adoration, and most of all, the soul mate kind of love that’d blossomed from a lifetime of learning about each other.

Tears trickled down my cheeks.

My name is Cleo…

I blinked, slamming back into the present. “I’m Cleo Price. My father’s name was Paul ‘Thorn’ Price, my mother Sandra Price. I don’t have any brothers or sisters. You were my entire childhood. You were my first and only crush. You were my reason for living and I’ve found you.”

The wall barring my family broke away, washing like a broken dam through the valley of my thoughts, sweeping away the blackness.

I remember them!

I couldn’t contain my shiver of happiness.

Kill sat frozen. He didn’t breathe or blink.

Sitting up, I wrapped my arms around him. “Speak to me.”

He took a very long minute to thaw but finally his back sagged and his arms wrapped around me in the tightest embrace. “I’ve lived the last eight years believing you were dead. I’m struggling to come to terms with everything I’ve done—how I treated you—how I fucked you with no emotion. Fuck, it’s doing my head in to think how I used you. Shit!”

He trembled in my arms and I nuzzled into his neck. “You didn’t know. We’ve both lived with enough torture. Let the past stay where it belongs.”

“No, see, that’s the thing. The moment I saw you, I hated you. You looked so much like her but I convinced myself it couldn’t be. I couldn’t see how it would be possible you were still alive after all this time. So many times in the past, I’ve looked at women and seen you there. Seen you hiding in their eyes. It fucking ripped my heart out every time—so to see you… looking so like—”

He grabbed his hair. “Ugh, this hurts to get straight. I’m repeating myself yet it doesn’t make it any easier.”

My fingers went to his nape, massaging gently.

“To love as much as I loved you—it decimated me when you’d gone. I didn’t want anyone else. I didn’t want anything but for you to be alive again.”

My heart hurt with my next question. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

I couldn’t voice it.

Did you do what they said and kill me?

His face tightened, understanding my unsaid question.

He grabbed my hand, linking our fingers. “I swear to you on our love that I didn’t. I don’t know what happened.” Fear filled his voice. “I didn’t, Cleo. You have to believe me.”

I squeezed his fingers. “I believe you.”

The relief ebbing from his muscles scared me. “Why didn’t you tell the police? Why did you go to prison for a crime you didn’t commit?”

The room went icy as Kill sucked up everything he’d let go. Hiding. Blocking answers that I needed. “Please… It relates to the past that I can’t talk about just yet.” His face twisted with torture. “Give me time. That’s all I ask and I’ll tell you—I promise.”

I sat still. Would he ever tell me? Wouldn’t it be best to rip off the Band-Aid quickly and deal with the consequences now? But I couldn’t do that to him. I’d already destroyed the world he knew; I couldn’t demand more.

“Okay. Time.”

He reached up, kissing me sweetly. “Thank you. I’ll tell you everything… soon.” A cloud passed over his face. “That goes for you, too. I need to know where you’ve been. How you lost every memory of your past and me.”

Nervousness filled me at telling him everything—things I still hadn’t recalled. My mind was Swiss cheese with too many holes. Deflecting a little, I smiled. “I’m hoping you can get it straight for both of us. I remember what my parents look like. I remember my bedroom with the yellow walls and my favorite quote from The Princess Bride stenciled on my ceiling. But I don’t remember anything else. I don’t remember what happened after my fourteenth birthday, and I don’t remember how I became Sarah or lived overseas or even how I became a vet.”

Kill looked away anxiously. “There’s so much you’ve forgotten. So much we don’t know if you’ll remember.” His shoulders bunched. “Shit, Cleo. There’s so much I want to tell you and so much I hope you never—” Cutting himself off, he sighed. “It all hurts too damn much. I have too much inside my head… I’m such an asshole.” Pulling away, he looked deep into my eyes. “Can you ever forgive me?”

Tears tickled my spine at the thought of him being so broken. So upside down and inside out from finally seeing me. “I already have. I understand.”

He sniffed. “I’m so damn sorry.”

I wanted to stroke away his pain. My consolation wasn’t enough to save him. Directing the conversation to easier topics, I asked, “What finally made you see?”

Smiling quickly, he crushed me to him. “It was the equation. Our equation. The stupid geek thing that you giggled over when I showed you how awesome math could be.”

My mind came up blank. It was as if my family was now free from the net that captured my mind, but the rest—it was still trapped, still squirming and trying to escape.

He let me go, his large hand falling to my hip. “Look. See for yourself.”

I glanced down at the pyramid of numbers inked into my skin. I remembered the night I’d woken at some ungodly hour and scribbled the equation down before it escaped from my dreams. But I still couldn’t remember how I recalled it or what it meant. It tugged so hard inside with a hidden message that I’d given it to the artist to place on my skin so I would never forget.

My heart twitched as Kill traced the pattern: I <3 U

“Do you know what it means?” he murmured. “Do you remember?”

I shook my head, wishing I could. “No.”

He smiled. “It’s the perfect mathematical proof that love exists, written in numbers. You had your words and poems, I had this. And I finally found a way to say I love you.”

I couldn’t say a word.

“I’ve loved you for most of my life, and then you were… gone. I don’t know what you’ve been through and I don’t know the woman you’ve become because of it, but I do know I’ll never be able to stop it. Never be able to ignore…” His face twisted and he growled, “I’m not going to fight it anymore. Too fucking long I’ve been fighting and I’m done.”

“Fighting what?”

“Emotion. The highs and lows of life. I’ve lived with revenge for so long, but you brought light back into my black world.”

I bit my lip, suffering an explosion of happiness in my heart.

Kill continued, “There’s so much to tell you. So much you don’t know. You have no fucking idea how my life was. Everything I ever wanted was torn away from me and it terrifies me to think it will happen again.”

“It won’t.”

“You’re right. It won’t. Not this time. This time I’m keeping you safe and never letting you out of my sight until those motherfuckers pay.”

My heart raced. My gasp was loud in the silent room.

Leaning close, he breathed, “Does that scare you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Well, it should.”

“I understand you carry things inside. Dark things—painful things. Tell me. What happened to you?”

His eyes lost the burning intensity, hazing with lust. “Later.”

I swallowed as he cupped my cheek and whispered a thumb over my lips. “I’ll tell you everything… but first, I need to touch you. I need to make sure this is real.”

A small smile twisted my lips. “I am real. I’m yours. You’re mine. Just like we said all those years ago.”

He sucked in a breath, his chest rising sharply. “God, I’ve missed you.”

His hand slipped from my cheek to the base of my skull. His eyes tore into me, welding his soul to mine. “Every night I dreamed of kissing you.” His gaze dropped to my lips. I didn’t have time to gasp or enjoy the blissful anticipation of being kissed before his mouth crushed against mine.

My body melted against his, becoming one with his passion and heat. His arms wrapped around me, his heart thundering. I snuggled closer.