Ruin & Rule (Pure Corruption MC #1)(59)
Author: Pepper Winters

Arthur hung his head, his face white. “I still don’t know how he missed you getting away, or if someone found you and took you—”

“They didn’t.” I sucked in a breath. “I crawled on my own. I remember. I managed to get to the road, where someone found me and took me to the hospital.”

His face twisted in brutal pain. “You do remember? God, Cleo. I never wanted you to remember that fucking night. The agony you must’ve been in.”

I shrugged, looking down at the table. “At least I know how I got away and before he found me.” I’d been destined for a fate worse than the one Arthur almost sold me into.

The irony and parallel between father and son didn’t escape me. Arthur was now president—just like his father. He’d been about to sell me—just like his father.

It doesn’t make sense—even more so now that I know the truth.

Sitting straight, I said, “Those girls, Art. How could you sell them when you knew what he planned to do to me? You made other girls suffer. What if that had been me? What if—”

“I would’ve found you and saved you. Fuck, Cleo, I would’ve come for you and slaughtered everyone in my path.”

I shook my head. “You couldn’t. You were in jail—remember? I would’ve been swallowed by a world that takes no prisoners. Even if you did find me once you were free, I wouldn’t have been the same person I was—the same girl you fell in love with.”

“You disappeared for eight years, yet you’re still mine. Still the redheaded girl who stole my heart.” His eyes were broken—a faded muddy green.

I smiled weakly. “Living a life where I was happy, if not lost, isn’t the same as being someone’s slave.” Sighing heavily, I said, “You have to find them. You have to save those women you sold.”

Grasshopper laughed coldly. “Do you honestly think Kill would sell innocent women into a life of horror?”

My head snapped up.

Mo said, “Those women were handpicked. Not for their looks—although they were pretty hot—but for who they associated with.”

My skin broke out in goose bumps.

“They were his whores, Cleo,” Arthur whispered. “We took any girl who’d slept with him since my mother died a year ago.”

Diane.

The softly spoken woman with dark hair so much like her son’s. The scents of fresh baking would drift across the courtyard, tantalizing my taste buds and making me skip across to Art’s house and plonk myself in her kitchen with my legs dangling behind the breakfast bar.

My hand slapped over my mouth in despair. “Art, I’m so sorry.”

I wanted to ask how she died but Arthur struggled to remain collected. His frayed self-control was near breaking point. He didn’t move or show any sign of pain, bottling it deep, where it festered just like the pain he’d felt for me. But I knew.

“We took his whores to teach him a lesson. When he finds out those same whores are now servicing other presidents of rival Clubs, he’ll bring a war down on his own head.”

Since when did having bad taste in lovers become a crime payable by sexual slavery?

My spine bristled with unfairness. I couldn’t keep the disapproval or disgust from my voice. “And me? What stock were you trying to buy? Why was it so important?”

Arthur sighed. “That’s tied up in the part that’s too involved to discuss in a diner—especially with other factions in hearing distance.”

I opened my mouth to argue. I wanted to know everything. Immediately.

Grasshopper put his hand on my arm, hushing my protest. “Let it rest, Cleo-Sarah. Kill’s a good man who fucking adores you. He’ll tell you everything.” His blue eyes landed on his Prez; ice melted down my spine at the secrets passing between the two. “You’ll get your revenge, dude. Your happily ever after will be complete and those who wronged you will rot in the ground.”

The sentence throbbed with righteousness. Undercurrents of promises and plans I wasn’t privy to thickened the air.

No one said a word.

“He’ll tell you everything,” Grasshopper finally repeated, glaring at Arthur. “Won’t you?”

Slowly and reluctantly, Arthur nodded. “I’ll tell you everything, Cleo. And I’ll hope to God you’ll understand.”

It wasn’t until afterward—after a greasy dinner of cheeseburgers and sodas—that I realized two things were missing.

My world had broadened, my horizons vast and beckoning as memories returned and secrets were revealed, but it was the answers not spoken that kept fear alive in my heart.

Answers that could liquidate my entire world.

The heavy warmth of Arthur’s jacket kept my body from plummeting into arctic chills as shock tried to take hold, but my determination only grew stronger.

I have to uncover what he’s hiding.

Tonight had swept my past upside down and twisted it inside out.

But I still didn’t know why or how I’d been kidnapped. I’d been barefoot and blindfolded—just like the other women. I’d been burned by Lighter Boy. How?

My fingers involuntarily went to the singe on my forearm. It was such an odd feeling. To remember parts—to feel whole after mimicking a sieve with missing pieces for so long.

It was a tease to remember certain things and not others.

It wasn’t fair.

I wanted everything.

I wanted to gaze upon the full story that was my past and present.

However, that question paled in comparison to the one echoing around my head. The one I couldn’t avoid.

The one that would shed light on the horrible despicable truth.

A man who practically raised me killed my parents out of greed. He destroyed my future, turned his back on loyalty—and for what?

For a Club that meant nothing without friends to love.

No one shared my blood. My bloodline and lineage were over.

I was the last Price to ever hold the surname.

But through all the horrible revelations, one stood out that had been brushed under the rug and kept locked deep in the unmentionable cellar.

Where had Arthur been that night?

And why hadn’t he been the one to save me?

Chapter Twenty-One

I’d been so afraid love would soften me. That it would halt my thirst for revenge and drive me from my coldhearted determination to make them pay.

But it didn’t.

If anything, love made my determination even stronger.

I throbbed with the urge to decimate those who had done what they did.

I wanted to avenge not only myself, but Cleo, too.

It would be my gift to her.

A gift of closure from our terrible past.

—Kill

“Want to know my ultimate wish?” Grasshopper asked as we stepped from the diner.

The moon climbed up the sky, taking the stage now that the sun had descended. It hung like a huge silver dollar, casting everything in a metallic hue.

My arms stayed crossed around my stomach; I was cold despite the heat from Arthur’s jacket.

Arthur rolled his eyes. “With your dirty mind, I can guess.”

Mo laughed softly. “I’d say your wish was for a woman with skills who could give you a blow job while riding.”

Grasshopper punched him in the arm, smirking. “I wouldn’t say no to that shit, but that isn’t it.” His smirk turned into a smile as he pointed between Arthur and me. “I want that.”

A meter existed between us—a boundary that Arthur and I hadn’t found the nerve to cross. I wanted him to touch me, but at the same time didn’t. I wanted him to whisper in my ear and tell me it would all work out, but at the same time wanted nothing from him.

His father killed my parents.

My mind had a lot to unscramble before I would be able to sleep tonight.

“Want what?” Arthur asked, his forehead furrowed.

“What you guys have.”

Arthur chuckled, it sounded layered with pain and anguish. “You want a dysfunctional relationship that has more fucking issues than a TV soap?”

Okay, that kind of hurt. I knew we had things to work through, but we weren’t dysfunctional. Were we?

Arthur caught my eye, looking pleadingly into mine. His body swayed subconsciously toward me, even now unable to ignore the pull between us.

“No.” Grasshopper grinned, his dimple flashing. “I want what you guys have. To have a connection that never fades—even after so many years apart. I want honesty and the knowledge that I’m not alone in the world.”

My knees wobbled. Such a simple sentence but it shot me in the heart and made my anger dissolve. All the pain, confused thoughts, and misery I’d felt in the diner fizzled in my blood until they completely dispersed.

Life was too short to let the past dictate our future. Especially a future that was almost robbed from us.

Arthur sucked in a breath and closed the distance between us. I melted into him as his arm wrapped around my shoulders, holding me tight. His lips pressed against the top of my head in the sweetest of kisses. “I’m sorry, Cleo. This wasn’t how I wanted to tell you.”

Unlocking my arms, I hugged him back, not caring that two bikers stared uncomfortably. “I’m sorry for not dealing better with it.”

Arthur made a strangling sound. “You dealt with it better than I would have. The diner is still standing and the police haven’t been called. I’d say that’s a success.”