Ruin & Rule

I was told I might never remember past my fourteenth birthday. Until a week ago, I couldn’t recall anything at all and lived another life that I was only just starting to remember—yet the memories that were coming fast were the ones buried so deep they were sluggish and heavy, and so unbearably precious to be viewed after all this time.

“I’m here to take you to the bathroom. You can freshen up. I have some clothes for you, and then you can come eat with the boys.”

I blinked, trying to steady my world of biker lunches and showering, before being trafficked to some unknown buyer.

Ask him.

I shot to my feet, feeling gross and unwashed but more alive than ever. “Kill’s dead girl. I know her name.”

Please, be right. It has to be right.

Grasshopper scowled, his blue eyes darkening. “I highly doubt that.”

Sucking in a breath, I said quickly, “Sarah. Her name was Sarah.” Is Sarah. I strode forward, rushing, “I don’t know my last name yet, but I remembered! Don’t you see? Tell him my name and he’ll understand. He’ll know I’m telling the truth!”

I bubbled with excitement and a hint of fear. What would he do when he learned that everything I’d said was the truth? Would he beg forgiveness for kicking me? Would he slam to his knees and actually hug me—to allow me to hug him back for the first time since my “death”?

Grasshopper’s face had gone scarily unreadable. I couldn’t tell if he believed me or wanted to throttle me. Cocking his head, he said, “Get in the shower and I’ll call him. I’ll get him to join us for lunch before you leave.”

I couldn’t help it. I launched myself at his leather-jacketed frame and hugged him. “Thank you.”

He stiffened. A hard hand wedged between us and drove me backward. He refused to make eye contact. “I’m not as fucked up as Kill is, but I still don’t like bitches hugging me.” Opening the door wider, he motioned me through. “Shower. Then you can break the news to my Prez.”

Thirty minutes later, I entered the same room where Kill had made us strip and told us of our purpose. The floor had been washed of his blood and the button leather couches were pristine.

The shower had been heaven, even though the soap had been an overpowering masculine body wash with no conditioner for my hair. Grasshopper had given me an outfit of a gold bikini with diamantés and a wraparound bronze dress. It would’ve been perfect for a day out at the beach or pool party, but I was mildly weirded out to be wearing something so… fantastical in a biker compound.

“You sure I have to wear this?” I plucked at the material for the twentieth time. My damp red hair hung down my back, no doubt springing into humidity-induced curls.

“Yep. Prez’s orders,” Grasshopper said, striding across the large space and past the blown-up magazine covers on the wall. “This way.”

I stopped short as I noticed Kill on one with crimson writing and the slogan, Biker billionaire helps expose corruption in local council.

My mouth hung open, my heart rushed hard, and my core melted at the dashing debonair appearance of Arthur Killian in a crisp sexy suit. He wore an emerald tie to bring out his eyes and they glowed like kryptonite from the glossy oversize cover.

Why is he on magazines?

I drifted to the next one.

Kill sat behind a wooden desk, his elbow resting on its surface, his pinky finger pressed against his bottom lip. The intensity in his gaze spoke of intelligence and ferocity. In the background rested his Triumph, painted a matte black, looking roguish and evil.

Goose bumps spread over my arms as I read the article description: Arthur “Kill” Killian lives up to his name by slaughtering the foreign currency market and showing Wall Street how it’s done.

“What are you looking at?” Grasshopper stomped back toward me, impatience etching his face.

I pointed at another cover, this one with a mug shot of Kill holding a plaque with his birth date and messy long hair and a look in his eyes that said one thing—he was a boy whose soul had died and only vengeance remained. He simmered in the picture. He looked as if he would reach from the page and murder those who wronged him.

From betrayal to billions—the story of the kid and the benefactor who turned a life of crime into the purest of community service.

I swallowed hard.

“That’s when they took him?” I leaned forward, drinking in the image of Kill when he was younger. His jaw was just as wide, his nose just as sharp, but there wasn’t the brutal edge about him or the veneer of tolerance he used now. The mug shot was raw and visceral with hate and the burning desire for revenge.

“Yep. Seventeen, poor dude.”

I shook my head. “You said he was sentenced to life imprisonment. How did he get out so soon?”

Grasshopper tapped his nose, then pretended to zip his lips. “That’s for us to know and for you not to. None of your business, but it was a fucking blessed day for all when he took over the Corrupts and made us Pure Corruption.”

Grabbing my elbow, he carted me away from the stunning images of the boy I loved and the man I couldn’t understand and through another door.

I slammed to a halt.

The room was nothing fancy: grey walls with a ceiling fan, polished floorboards, and windows looking over the compound behind, but the large oval table that sat twelve or so guys was definitely the centerpiece of the décor.

The same abacus, skull, and waterfall of coins had been heavily engraved into the table with the motto that I was beginning to understand: PURE IN THOUGHTS AND VENGEANCE. CORRUPT IN ALL THINGS THAT MATTER.