Ruin & Rule

I didn’t know if I should be overjoyed at the unswerving intuition that we were linked, or petrified that someone from my past could treat me like this.

Tell me.

Are you my lover?

My brother?

My nemesis or friend?

I hated wallowing in nothingness, where even reality wasn’t believable without the documentation of a past I could no longer recall.

The connection reached a fever pitch, turning the burn on my arm into an inferno.

Then… he blinked.

Smashing the awareness into smithereens and tearing his gaze from mine, he broke the web. Whatever I thought I felt or knew disappeared in a flash. The tremor left, dissolving into the ground, leaving me empty and more alone than before.

Any remembrance or realization in his gaze vanished, replaced with livid anger.

He was no longer intrigued or enticed by me but furious and hate-filled.

What changed?

How had he cut me out so successfully?

And how had he done it so completely that he made me doubt I’d even seen the hint of something deeper?

Is it all in my head?

Running a large hand through his hair, he paced in front of the lineup. His bloody and bruised hand opened and closed by his thighs, violence wisping around him like an aura.

Slamming to a halt facing us, he sniffed loudly. “Suppose it’s now my job to welcome you.” He kicked at nothing, grinding his large black boot into the floorboards. “Excuse the disorganization. And ignore the fight you saw.” His eyes landed on each of us, pinning us to the concrete. “My name is Arthur Killian, but you and everyone else, address me as Kill. You’re a transaction—nothing more, nothing less.”

My eyes widened. His name… I waited for it to jog a memory.

Nothing.

An influx of men, five or six, appeared from the corridor, moving to lean against the button-leather couches. They looked as if they belonged in a lawyer’s office—the couches, not the men; the men looked as if they were born riding Harleys with cigarettes in their mouths and their minds in the gutter.

The women beside me shuddered, sneaking glances at the new arrivals. They were just as bloody; some with torn clothes, others with cut lips and bruised cheekbones. They all had an edge—wiry, unpredictable.

I stayed locked in place, watching, drinking information, and trying to stay as unnoticeable as possible.

Arthur Killian, whom I’d placed into the center of my new world for lack of a better anchor, spun to face them. “You gonna behave, or do I have to kick your sorry asses again?”

The men smirked, crossing their arms. “We get it. You’re still the Prez.”

Kill growled, “You get it, but you don’t feel it. Too bad. It’s done. Been done for four fucking years and I won fair and fucking square. You obey my rules. You don’t, you’re dead.”

A man in his early thirties with a stringy moustache nodded. “Know your reasons. Can’t say I’m pissed but I’m on board with what you’ve been saying. Wallstreet vouched for you many times. Gonna trust his judgment, regardless if you’re a shit-eating Dagger.”

“Hey. Club business. Visitors.” Black Mohawk cocked a chin at us.

Kill scowled, reining in his anger. “You’re right. Shut the fuck up. The lot of you.”

“You’re telling us to shut up? You’ve been demanding us to pledge fealty for years, and now that we’re about to, you want us to shut the fuck up?”

Kill gritted his jaw, a vein pumping in the cords of his neck. “Fine! But let’s get one thing straight, I’m not a Dagger. Not anymore. I’ll be the first to take them out—so stop this in-house fighting and have my fucking back for a change.”

The guys shifted but they nodded. One muttered, “That’s what I’m trying to do. You got my weapon.”

“Good.” The Prez—I guessed short for president—nodded. “We’re no longer sloppy one-percenters. We’re done with that shit. Haven’t I already proven that if you follow me, Wallstreet’s vision comes true and no one else has to die?”

A man with a short crop of dark hair and a skull shaved into the strands snapped, “That’s all fine and fucking dandy to say, but you’re hardly here! A Prez is meant to be seen with his army—”

“Enough!” Kill roared. “What I do in the name of this Club is none of your goddamn business.” He moved forward, his head cocked threateningly. “You’re grown men. I’m not your fucking babysitter.” Shoving a finger in Stringy Moustache’s face, he muttered, “You don’t like the money I’ve made you? Fine, give it back.”

Stringy Moustache gritted his jaw. “We earned it.”

Kill laughed darkly. “Exactly. Just like I earned your fucking obedience.”

Shaved Skull growled, “You think you’ve won? You’ll never win.”

“Funny. I just did.” Kill held up his bloodstained hands. “Karma, boys. I’m giving you until tomorrow morning to pack up your shit and leave if you want out.” His body tightened, terrible anger rippling over his muscles. “But if you stay, everything that happened tonight is over. Done.”

“Enough Club talk,” Black Mohawk snapped. “Time and place, gentlemen.”

My eyes ping-ponged between the scary looking men in identical jackets, to the blood-drenched president breathing hard through his nose. To the uneducated, he looked furious. In control, strong, and vital. To the ones knowledgeable on pain, the glow in his eyes wasn’t from anger but agony—the tension in his back wasn’t from ferocity but whatever caused him to bleed profusely.