Ruin & Rule

  Prisoner #FS788791 growled, “Respect, boy.”

  Wallstreet waved him away. “It’s fine, Pat. He’s highly strung. That’s all.” His eyes glinted. “And impatient.”

  I nodded. “Hell yes, I’m impatient. I’ve avoided stepping on toes or being roped into sides the full three hundred and sixty-five days I’ve been here. I want to stay neutral and you’re wrecking that by making people think you’re playing favorites with me.”

  Wallstreet nodded, his blue eyes bright and sharp. “Fair enough.” Looking at his three stooges, he muttered, “Leave us. I want to talk to the boy alone.”

  Prisoner #FS788791 stepped forward. “But what about…”

  Wallstreet held up his hand, shushing him in one powerful, understated move.

  What I wouldn’t give to have that power. That clout.

  “Give us a few, Pat.” When the prisoner didn’t move, Wallstreet added, “I’m not asking.”

  The guy grumbled but moved away obediently.

  I didn’t say a word, just glared until the fellow convicts moved out of hearing distance. Wallstreet visibly relaxed, which didn’t make sense as he’d just shooed away his bodyguards.

  “Killian. Let’s start with something easy. What do you know about me?”

  I tensed, willing my heart rate to remain steady and nerves to die a painful death. I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid of anyone anymore.

  I rolled my eyes. “What is this? A ‘get to know your fellow criminal’ lunch?”

  Wallstreet smiled tightly. “No. This is an interview.”

  I coughed. “What?”

  Wallstreet leaned forward, losing the pretence of conversation, getting straight to his point. “I know about you, kid. I have a one-time deal that will change your life. I can give you back your world—with more power than you could ever dream of—so stop being a little shit. Tell me what I want to know and cut the crap, because you get one chance. If you fuck it up, you’ll die in here, and wish to God you’d stopped flashing your cock and actually listened.”

  He breathed hard, running a hand through his thick grey hair. “Now do I have your attention?”

  My attention was riveted to his jumpsuit collar and the vein in his neck. My mind was busy picturing how badly he’d bleed if stabbed him with the shank I kept hidden in my cuff. My brain was busy calculating how many seconds the rubber bullets and batons would take before they ripped into my body.

  One point five seconds to strike.

  Four seconds before anyone understood what happened.

  Eight seconds for the guards to aim and fire.

  Eleven point nine seconds before any chance of being hit by a rubber bullet occurred.

  But if I did, I would have zero chance at getting what I wanted.

  Equations.

  Algorithms.

  Probabilities and calculations.

  Math.

  Where vengeance was my life, math was my lover. Everything—regardless how senseless, surprising, and damn fucking unfair some things were, math could always find a simple answer. Provide solutions to impossible situations.

  Math was ruthless.

  Like me.

  I nodded. “You have my attention.”

  “Good.” Wallstreet cleared his throat. “Let’s start again. How much do you know about me?”

  I sighed, preparing myself for a recital. “Everything?”

  He linked his fingers again, his knuckles turning white as he squeezed. “Everything.”

  “You were incarcerated a while back for white-collar crimes. You skimmed the books on your Fortune Five Hundred company and hid cash in offshore bank accounts. You were only caught because your whore at the time reported you to the tax office, where they audited you and found you fraudulent of not paying taxes.” I took another breath, continuing, “You made your first million before you’d turned twenty-three, had a portfolio of over fifty properties including hotels and commercial investments, along with your chain of highly successful trading companies and investment firms. Not only did you get done for tax evasion, but you’re currently being investigated for negligent trades on behalf of retirees rumored to be worth over eight hundred million, but I happen to know you’ll never be convicted because your bookkeeping skills are impeccable. Not to mention you have politicians and a lot of contacts in your pocket that are above the law.”

  Wallstreet smiled broadly. “So you’ve followed my career.”

  I never took my eyes off him. “Yes. It’s prudent to know my enemies.”

  “I’m your enemy?”

  I shook my head. “No, not right now. But you never know how the future will change. Those you hold most dear are the ones that strike the hardest.”

  Wallstreet laughed, slapping the table. “Your father really did a number on you, didn’t he, kid?”

  I bristled. “I’m not a kid.” The court system didn’t try me as a kid—they’d given me the maximum sentence for the coldhearted crime I committed. I hadn’t been a kid since I was ten years old and started receiving daily beatings and lessons from dear old Pop.

  My heart hung heavy, disobeying my strict orders not to feel despair or truly think about what my future meant. There would be no twenty-first birthday celebration or finally losing my virginity to Cleo. I’d wanted to wait until I was legally an adult. I’d wanted to make sure it was truly what she wanted.

  My heart fisted in agony.

  I should never have waited.

  Wallstreet narrowed his eyes. “What’s my real name? Have you managed to work that out yet?”

  I nodded. “Your power of attorney kept your name suppressed in every newspaper article. But I already knew it.” I decided to share a tiny sliver of where my passions lay. “I’ve wanted to trade since I was nine years old. You were like a god to me.”

  Wallstreet’s face darkened. “Were? Past tense?”

  I grinned, enjoying the slight anger glowing in his eyes. He was used to maintaining respect and didn’t handle my teenage look of disdain. “Past tense. You had so much. More than I ever dreamed—but you lost it all. You’re as penniless as me, but I’m better off ’cause I have youth on my side.”

  I didn’t believe my words. My age only condemned me to live longer inside these shit-stained walls.

  Wallstreet’s eyes narrowed. “What makes you think I lost it all?”

  “The newspaper articles. Magazines.”

  He shook his head. “You said so yourself… my bookkeeping skills are impeccable. Don’t you think I hid things? Only gave up what I could afford to lose?”

  My heart slowed—it always did when something huge attracted my attention. I could sit in a room with no food or distractions for days while chewing on an elusive equation.

  My voice dropped, hiding my eagerness. “Gonna share with me?”

  Wallstreet leaned closer, his voice dropping. “That depends on you.”

  “Me?”

  “I know as much about you as you do about me. I know what you want when you get out of here, and I also know you don’t stand a chance unless you somehow manage to afford a lawyer who gets you a parole hearing before you’re fucking seventy.” He sighed. “We both know that won’t happen. Not after what your father made you do. Not to mention the testimony he submitted painting you as the villain.”

  My hands clenched; my heart thundered in my ears.

  “Yes, Officer. I saw the whole thing. He’s no son of mine. I loved the Price family as if they were flesh and blood.”

  Handcuffs settled icy-cold and final around my wrists. My heart didn’t beat and nerves didn’t clog my blood. Ever since my father had dragged me into Cleo’s house, I’d been dead inside. Destined to hell for what I’d done.

  I’d obeyed my father because of threats he’d made toward the girl I loved with all my soul. I’d agreed to do what he wanted to protect her. To prevent her from being raped and murdered right before my eyes.

  And this was how he repaid my loyalty.

  “Do you h
ave anything to say for yourself, Arthur Killian, before we take you into custody?”

  I looked down at the floor, my hair reeking of smoke, my hands covered in the charred remains of Cleo’s house. I’d combed through the wreckage once it had burned to the ground and cooled.

  I hadn’t found her body, but I’d found the ring I’d given her.

  I wanted to break down and fucking cry.

  My father growled, “Of course he has something to say. Don’t you, Killian? Tell them. Tell them the truth.”

  I hunched into myself. Even now, even after he’d already destroyed my life, he was intent on hammering the nails into my coffin.

  “Well, son. What do you have to tell us?” the officer asked, shaking me.

  “Killian, admit to it,” my father hissed. “Tell them what a fucking murderer you are.”

  There was nothing left to fight for.

  She was dead.

  I would follow her as soon as I could find a way.

  “I killed them,” I whispered.

  “What was that?” The officer leaned closer.

  Gathering every inch of betrayal and hatred from my soul, I bellowed, “I fucking killed them. I murdered Paul and Sandra Price. Are you happy? Is that what you want to hear?”

  The officer shook his head sadly. “No, son, that wasn’t what I wanted to hear at all.”

  The last thing I heard as they stuffed me into the back of a cop cruiser was my father chuckling with accomplishment.

  He’d used his youngest son to dispatch the president of Dagger Rose, all so he could take it over himself.

  He’d sentenced me to a life of eternal misery, all for fucking greed.

  And for that I hoped the devil would tear out his heart and eat it for fucking breakfast.

  I forced the memories away—to stay locked and barricaded. If I didn’t, I’d go insane with anger. My eyes returned to Wallstreet’s neck, starting a new calculation on how long it would take me to rip out his voice box so I didn’t have to listen to him anymore.

  Wallstreet looked around, dropping his voice to a murmur. “I have a proposition for you.”

  My eyes narrowed. Suspicion laced my blood. I didn’t say a word, letting him dig the trench he obviously thought I was stupid enough to enter.

  “You have a head for numbers. You graduated top of your class in both physics and university-level math. You turned a work experience week at the local stock market into a trending explosion of blue-chip stocks by going bearish on the trade. You’re a natural, Arthur, and that’s a rare and beautiful thing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You read my résumé. How thoughtful.”

  He snapped, “I’m serious.”

  My eyes flashed. “And I’m serious when I said my name is Killian. Arthur died the moment he was betrayed and thrown away to rot in this godforsaken place.”

  “We’ll come back to that.” Wallstreet looked over my shoulder before glancing back at me. “It brings me to my next point. What else do you know about me?”

  Ah, the darker part of his history. The part where the police tried to trip him up. The amount of warrants served to him as the president of a motorcycle crew was insane. They’d tried to bring him down again and again. But nothing ever stuck.

  Not until his bitch of a Club whore got jealous and threw him to the law.

  “You want me to outline it, or are you happy to take my nod that I know about the Corrupts, its perfect history, and your iron-fist control?”

  He snarled, anger siphoning through him like liquid fire. “Iron-fist control, my ass. It’s out of fucking control.” He stopped himself, dragging a hand through his hair again. He smiled. “Sorry, that was uncalled-for. What I meant to say was, the past few years the man I left in charge has decided not to follow my explicit instructions. He’s taken my vision and ruined it.”

  I flicked a finger at a dent in the table. “And what does that have to do with me?”

  Wallstreet grinned. “Everything, my dear boy.”

  Something in his voice had my head snapping up. I glared. “Spill it. Your three minutes were up four minutes ago, and I’m five seconds away from throwing my fist in your face.”

  He laughed. “Tell me, how often do you think in equations? Do you ever stop calculating?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve been asked that a lot and my best reply is ‘fuck off.’ ”

  His smile grew broader.

  In reality, the answer to that question was that it was like I live in the fucking matrix with green code falling around me like rain, all day every day. I knew mathematical symbols better than I did the English alphabet. I could work out the hardest trig problem without a calculator. I could give answers to any problem within seconds.

  Math—my ultimate love.

  Apart from her, of course.

  Wallstreet smiled, leaning in once again. “Perfect, I see the answer in your eyes. That’s the reply I wanted—what I needed to witness. Tell me, if you get out of here, how many people do you have to ruin?”

  My breath caught in my chest. Ruin? Destroy, more like.

  “Three. I have three.”

  “And do you have a plan on how you’ll do it?”

  I’ll walk up to them and put bullets in their brains, then watch as the life drains from their eyes.

  I shook my head. Funny, that was the first time I truly let myself contemplate how I would end it. Strangely, it was… unsatisfying. Dreadfully fucking unsatisfying. They deserved to scream. They deserved to feel what I’d felt for the past year. Abandoned, deleted, lost.

  I gritted my teeth, looking into Wallstreet’s blue eyes. “I want to make them suffer. Death will be the last thing they get from me.”

  The old man nodded. “Another perfect answer. And if I told you I had the means to make that happen. Would you trust me? Trust a stranger who could make you wealthier than you could ever imagine and give you everything you needed to take whatever revenge you wanted?”

  I stared at him. I stared hard. I searched for a lie—a trick.

  There was nothing but passion in his gaze. Passion I recognized as his own revenge. He wanted to teach whoever hadn’t listened a lesson.

  Something shifted inside. The traitorous bitch called hope stole once again into my psyche.

  Slowly, a smile spread my lips. The suspicion in my veins dissolved and I relaxed. I saw myself in him. The burning. The cursing. The unbearable need to punish and set the status quo.

  “I would.”

  Wallstreet reached across the table, and pulled on my collar until he whispered in my ear. “I’m going to give it all to you, my boy. You obey me, you do everything I fucking tell you, and I’ll get you out of this place. I’ll give you the Corrupts, I’ll make you president, and I’ll teach you every damn thing I know about trading, skimming, and controlling not just your empire but the world.”

  He let me go, holding out his hand. “In return, I ask you to be my ears, eyes, and legs on the outside. To run my business as I expect it to be run. You will be my heir.”

  A year ago to the day, my life had ended. I would never have guessed I would get a second chance a full 8765.81 hours later.

  My brain latched onto a question. “If you can get me out, why can’t you work the same magic for yourself?”

  Wallstreet lowered his head, his fingers digging into the table. “Because I’ve been fucking stitched up and have no choice but to do my time. Thirteen more years—nine if I can get out on good behaviour. That’s too long to wait. It will all be destroyed by then and I can’t let that happen.”

  I whispered, “What makes you think you can get me out? You heard what I did.”

  The room seemed to quiet—the sounds of my fellow inmates hushing as I waited for his reply.

  “Because, Killian, I know the truth. I know everything. And no one should have to live in a world where such traitors exist.”

  For the first time in a year, gratefulness burned in my chest. He knew. He believed. My decision was easy.
>
  I didn’t hesitate or think. This was my future. The only way I would get my revenge.

  I held my hand out, locking eyes with the man who’d turned from disgraced god to savior.

  Wallstreet clasped my grip with his.

  I squeezed hard. “You have my word.”

  He nodded. “I thought I would. I swear on my true name, Cyrus Connors, that I will do right by you. You will never be powerless again.”

  I trembled, basking in his words. My muscles twitched as the foreign feeling of happiness returned to my rotten soul.

  Wallstreet added, “From now on, your name isn’t Arthur Killian. It’s Kill. And you’re the acting president of the Corrupts.”

  “Kill?”

  He let me go, smirking. “You’ll be a killer on the stock market and a killer to those who wrong you. Best be honest about who you truly are, don’t you think?”

  I reclined, smiling a genuine smile. “Yes, I do think. I do indeed.”

  We grinned.

  We nodded.

  And that was how Kill was born.

  The lessons began immediately.

  Wallstreet somehow gained permission to remove me from laundry duty and stole me away for three hours a day in the so-called library. There, he waved away his entourage, set a notepad and pencil before me, and opened my eyes to the wonderful magic of trading.

  In those afternoons, with our heads bent together—dark brown to grey—I learned how young I truly was. How archaic my unruly thoughts were.

  I lost my attitude the further I fell into his wondrous education. I didn’t feel the need to assert my cockiness when my brain absorbed everything he wanted to teach.

  Four years I spent with him.

  Wallstreet became my entire world. My friend, father, teacher, brother. I loved him. I trusted him. And to find that I still had the capacity for either brought tears to my fucking eyes.