Moving closer to the truck, I noticed the back door was open and three women lay bound in the mud. What the hell were these idiots doing?
“Get them up,” I ordered.
The two prospects and three full members who’d been on the scouting mission scowled. “Where’s Slice?”
I cocked my chin behind me. “Over there.”
Their eyes frowned, searching the darkness for the corpse of their ex upriser—the man who thought he could steal the Pures from under my nose. The fucking idiot who’d tried to lead a rebellion against me.
No matter what I gave them, some of the men still hadn’t learned. Stand against me and you would do only one thing.
Die.
“What, so you killed our nominee and now you think we’re gonna follow you?”
I nodded. “’Bout the gist of it.”
“You said if we ever had an issue with your leadership we could contest.”
“I said you could bring it up with me and I’d do my best to fix the issue—not to plot behind my back, asshole.”
The man charged forward. “We’ve followed you against our will for four years, Kill. When will you fucking learn we don’t want you? We want true Corrupt blood, not a fucking traitor.”
I stormed to meet him, fists to fists. Adrenaline was fast leaving my system, the wound making me woozy and nauseous. Someone needed to tell the world to pick a way up and stick to it. But I wouldn’t back down from a fight. Ever.
“You have one choice. You wear the cut. You follow the code. You’re in for life. You either accept the changes in management once and for all, or you fuck off and don’t come back. One-time offer.” I stood ready to beat him to a pulp.
The guy swallowed hard. “But if you cut us out we’re done. We swore an oath to Magnet. Not to you or Wallstreet. He’s our true leader.”
“He’s also dead.” I shrugged. “If you decide to leave, you’ll be a deserter. So you better choose wisely, or follow the same path Magnet did.”
My heart suddenly lurched painfully; agony from the bloody wound shot through my system. I shivered as a chill seeped into my bones. I needed to wrap this up fast, before I passed out like a bitch.
“Make up your mind. You got ten seconds.” Nodding at Grasshopper, I said, “Pick up the merchandise. Get them back in the truck. We’re not leaving them at this warehouse. Not now, with this mess.”
Hopper moved forward, barking orders to loyal members while others watched the guys who preferred carnage and idiocy instead of evolution.
“Your ten seconds are up. What’s your decision?”
A prospect stepped to my side—no words, just a slight nod. Good enough for me.
The other prospect backed away, shaking his head. Fine, he didn’t count. He hadn’t sworn. He’d just go back to being unsanctioned and free to be picked up by any old fucking group.
The main man who tried to have me killed, glared. Slowly, he gritted his jaw and nodded. “Fine. I’m in. But I want a meeting. I want a democratic vote.”
I laughed. “There’s no such thing in our world. Don’t like it, you just lost your chance to leave, so you fucking deal. You hear me?”
The guy glowered. Shit, I didn’t have the strength to fight again. The earth beneath my feet had become unstable. My heart losing a steady rhythm. My veins were probably bone-dry after pumping that shit down my front.
“Fine.”
I held out my hand, shook his once, then spun toward the truck.
Striding forward, I ignored the idiots who’d fought against us, heading straight to the pile of girls cowering in the mud.
On a closer look, the closest woman wasn’t cowering at all. Her long red hair stuck to her neck, her face tilted, almost as if she could see the commotion and carnage through the blindfold. Her body was elegant with a full chest and long legs. Her parted lips full and pink.
Despite my injury, my cock twitched in interest.
I squatted in front of her, removing the blindfold.
Green eyes.
I almost fucking died on the spot.
Cleo!
No. It couldn’t be.
Everything I thought I knew ceased to exist. My world spun to a stop.
Her.
The woman who haunted my dreams and made me wish so much that life had turned out differently.
The girl who’d wormed her way into my adolescent heart and refused to be carved out, no matter how many women I fucked.
The dead girl.
The girl whose tombstone rested beside her parents’, hidden deep in my past.
The girl who I betrayed.
“You’re doing this, Arthur. Get in there. Now.” My father shoved the silenced pistol into my hand. For weeks he’d been forcing me to obey. Feeding me shit about how the Club would be better for it.
I’d ignored him. I’d fought against it.
But then he’d found my ultimate weakness.
Grabbing me around the neck, he hauled me close. “If you don’t do this tonight, I’m going over there and raping that fucking bitch then putting a bullet between her eyes. I’m done with you not obeying me.”
Rage crippled my heart. “Don’t you dare fucking touch her.”
His fingers tightened, hurting. “Do what I tell you and she lives. Her fate is in your hands, son. Choose wisely.”
His voice dropped to a hiss. “One last chance. Obey and I’ll let her live. Don’t… and I’ll make you watch while I steal that virginity you want so much and kill her.”
My fingers curled around the handle of the pistol. I loved Thorn and Petal Price. They’d accepted me into their family even though I wasn’t good enough for their daughter. They were good people. Decent people.
Unlike the family I came from.
The atmosphere in my home was full of greed and animosity, not love and companionship. Even my own brother hated me just because I’d earned the love of someone as precious as Cleo.
“Go, Killian. Get it done.”
My father shoved me out the door, where the night swallowed me up and the devil welcomed me into his clutches.
My fingers itched to pull out the Libra eraser from my pocket. The keepsake I never found the courage to chuck out. I carried it with me every day—stoking my vengeance.
That night was forever seared onto my brain. I never truly recalled the exact sequence of events. I’d disobeyed time and time again. I remembered beatings after beatings, and when threats stopped working, my father had resorted to more… drastic measures.
The nausea that always came whenever I thought about that night wrapped around my throat.
You can’t change the past.
But you can mold the future.
I leaned closer, wondering if life had finally come to torment me. To scramble my mind and show me just how much I’d lost when I gave in to my father.
Suspicion blazed up my spine and straight into my motherfucking heart. I hadn’t thought I had one anymore—but there it was, shaking off cobwebs and shadowy dust to beat hot and red and true.
But then I looked closer, searching for recognition of the love that once blazed on my girl’s face, and saw nothing.
She stared back with trepidation and a strange curiosity, but there was nothing linking us.
She looked like my Sagittarius, but it couldn’t be her.
She was a stranger.
She had no right to wear the face of my dead soul mate or look at me through the eyes of my lover.
My heart hardened like a fossilized beast.
Whoever she was, I hated her.
Hated her to the depths of hell.
I wanted her gone.
I wanted her dead.
Present
Cleo shifted beside me.
Sleep stuck to my thoughts, making everything sluggish. How long had I been unconscious? Dreaming of the past, the horrible shit I’d done, the mess my world had been ever since my father had beaten me stupid and dragged me into her house.
My min
d locked tight, refusing to think about what happened—what I’d done.
Her body snuggled closer, tucking into mine like a mirroring piece to my soul. I nuzzled into her neck, breathing in her sleep-contented scent.
Will you ever be able to forgive me?
Will I ever live in a world where I’m not shattered by my love for you, because I know one day soon you won’t want it?
My questions were self-obsessed. Focused on the pain in my heart, regardless of the pain I’d caused in hers.
If she knew how grateful I was that her amnesia kept certain things from her, she’d hate me for eternity. I was petrified every time she said she remembered a sliver of her past.
She already does hate me—she just hasn’t remembered why yet.
I wanted to lay my heart at her feet and beg, fucking beg for forgiveness. But that would be asking too much. She’d never be able to grant me absolution and give me back the love I used to hold so fiercely when we were younger.
I’d lost the right to be loved by her.
No amount of revenge would make her absolve my crimes.
I would never stop living with one step in hell. I had to accept that.
You won’t be granted redemption.
I held her tighter, holding my brightly inked Buttercup with arms that shook with mourning.
Her warm form sent my heart hammering with both love and grief. She was still the same girl from my past, only scarred by flames and painted by ink. She’d grown even more beautiful, more unique.
And I’d never fucking deserve her.
Who knew how much longer I’d be permitted to hold her before she remembered.
And she would remember.
It was only a matter of time.
I swallowed hard as my worst memory took my mind hostage.
A gasp sounded behind me.
Shit!
Spinning around, I aimed the gun at the apparition in the doorway.
There was no one there.
But I’d seen her.
I’d recognized the shape of her body I fantasized about every night. I’d recognized the small sound of horror falling from her lips.
She’d seen me.
I was so consumed with memories and melancholy, I didn’t hear the noise that heralded the end of my world.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion.
I saw the shadow.
I ordered my body to move. To protect. To kill.
I raised an arm to fight.
But it was too late.
The bat whistled through the darkness, striking the side of my head before I’d untangled myself from Cleo.
My last thought as a diabolical headache shot me into unconsciousness was Not her. Kill me but leave her the fuck alone.
But my mouth was no longer in my control.
My eyes closed.
My world ended.
I abandoned her to monsters all over again.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Out of every scenario I could’ve envisioned for my future…
This was not it.
This wasn’t allowed to fucking happen.
How was I supposed to stay human when they’d taken her from me, not once, but twice?
How was I supposed to stay rational and follow my plan when they’d left me destitute?
The answer was scarily simple.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
There was only one path left for me. One target. One goal.
I wanted their screams.
They would pay for their sins.
I embraced the madness and bloodlust in my soul.
It was time to end this.
Once and for fucking all.
—Kill
I woke up.
I went to scream.
A hand planted over my mouth.
A weapon sailed through the air, striking Arthur in the temple.
Tears burst from my eyes as he crumbled into unconsciousness beside me.
I fought. Fuck, I fought.
But it wasn’t enough.
Something pricked my arm.
Ice stole through my veins.
My eyes flew wide as something foul slapped against my mouth. The painful prick spread listless lethargy through my blood.
Clouds fogged my brain.
The glint of a needle in the moonlight told me the truth even as tendrils of vapors swam faster through my veins.
They’d found me.
They knew who I was.
I looked into the gaze of Alligator/Lighter Boy—the hazel-eyed man who played with fire—the same man who’d stolen me the first time.
Now he would steal me again. Captured and taken as if I’d never existed.
I forced my heavy head to loll to the side, more tears streaking down my cheeks.
Arthur!
He was unconscious, a trickle of blood coming from his mouth. Another biker stood over him with a bat.
“No!” I screamed, but it came out as a whispered sob behind Lighter Boy’s palm.
“Got a date, pretty Dagger. Got a date with fucking destiny.”
I floated away, falling faster and faster into an abyss as the drugs stole my lucidity.
The last thing I remembered was his rancid lips on mine as the shutters in my head slammed closed and I disappeared into the void.
I woke up for the second time.
Pain.
Horrendous pain lived inside my head.
Smacking my lips, I tried to lubricate my dry mouth. My body was a throbbing, screaming mess, refusing to resemble the woman I’d been before.
I searched my mind for that terrifying wall locking my past away. Please don’t let my amnesia protect me again.
I didn’t care it was a self-preservation thing. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if everything I’d fought so hard to remember was… gone.
Tentatively, I prodded and pushed my mind, testing the darkness—making sure it wasn’t padlocked and chained.
But something was different.
Memories swarmed—recent and terrifying.
“Take her.”
“I’m not taking her.”
I groaned, my cheek squashed against the hotel carpet. My head rang from being cuffed and nausea took my stomach hostage, threatening to evict the room service I’d ordered only an hour before. “What—what do you want with me?” I slurred, trying uselessly to push myself upright.
The carpet was comfortable. My only friend. I would stay there for a little while.
The men stopped arguing.
One squatted beside my face, his horrible fingers brushing aside my hair. “We’ve found you. After all this fucking time. Didn’t believe him when he said it was true. But here you are.”
“Here I am?”
The man with hazel eyes chuckled. “Here you are. A girl who should’ve stayed away.”
Why was I there? I couldn’t remember. Then, in a flash of remembrance, I said, “A letter. I received a letter.”
The cold chuckle came again. “Yes, a letter from him. He said you’d come. I didn’t think you would. You owe me a hundred dollars for betting wrong.”
With a kick to my stomach, he rolled me over so I lay staring at the light shade above. My eyes tried to focus on the two men looming above but couldn’t—they were blurs.
“Take her. We’ll keep her separate from the other shipment. Kill will never know.”
“Why don’t we just kill her? He wants to ruin him. This would do it.”
The other man, in a deeper voice that rumbled with rocks and tar, said, “It’s not enough. She needs to be seen. Doubt needs to be planted before we can get rid of her. Besides, I want the money that her sweet little body will bring.”
A boot pressed against my breast. I cringed away.
Cold fingers wrapped around my forearm. “What’s it going to be, Cleo? Fire or persuasion?”
Cleo?
My nose wrinkled. “You’ve got the wrong girl. My name is Sarah.” br />
For some reason they both laughed. “This is just getting better and better.”
The deep-voiced man said, “Do it. If he’s right, then it will solve our issues. He’s been right about everything else.”
I cried out as a knife rang in the sparsely decorated Dancing Dolphins hotel room, slicing efficiently through my cardigan.
Fight filled my limbs and I lashed out. I went to scream but a large hand clamped over my mouth.
“Do it. Now.”
The flick of a lighter and whiff of fire sent my heart tripping over itself in terror.
Fire.
My nemesis. The one thing I was petrified of. I couldn’t light a stovetop or go near a barbeque. Fire. I hated it. Hated!
“No!” I screamed behind the hand—the sound remained muffled and useless.
Lighter Boy moved closer, waving the naked flame by my arm. “Ready, Cleo?”
My name is Sarah!
I hated that everything they did was to the wrong person. I pitied this Cleo person but I wanted her to take whatever repercussions her life had brought upon herself—not me. I wasn’t her. I didn’t deserve to be burned. Couldn’t they see my body was full of scars? Hadn’t I suffered enough?
The first singe of flame on flesh made my body snap and shudder. The man holding my mouth moved, planting his knees on my shoulders and pinning me to the floor.
I couldn’t scream.
I couldn’t move.
The lighter moved closer, the merrily orange flame stealing more than just my sanity and pain but the past eight years of my life, too.
I snapped out of the memory, breathing hard.
All along, I hadn’t seen the truth.
I suffered two layers of amnesia—seemingly two events triggered by fire, but all along they’d been linked. All along I’d been Cleo Price and Sarah Jones—joined by a tragic history.
My mind had learned that protection came from forgetting and it had once again tried to save me.
I lay on a bed that was decorated with buttercups and daisies, staring at a ceiling.
A horrible blanket of terror covered me.
No… this can’t be.
My eyes drank in the cursive quote from The Princess Bride on the ceiling.
“As You Wish.”
I gasped.
This was my room.
My childhood room at the Dagger Rose compound. But that can’t be—it burned down.