Sin & Suffer

Book 2: Pure Corruption

by Pepper Winters

Genres: Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Romantic Suspense

Synopsis

'Some say the past is in the past. That vengeance will hurt both innocent and guilty. I never believed those lies.'


Cleo came from a past Arthur 'Kill' Killian never forgot. She made him sin and made him suffer. She tugged him from the shadows and showed him he wasn't as dead as he thought. And with her resurrection came betrayal, deceit, and war. But then they took her. Imprisoned her.


Now Kill's carefully laid plans for vengeance are complete. He craves action, retribution - the blood of his enemies. War has begun. War is all they'll know until they've paid their penance.


Sin & Suffer continues the intensely romantic love story that began with Ruin & Rule, the first book in the best-selling, much-loved Pure Corruption series. It will keep you on the edge of your seat.


Pepper Winters is a New York Times and USA Today international best-selling author. She loves dark romance and star-crossed lovers as well as the forbidden and taboo. She strives to tell a story that makes listeners crave what they shouldn't and delivers complex plots and unforgettable characters that keep listeners talking long after they finish. On a personal note, she loves to travel, has an addiction to crème brûlée, and is married to an incredible Canadian who puts up with her endless work hours and accompanies her on signings. She's also a firm believer that the impossible can become possible.
For all the latest news from Pepper, visit pepperwinters.com, follow her on Twitter or join the thousands of listeners who have become Pepper's friends on Facebook and Pinterest.

Release date: January 26, 2016

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 496

Sample

He was a bully.

Ever since his voice deepened he’d been mean and short-tempered. Mom told me that he was at a point in his life where he had to lose himself to find himself. I had no idea what she meant. I just… I just really missed my best friend.—Cleo, diary entry, age nine



Amnesia.

A curse or a blessing?

Memory.

A helping hand or a hindrance?

The things I’d forgotten and remembered had been both enemy and friend—solace and pain. They’d been constant companions, fighting over me for years. Amnesia traded my first life for a new one—with new parents, new sister, new home. But then the boy with the green eyes brought me back—showed me the path to my old world and a destiny I’d forgotten.

For eight years I’d struggled, always fearing I’d left loved ones behind. I’d hated myself for being so selfish—knowing my brain had deliberately cut them out in an act of self-preservation. I’d always wondered what I would do when I finally remembered everything… if I finally remembered.

I didn’t have to wonder anymore.

Even after the consequences of following a mysterious letter, the snake pit of lies, the confusion of blended pasts, the rough way Killian had treated me—I wouldn’t change a thing.

Those trials were a worthy payment for my broken memories. I was whole again… almost. I was on the right path to patching my life together and finally understanding it all.

However, as I stared around the freshly painted room, all alone and imprisoned, I wished that I was stronger, smarter. I didn’t suffer from fear or terror of what would become of me, but I did suffer regret—regret for not anticipating retaliation, for not being prepared.

Enough! Focus. This isn’t the place for stupid reminiscing.

I forced myself to shove aside worries. Now was the time to fight harder and stronger than ever before.

I’d endured one captivity: a caging of my mind with no walls or locks but with endless darkness and unknowing. Now my mind was intact for the first time in years, but I had a new prison.

I’m not bound by rope or chains, but I’m trapped all the same.

I sighed, smoothing Arthur’s black T-shirt I wore. Before, the cotton softness was comfort and safety—the perfect wardrobe to wear beside my sleeping lover. Now, it was vulnerability and no protection.

Locked in a room, stolen from Arthur’s arms, I was lost, lonely, and most of all bristling with fury. I would’ve traded everything I owned for the strength to destroy the men who’d taken me. I’d end their evil tyranny and pay them back for not one wrongdoing but two. They’d burned down my house. They’d murdered my parents. They’d tried to kill me. And most of all they’d destroyed the boy from my past.

So many tithes to pay.

And I had every intention of stripping what was owed and balancing the scales of justice once and for all.

The truth is despicable.

My eyes fell on the forged police report Rubix Killian had given me to read. He expected me to buy his lies?

Stupid, stupid man.

He’d done me a favor. His lies had set my memories free. I saw it all now. Nothing was hidden and everything revealed.

I’d never been a victim. Even as a little girl, I’d always fought and spat, inheriting the swift temper said to be the curse of having blazing red hair. Even when I was lost in the blank sea of amnesia, I put faith in my tenacity, trusted my instincts, and followed my heart.

Now my instincts were screaming a message I’d never heard before.

This will never stop.

Unless you stop them.

The past would forever suck me back if I didn’t deal with the men who continued to puppeteer me at their whims.

They have to die.

They couldn’t be allowed to live because they would never be satisfied. And men who could never be satisfied could never be trusted.

Arthur “Kill” Killian, my childhood lover and green-eyed Libran, wanted these men dead.

He’d plotted and schemed for eight long years to claim closure and payback for all that they’d taken.

He wants their blood.

And now… so do I.

My name was Cleo Price. I’ve had so many names. Sarah Jones died the moment I willingly embarked on this crazy odyssey—just like Cleo had died the night she crawled from a burning building. The FBI had tried to keep me safe until they found the true culprit of my attempted murder. But now Cleo had been reborn, and not only did I remember my upbringing… of burly men, cigarettes, and battles fought on the backs of Harleys and choppers… but I also remembered the glue forming our communes: revenge.

Revenge to those who threatened our loved ones. Swift punishment to any traitor. In our world, society’s rules didn’t matter. We followed our own black-and-white laws with no leniency and swift punishment.

And these men deserved severe punishment.

After what they’ve done to me… to Arthur.

Vengeance wasn’t just Arthur’s cross to bear anymore—not alone at least.

I remember what they did to him.

I no longer saw blankness when I tried to recall. I saw everything that happened that fateful night, and it was up to me to save him from his own self-loathing.

Arthur Killian killed my parents.

He pulled the trigger and ended their lives.

But it’s so much more complicated than that.

However, at the same time, it was exceedingly simple. He was innocent and I would make sure the guilty paid. I would ensure their wickedness was struck out for all eternity.

Sitting taller on the bed, I embraced my cold conviction and turned my thoughts to present matters.

How many hours had passed since I’d left Arthur bleeding and unconscious?

Was he still alive?

Could he come after me?

He’ll come for me if he’s able. I didn’t doubt that for a second. But I also couldn’t wait around for him… just in case. Don’t think like that.

Climbing off the single mattress, leaving behind the daisy-decorated sheeting, so similar to my old childhood room, I circled the small space searching for any weaknesses for escape.

I’d done this already when I first arrived.

How long ago was that?

And just like before the door was still locked.

The window still barred and sealed shut. Its pane painted black from the outside, obscuring all illumination and passage of time.

The only light was a bedside lamp just bright enough to read the police statement that’d sent Arthur to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

Well, he did commit it…

Sighing, I spun in place. The room was a tomb with no way out.

I wished I hadn’t been so stupid. My recklessness had brought me here. I’d come like a lamb to the slaughter the moment I was summoned.

Here I was—at their mercy, while Arthur was bleeding and alone… possibly dead.

Stop thinking that way.

Taking a deep breath, I prepared for whatever came next.

Any weapons?

My eyes skated over the unhelpful bedspread and empty dresser.

No weapons.

Engine noises purred outside the blacked-out window conjuring ancient memories of being lulled to sleep by the grumble of motorbikes and masculine voices.

My heart flurried, stretching within the thought.

I’m home.

Gritting my teeth, I shook my head. I wasn’t home. I might be across the compound from the charred remains of my own house, but this wasn’t home. Not anymore. Not after the massacre and betrayal.

These men weren’t my friends. They weren’t my childhood saviors who I’d trusted blindly.

They were the reason I’d lived the past eight years in a different country. Why I’d spent my teenage years in foster care, and why my brain was broken.

Scott “Rubix” Killian had taken great pleasure in welcoming me back into his lies and treachery.

A sharp tang existed in the back of my throat—the residual effect of being drugged. I didn’t know what they’d shot into my veins, but its effects lingered far longer than I wanted. I struggled against the sluggishness in my blood, trying to keep my thoughts in order.

Don’t give in.

I yanked on the door handle again. Still locked.

Making my way to the window, I pried at the sill. Still unmovable.

Dropping to my knees, I tried ripping up the carpet, desperate for a weapon or freedom, but the threadbare covering was glued firmly.

Frustration sat like a vise around my lungs.

“Dammit!” Climbing to my feet, I ran my hands through my hair. “There has to be a way out.”

But there isn’t.

I had to concede.

I was locked in there—for however long they wanted, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I  was a stalker.

Shit, I’d even researched the definition to see if it was true. It was. I willfully followed, watched, and coveted Cleo Price. There. I admitted it. I was in love with a child. I had dirty thoughts about a girl who didn’t even have boobs yet. But that didn’t stop me. It made me worse. Because not only was I a stalker, but I was an addict, too. An addict for any glimpse of her, any sound of her voice, any hope that I could ever possibly deserve her.—Arthur, age fourteen



“What the fuck?”

I tried to sit upright, glaring at Grasshopper and Mo. “Let me up, you assholes!”

The room refused to stay still. The edges of my vision were fuzzy and the god-awful pounding in my skull wouldn’t give me a fucking break.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” My breathing was broken and short; my eyes burning with light from the diabolical fluorescents above.

Where the hell am I?

Where’s Cleo?

Rage battered away my pain, granting me temporary power. I shoved aside arms holding me down and swung at the faces of my captors.

My knuckles met flesh.

A bellow sounded in the square, white room. “Christ, man!”

The incessant beeping sliced through my eardrums turning my headache into a brass fucking band of horror.

I’d never been one to panic but I couldn’t control the overwhelming sensation that something awful had happened.

Something I needed to fix straightaway.

The door suddenly swung open.

I paused just long enough to take in the balding man with a stethoscope around his neck and baby-blue scrubs, before struggling with renewed determination. “Damn bastards. Let me up!”

The doctor inched warily into the room. “What on earth is going on in here?”

“He’s just woken up, Doc,” Hopper said, trying to grab my shoulders but unwilling to risk another fist to his jaw. “Ain’t got his bearings yet.”

“I’ve got my fucking bearings, asshole. Let me up!”

“You gotta do something, before he makes it worse,” Mo growled. His lip was bleeding, his nostrils flared in pain.

Did I do that?

The headache turned feral, crumpling me in its agony as if I were nothing more than a sardine can. Clutching my skull—finding bandages instead of hair—I bellowed, “What the fuck is going on? Someone tell me before my brain explodes out of my goddamn ears!”

My heartbeat clanged to one name. A single name siphoning through my blood over and over again.

Cle… o.

Cle… o.

“You’re in hospital, Mr. Killian. I need you to relax.” The doctor used his calm-the-unhinged-patient-down voice as he crept closer. Grabbing the chart from the foot of the bed and scooting backward as if he would get bitten or infected by being too close to me, he flipped the pages and scanned the notes.

I couldn’t breathe properly.

I couldn’t see anything in my peripheral vision, and that damn fucking beeping was getting on my nerves.

“Someone shut that thing up!”

Grasshopper ignored me, coming to the side of the bed and bravely laying a hand on my chest. “Kill, you have a concussion. Doctors said if you move too much before the swelling goes down, you might do some serious damage.”

My headache came back with ten-ton pressure.

“Concussion? How the fuck did I get a concussion?” My eyes flew around the room.

I wasn’t in my bedroom, that was for fucking sure. White morbid walls looked like a bleached coffin, while an outdated television hung like a spider just waiting for death. The entire place reeked of antiseptic and corpses.

Hospital.

I’m in the fucking hospital.

Clutching my head, I tried to gather my temper and relax. Screaming only drove pins of agony through my eyeballs and terrified answers away. “Speak. Tell me.”

Mo looked at Hopper, unsuccessfully hiding the nervousness in his eyes. They waited for me to explode again. When I didn’t, Mo admitted, “Eh, you were struck in the head.”

My headache tripled its efforts to turn me into a vegetable almost as if on cue.

Then… everything came back.

Finding Cleo after all this time.

Loving Cleo after all this time.

Holding Cleo after all this fucking time.

She’s not dead.

She was never dead, just missing.

They took her!

I soared out of bed. The wires, the sheets—nothing had any power to hold me in my wrath. “Where is she?!” Shoving aside Grasshopper with superhuman strength, I swallowed hard as the room spun like a fun house. “They have her! Goddammit, they have her.”

Grasshopper, Mo, and the doctor sprang on me, each grabbing an arm or a leg. I grunted, buckling beneath their weight. In ordinary circumstances, I would’ve let them win. I would’ve been rational and collected and listened to what they had to say.

But this wasn’t ordinary circumstances.

This was motherfucking war!

My father and brother had broken into my house, got past security, and taken the only thing of value I had left.

They’d stolen her from me all over again.

“Shit!” I screamed. “Shit, shit, shit!”

“Kill, calm down!”

“Let us explain!”

“Get the fuck off me.” No amount of arms could hold me down. Adrenaline tore through my blood, giving me a merciless edge. My vision might be faulty, my head might be broken, but I still knew how to fight.

They weren’t listening to my voice. Perhaps they would listen to my fist.

With no effort at all, I punched the three men in a connecting roundhouse, and tore at the IV in the back of my hand.

Yanking it out, blood spurted over the white sheets and linoleum floor. The stark crimson spread macabre patterns, whispering of murder and revenge as I launched out of bed, battling sickness and vertigo. “Someone better start talking.” I breathed hard. “Now. Right fucking now.”

Mo and Hopper stared transfixed at my bleeding vein. “We should patch you up, dude.”

Waving my hand, splattering the bed with more red droplets, I snarled, “Leave it. It’s not important. I don’t even feel it.” Strangely, that was the truth. There was nothing that could overpower the pain of knowing they’d taken Cleo. That agony was enough to drown me. Over and fucking over again.

I groaned under my breath as scenarios and horror-filled daydreams tormented me.

Please, please, let her be okay!

My eyes flickered to the door. All I wanted to do was leave. To chase after my rotten enemies and give them what they deserved.

Suddenly, nausea raced up my gullet. I stumbled to the side. Crashing against the bed, I gritted my teeth against the swirling room.

The doctor sidestepped, avoiding me as best he could. “If you could sit down, Mr. Killian.”

“Do what he says, Kill. Just behave for once in your damn life,” Grasshopper growled. “Let us explain before you kill yourself, you bloody asshole!”

A wave of brutal heat tackled me to the bed. The nausea turned to sickness. My teeth chattered as the agony in my blood came back full force. Having no choice but to lean against the bed like a fucking invalid, I muttered, “Why the hell aren’t you out there looking for her? She’s your responsibility, too!” The light stabbed my eyeballs as I stared at my trusted friend and vice president.

Grasshopper’s black mohawk hung limp, floppy without gel. His blue eyes ringed with stress lines and bruises. He swallowed hard, refusing to answer my question.

“Well?” I prompted, holding my pounding skull. “What the fuck have you been doing to get her back?”

“Kill, back up.” Mo inched forward, wiping at the blood on his chin with the back of his hand.

Hopper never took his eyes off me. “We had to make sure you would survive. Been for a ride in an ambulance, helped dress your naked ass into a hospital gown, and stood by you while you were given scans and all that other medical bullshit to make sure you didn’t croak.”

Pointing at my bandaged head, he added, “You were out of it. Talking nonsense; wouldn’t wake up. The doctors thought the swelling might affect your speech. What were we supposed to do? Strap you to your bike and drag you with us to kill your own flesh and blood?”

My fists clenched. Blood dripped from my torn vein, splashing faster to the floor.

I couldn’t contemplate that the two brothers I trusted above anyone had let my woman get taken. And then not gone after her the second she was stolen.

It’s not their fault.

She’s yours and you failed her, asshole.

This is all on you.

“Fuck!” I groaned, tearing at the bandage around my head, trying to reach inside and turn off the incessant throbbing. Why was I so weak? I’d failed her again!

The room swam; my eyes worked like a faulty camera lens unable to focus. “You know what she means to me. You know how damn important she is.” Glaring at Grasshopper, I couldn’t bring myself to be grateful for his loyalty or attempts at keeping me alive. I didn’t want to be alive if Cleo was hurt.

I deserved to rot in hell for letting her be taken again.

“We did what—”

I slashed my hand, cutting off his sentence. “No, you did what you wanted to do. Not what I would’ve done. You know damn well I would’ve gone after your woman—regardless if you lived or fucking died.” Punching myself in the chest, I growled, “That’s what I wanted.”

“Kill, what were we supposed to do?” Hopper snapped. “We’d go to war for a girl who would hate us if she knew we did nothing while you bled to death. No point in that fight. No one wins.”

I couldn’t see his logic. It was flawed. Ridiculous. Cleo would understand if I died while my men rescued her. She would expect such a gallant act.

At least she would be safe.

I didn’t want to listen to fucking reason.

I want blood!

I didn’t care that my ass was hanging out the back of this paisley printed apron. I didn’t care that blood dripped from my hand, staining my bare feet and floor. And I definitely didn’t care about the viselike agony in my skull.

All I cared about was Cleo.

The nausea faded and I charged at Hopper. In a jumble of leather and hospital gown, I pinned him against the door, threading my fingers around his throat.

“Mr. Killian, unhand him!” the doctor shouted, swatting the back of my shoulders with the clipboard.

I ignored him like a lion would ignore a flea. He was nothing.

However, the rush of energy, coupled with moving reluctant legs made me squeeze Hopper’s throat more out of support rather than rage. My vision blacked out. I blinked, trying to see. “How long? How long was I out?”

Mo slapped a warning hand on my arm, tugging me away from Hopper. “Let him go, then we’ll tell you.”

My brain didn’t feel right. The sequences of numbers I relied on all my life, the ingrained knowledge and intelligence I’d taken for granted was muted… faded. Missing beneath a storm of pain and swelling. My temper was fucking insane.

Grasshopper didn’t try to remove my hand. Instead, he stood taller, breathing shallow as I slowly suffocated him.

“Two days.”

My world fell away.

I stood on the brink of suicidal mayhem.

Don’t snap. Do. Not. Snap.

My headache consumed me until I felt sure I would explode into bloody particles and devour the entire world with my fury.

Letting him go, I staggered backward. “Two days?”

Two fucking days where my father could’ve done anything to her.

Hopper shrank before my eyes. “Rubix took her about fifty hours ago.”

I shook. Fuck, I shook.

“Fifty hours?” I couldn’t do anything but repeat him. It was all I could do to force English through my lips and not revert to primitive grunts and growls.

I wasn’t human. I was an animal. An animal drooling at the thought of tearing my enemies limb from limb for what they’d done.

“Why was I out for so long?”

Mo answered, “They hit you a few times over the head with a baseball bat. The scans showed—”

“The PET, MRI, and CT scans all came back conclusive,” the doctor jumped in.

I’d completely forgotten he was still there.

“You have a hairline fracture in your skull and heavy swelling on the prefrontal cortex.”

I turned my attention to the man severely pissing me off. I didn’t want to hear what happened to me. Didn’t he get it? None of that fucking mattered!

“We kept you in an induced coma for thirty-six hours, hoping the swelling would recede to acceptable levels.”

“You. Did. What?” My heartbeat exploded. “You kept me fucking drugged when my woman is out there with men who won’t hesitate to rape and murder her?”

I couldn’t fucking believe this shit.

“You need to get back into bed, Mr. Killian. The swelling hasn’t decreased as much as I’d hoped. Your rage is a side effect of your injury. The prefrontal cortex is in charge of abstract thinking and thought analysis. It’s also responsible for regulating behavior. I don’t believe—”

I laughed. “The bump on my fucking head isn’t the cause of my behavior; it’s because my woman is missing.”

Mo placed himself in front of the doctor. “Kill, this is serious. If you don’t let yourself heal, you might suffer long-term effects.”

“Yes, like… eh…” The doctor scrambled. “Your normal reactions and moral judgments might be impaired. Choices between right and wrong could be compromised. You won’t be as quick to predict probable outcomes. The prefrontal cortex governs social, emotional, and sexual urges.”

“I don’t fucking care!” I roared. “All I care about is getting her safe. Healing can come later.”

“But you might not heal correctly if you damage yourself further!” the doctor yelled, finally finding some balls. “I refuse to sign you out until you are well. You’re my patient. Your recovery is on my conscience!”

Putting one bare foot in front of the other, I shoved aside Mo and towered over the doctor. “Listen to me, and listen good. I am no longer your patient. I can take care of my fucking self and if that means I damage myself in order to save her, then so be it.” Bending so our eyes were level, I glowered into his mousy brown ones. “Get it?”

He swallowed. “Fine. I’ll let you leave. But you’ll sign a waiver saying you refused treatment in case you become a damn vegetable.” In a flurry of blue scrubs, he dumped the clipboard on my abandoned bed and shot out of the room.

“Kill, you really should stay. Everything depends on you and that genius brain of yours. How will you run the Club, the trades—shit the whole fucking operation if you can’t—”

I snarled, “Shut it, Hopper. This is the way it has to be. I won’t waste another moment arguing when Dagger Rose has my woman.”

Mo sighed. “Despite what you think of us, we did send a couple of men to the compound to spy and report back. They say they’ve seen her. She’s alive and unharmed, Kill. You could afford to heal and let us take care of this.”

That didn’t make me calm down. If anything, it made me worse.

I couldn’t speak. I only glared. It was enough for Mo to shut his hole and nod.

My father had Cleo.

The same fucking father who’d orchestrated an entire murder, sent me to life imprisonment, and left my lover to burn.

I’ll fucking kill him.

Screw my plans. Screw my vengeance. I wanted his soul. And I wanted it now.

The heart monitor squealed as my pulse skyrocketed with another dose of adrenaline. Reaching down the front of my hospital gown, I ripped off the sticky sensors and threw them on the floor. “Call reinforcements. The entire crew. We’re going after her.”

Grasshopper grabbed my elbow as I swayed a little to the side. The room faded in and out, an irritating fog consuming my vision. As much as I hated to admit it, the doc was right. The ease and supercharged highway of my thoughts was blocked and faulty.

I wasn’t myself.

But it didn’t matter.

“Kill, seriously, man, you’re not in a condition—”

I shoved Grasshopper away. “He’s hurt me for the last time. This time there will be no elaborate schemes, no long-winded plans to destroy him piece by piece. This time… I want his head at my feet, his blood on my face, and his soul hurtling toward hell.” Pointing a finger at Hopper’s chest, I said coldly, “Don’t try to stop me. You’ll lose.”

Hopper nodded. “What do you want to do?”

I know exactly what to do.

My lips stretched over my teeth. “We kill them, of course. Slowly, painfully. I want them to scream.”

We climbed on the roof of the Clubhouse again tonight.

We ignored our parents and stargazed until the bugs drove us inside. Lying beside him, discussing Orion’s Belt and the Milky Way, I’d never felt so close to him. When we’re up there, we aren’t boy and girl or neighbors or even friends. We’re infinite… just like the stars shining upon us.—Cleo, diary entry, age twelve



More time passed.

How much, I had no idea. There was no way to tell.

Hunger twisted my stomach, my head ached from dehydration, and my bladder was uncomfortably full.

I’d investigated until I’d memorized the pattern in the brown carpet and become best friends with every streak in the terribly painted walls. There wasn’t a rusty nail, paperclip, or even a pencil to turn into a weapon.

Nothing.

No tool to pick a lock or phone to call for help.

But I had a more pressing problem: I couldn’t stand another moment without a bathroom.

As much as I didn’t want to bring attention to myself, I had no choice.

Swinging my legs from the bed, I stomped over to the door and banged on it. “Hey!”

I paused, straining my ears for any movement outside.

Only silence returned.

I hammered again. “I need the bathroom!”

My mind left the confines of the room and traveled through the house that I’d been in so many times as a child. Would it still look the same? The Killian household wasn’t big: three bedrooms all joined by a short narrow corridor with one bathroom in the middle. The lounge was open plan with a kitchen where Art and I would spend many hours watching his mom bake and complete our homework.

My heart punctured with daggers.

Please, let him be okay.

He’s okay. He has to be.

And if he was okay, I had no doubt he would come for me.

He might already be on his way.

I just had to stay hopeful and strong and bide my time until Kill, the president of Pure Corruption, cutthroat killer, and hardass protector, came for me.

It would be a bloodbath.

Pressing my forehead on the door, I knocked as loud as my knuckles would let me. “Someone let me out of here!”

Silence.

“Are you awake, Buttercup?”

My eyes snapped open, staring directly into the soulless gaze of Rubix Killian. I winced at the pain in my bladder and the weakness of hunger.

He smirked, leaning against the door frame. “Did you still need the toilet or did the past hour push you to the breaking point?”

Sitting upright, I gritted my teeth. “If you’re asking if I disgraced myself, then you’ll be unhappy to know I haven’t.” Standing, I hissed, “Let me use the bathroom.”

He chuckled. “Still so high and mighty. Always giving demands as if I have to obey.” Pushing off the door frame, he came forward in creaking leather and smoke. “You’re not the princess around here anymore, Cleo.”

Cocking my chin, I didn’t back down. This was a man I’d been raised with as an uncle. The vice president of Dagger Rose and best friend to my father. My temper banded around me until I throbbed with the urge to make him pay. “We trusted you. I loved you. How could you be so cruel?”

He grinned. “Who’s to say I’m cruel? Your father didn’t see the potential of what our brotherhood could be. He was weak… and there ain’t no room for weakness in our Club.”

“There’s no room for liars or murderers, either.”

Rubix lost the gloating glint in his eye, replacing it with rage. “Tell that to my fucking son.”

I shot forward and slapped him.

We both gasped at the same time.

My brain transmitted the message to cause bodily harm without being filtered by rationality. My palm stung from connecting with his scruffy five-o’clock shadow.

His green eyes narrowed as he grabbed my wrist, jerking me painfully close. “You shouldn’t have done that, Buttercup.”

My stomach turned inside out with revulsion.

My nickname. It was blasphemy on his tongue.

My hands curled. “Don’t ever call me Buttercup. You lost that right years ago.”

“I can call you whatever the fuck I like.”

Asshole.

“Why did you frame your son? What did he possibly do to deserve his own father betraying him?”

Rubix turned from rage to savagery. “Don’t talk about that motherfucker in my presence.” Dragging me forward, he carted me from my prison and threw me into the bathroom two doors down—exactly as I remembered it.

“You have three minutes.”

He slammed the door.

I had no doubt he meant I had precisely three minutes. He’d always been a Nazi when it came to time. Tardiness was as much an affront to him as disobeying a command or spilling brotherhood secrets.

Turning to stare at the bathroom, I pursed my lips. The grout between the tiles was blackened,