This was what I was afraid of.
This hell masquerading as heaven.
“Because when you know what I did, Cleo. When you find out what a traitor I am, you’ll leave me. You’ll despise me and curse me; you’ll cut out my heart and disappear.”
His arms clutched me, panic drenching his muscles. “You’ll leave me, Buttercup, and this time, I’ll truly be ruined.
“You’ll destroy me forever.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Arthur
She said she knew me from her nightmares.
I never let on how fucking true that really was.
She thought I was her protector. Her confidant and soul mate.
She believed a lie worse than all the rest I’d spun.
I hated to think how I’d betrayed her. How I’d done something completely unforgivable. I never let on how far I’d fallen.
Every time I came inside her, I wanted to beg for forgiveness.
Every time she touched me or smiled, I wanted to fold to my knees and spill the truth.
I couldn’t tell her what I’d done.
But I couldn’t keep it a secret much longer.
It gnawed at my soul, descending me deeper into darkness. She was my light, my hope, my heart—and I’d ruined it all before I found her.
She thought she’d awoken from her nightmares. That reality would set her free and truth would dispel the evil in her past.
But she didn’t know the worst of them was me.
The one demon she should’ve shot the moment she opened her eyes.
The charade had gone on long enough.
But I didn’t have the strength to end it.
There would be no second chances. No moving past my heinous sins.
She would steal back her love and leave me destitute.
I would have only my anger.
I would have only my vengeance.
But ultimately, I would have nothing.
Eight Years Ago
Some say everything happens for a reason. That bad things happen to good people. That evil comes for the purest of us, and destinies can change in a blink.
I call bullshit.
I say we’re all fucking puppets being controlled by others. There’s no such thing as freedom. No such thing as fate. They’re all carefully maintained illusions.
I believed the lie once. I looked forward to my future. I held hope in my heart.
Now…
My eyes are open.
And I’ll never be so fucking naïve again.
“Take it, Killian.”
My eyes snapped up to latch onto the convict who’d tried to ass-rape me the day I arrived at Florida State. The key word in that sentence being he tried.
And failed.
Painfully and miserably.
Men had jumped on me from all corners. My pants were ripped down. My body pummeled with fists.
I’d lain there—ass naked and ready to be raped—when I’d seen two roads.
So distinct and real, I’d felt the roughness of dirt beneath my fingertips and the gleam of concrete in the sun.
Two choices.
One was to give up and let my life become a series of rapings and beatings until I died from either suicide or murder.
Or…
Kill every inch of the boy left inside me who believed he might one day be free of this life. Destroy any hope of ever having a pristine office overlooking Wall Street. That dream had been stolen the moment the handcuffs sliced around my wrists.
There was no trading for criminals.
My earliest dream had become unobtainable. It was torn away, and no matter what I did I wouldn’t achieve it. So my only option was to join them.
The choice had felt like it took years to make with my bare ass in the air and men fumbling with their waistbands, but in reality it only took microseconds.
I’d chosen the second path.
The one covered in dirt and filth.
The one destined to ruin me.
“Just take the fucking tray, will ya?” The jagged scar across the convict’s cheek was only just fading after a year. I’d done that to him with no remorse or second thoughts. He’d attacked and I’d defended.
Needless to say, I’d been given a wide berth ever since. No one wanted to mess with a man who’d murdered not one but three lives, and all before his eighteenth birthday.
Not even the guards tormented me. They knew I was in here for the long haul—it was best to get along, seeing as they were my family now.
Taking the tray of slop, I grinned coldly. “Thanks, Bradley. Hope there’s no extra in my mac and cheese. Else you and me… we’re gonna have another issue to solve.”
Bradley swallowed, anger glowing in his muddy eyes. “One year you’ve been in here, Killian. You’ve got your whole life in front of you. I wouldn’t be so keen to make such firm enemies if I were you.”
I cocked my head, grabbing a plastic knife and fork from the container. “Oh, really? So I should’ve let you rape me?” I sighed dramatically. “Don’t see your logic, but I’m happy to teach you another lesson.”
Fisting my cutlery and shitty lunch, I glowered. “See ya round, Bradley.”
I stalked away before he could mutter another word. My eyes scanned the dismal excuse of a cafeteria with uncomfortable bolted stools and metal tables. Everything was metal and cream or bolts and bars. It wasn’t fucking inspiring—shit, it was downright “slice your jugular and just give the fuck up right now” décor.
Life.
I have life in this godforsaken place.
Not for the first time and definitely not for the last, my hands curled, almost cracking the brittle plastic of the tray.
So fucking unfair.
So fucking painful.
She’s dead.
Don’t think about it.
My mind turned to the dark cesspit of memories. Hatred that never failed to choke me with blackness cloaked over my shoulders.
The betrayal. The dishonor. The manipulation.
I wanted to slam my tray to the floor and let loose the rage inside.
The day I’d walked in here, I ceased to be human and lived for only one thing.
One throbbing, vicious thing.
Vengeance.
Revenge.
Every fucking word that meant getting my own back.
That was me. I ate it. I breathed it. I fucking made love to it while I jerked off in my cell. It was the only love permitted in my soul—the only substance that kept me rising from my awful cot and facing yet another day in purgatory.
The only way I could survive every day knowing Cleo was no longer in it.
“Killian. He wants to see you.” A balding man in his late fifties appeared in my line of sight, barricading me from sitting at one of the identical depressing benches.
I gritted my teeth. “Get out of my way.”
Prisoner #FS788791shook his head, showing the scribbling prison tats decorating his neck. The embroidered number on his orange jumpsuit couldn’t be more demeaning. We might as well be livestock ready for the slaughter.
I refuse to fucking die in here.
The oath resonated in my heart for the millionth time since the seven a.m. wake-up bell. I won’t. I refused to die without their blood on my hands and justice being served.
“I suggest you come with me. You get one shot. He wants to see you. Don’t fuck this up.” He leaned forward, smelling of grease and armpit stench. “One chance, brother. You really going to throw that away?”
My heart thudded. “He doesn’t have any power. Unless he can get me out of here before I’m a wrinkly old bastard who has to piss twenty times a night, then I’m not going anywhere near him.”
I’d heard the tales. The shankings. The mysterious poisonings. He wasn’t someone I wanted to piss off or get chummy with.
That was how enemies started. By picking sides.
I was my own fucking side.
Vengeance.
The prisoner smiled. “You have to trust someone.”
“No, I don’t.”
Never again. I would never be that weak.
“You need a friend in here. Life imprisonment is a long time.”
I rolled my eyes. “No shit, it’s a long time. Lucky for me, I prefer my own company.” I tried to push past, but his bony hand clutched my forearm.
“One meeting. One chance. Don’t fuck it up and he might have the power to do what you need.”
Our eyes locked and I wanted to beat him to a bloody pulp—the anger, hurt, and betrayal sliced my veins with every pump of my heart. I wasn’t a prisoner of this penitentiary, I was a prisoner of what they’d done to me.
One chance.
If I did this, maybe, just maybe, I might get what I needed. To make them suffer.
I tore my arm from his grip. “Fine.” Throwing my tray and congealed mac and cheese on the closest table, I snarled, “He gets three minutes. He tries anything, and I’m not the one who pays. Got it?”
For an eighteen-, about to turn nineteen-year-old, I was grateful I’d filled out, grown to over six foot three, and my long hair came across as slightly crazy, completely delinquent. My voice was deep—my balls had dropped years ago, and I’d been raised to use my fists first and mind later.
Too bad for my father, who taught me—he never understood my brain was the biggest, baddest part of me. Another reason why people in here avoided me. No one liked a genius murderer with a high IQ.
Double threat. Triple danger.
Prisoner #FS788791 nodded. “Deal. One meeting. Then it’s up to you.”
Him.
The awe-inspiring, nail-biting majesty himself.