Sin & Suffer (Pure Corruption MC #2)(45)

The sudden torture in his voice froze my blood and every inch of me needed to hug him. He sounded as if he believed that loneliness could come again. That what we had would disappear, leaving him destitute.

Nothing could be more wrong.

“I ended up staying for three weeks. I did the usual stuff. Traveled around, faded into one of the world’s busiest cities, but no matter what I did or saw, I was still alone with no one to enjoy it with. I finally had to accept that no matter where I was, how much wealth I had, or who I associated with, I would never stop the one thing I couldn’t change.”

“And what was that?” I asked quietly.

He took a sip of his water, a lone droplet sliding from his lips and over his chin. “That you were the only one with the power to fix me and because you were dead I had to come to terms with always being broken.”

This time I couldn’t stop myself.

Screw Pad Thai. Screw food.

Slipping from my seat, I moved like a river, slinking around chair legs and melting into his lap. The moment I sat on his knee, his large arms laced around me. He shuddered, holding me eternally close.

We both sighed hard.

“Take me there. Show me,” I murmured. “I want to put our life in a suitcase and never look back.”

He sucked in a breath. “I’d love that. So much.” A long hiatus lasted, before he buried his face in my hair. “I sound like a f*cking sap. Shitty headache is making me admit things you don’t need to know.”

I struggled in his arms. “Never feel like you can’t tell me anything.”

He kept me imprisoned. “What you do need to know is I’m no longer broken, Buttercup. Don’t feel like you have to mend me or that I’m going to be a burden. Because it’s my f*cking responsibility to look after you and I’ll do a damn better job than I have in the past. I promise.”

“I’m not your responsibility,” I said. “I’m your equal.”

The air switched from past pains to current agonies and Arthur’s arms twitched harder around me. “We need to talk about what happened that night.”

Somehow, the time between our argument at Dagger Rose and our current dinner vanished, leaving us exactly where we’d been—tense, frustrated, and confused.

My pulse thickened, feeding my cells with adrenaline in preparation.

“Why didn’t you believe him?”

His question was so quiet it was almost nonexistent. And it made no sense.

“What?”

He flinched, forcing himself to continue. “My father. He must’ve told you why I was in prison. He must’ve shown you the police report.” He glanced at me. “You would’ve seen it with your own eyes.”

“You still think I’ll hate you, don’t you?” Taking courage from his body heat, I said firmly, “I told you. I know everything. I saw everything.”

His shoulders hunched. “Then how can you honestly forgive me? No matter how I look at the situation, there is still me and my unforgivable crime.” His jaw clenched. “Your conviction that I didn’t do it—that you can absolve me—is bullshit. It makes me fear for your state of mind even more than when you were amnesiac.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“None of this makes sense anymore.”

My mind charged over the memories that were still so raw. How did we have such different versions of that night? And what would I have to do to make him see the truth? “There’s nothing to forgive. But obviously you need to forgive yourself.”

“Goddammit, I want so badly to believe you.” Arthur squeezed me tighter. His eyes were wild as if he couldn’t stomach the strained silence that followed whenever we stopped talking.

“You don’t have to believe. It’s the truth.”

When he didn’t say anything, I whispered, “Are you going to listen this time?”

Are you going to believe me unlike when you ignored my every proof that I was Cleo?

Arthur nodded slowly. “Yes. I’ll listen.” The entire day had been leading toward this conversation. “I need to know. Why do you think I’m innocent? Why aren’t you threatening to kill me for what I’ve done?”

Looking into his green eyes, I brushed unruly hair off his forehead. “I’ll tell you why.” Taking a deep breath, prickling with the ghosts of my slain parents, I did my best to offer absolution. “You did kill them, but it wasn’t your fault.”

Arthur stiffened—trading flesh and bone for steel and rebar. His large hands clamped around my hips. “What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly that. It’s not a riddle.”

His eyes turned brittle, disbelieving. His face filled with guilt, consumed with self-hatred. He had it all wrong.

For him to understand, I had to take him back further than just that night. I had to prove to him why everything he recalled was wrong. “Do you remember the first time I walked in on you and your father? That night after the Club meeting when Thorn disciplined Rubix in front of the brothers for leading an unauthorized raid on a bank?”

His face scrunched in irritation. “What does that have to do with—”

Pressing my finger against his lips, I shook my head. “Answer the question. I’ll make you understand.”

With his forehead deeply lined, Arthur’s gaze turned inward. Colors and shadows of the past clouded over his face. He nodded as the night solidified. “Yes.” Then his features fell as if plummeting off a high-rise building. “Shit, I hated you seeing that.”