“As I’ve done many others,” Kit said, expression neutral, though the corners of his mouth wore a hint of a smile.
“What do I get in return?”
Money held no value to either of them, considering they had scores of it to last them multiple lifetimes.
But Kit knew exactly what would get his cooperation. “Vengeance.”
“Go on then,” Uilleam said. “Tell us your plan.”
“We get rid of Carmen Rivera once and for all.”
Now … now things were getting more interesting.
37
Hurt
He wasn’t drunk.
At least, that was what Uilleam told himself as he entered the tallest building on the Strip, mindful of the curious stares sent in his direction.
There’d only been the drink on the plane … another on the drive into Las Vegas.
Maybe three?
But he wasn’t stumbling over his own feet—the world wasn’t tilting on its axis around him. He’d drunk just enough to blur the edges. To make the unease he felt lessen even the smallest degree.
Except it wasn’t working.
Nothing was working.
For the life of him, he couldn’t get his conversation with Kit out of his mind, and the more it lingered there, the more it festered.
To the point that he hadn’t been able to linger alone for fear of what his thoughts might do to him. Instead, he’d sought out the one person he needed to see—not just because of the next stage in his plan to get to Elias Harrington, but also because she was one of the few people who didn’t look at him differently.
She always saw the good in him even when he didn’t deserve it.
He took the elevator up to the 32nd floor, fingering the plastic key in his pocket he’d picked up from the front desk, a task that hadn’t been nearly as hard as it should have been.
“Is this going to be a thing now?” she called from behind him, sounding less than amused. “When one of you leaves, the other takes his place?”
He tried to think of a clever response—it was what was expected of him, after all. For years, he’d always had an answer for everything, yet now ... his thoughts were in turmoil.
Staring at the chessboard in front of him, he didn’t notice Luna crossing the floor until she was sitting across from him, her annoyance shifting to concern.
It was easy to see why Kit was so enamored by her. She wasn’t like them. She couldn’t hold a grudge for very long, though he was surprised she had managed this long when it came to his brother.
“Uilleam? What’s wrong?”
The world feared calling him by his name, yet she did so with ease.
More importantly, he didn’t mind hearing her say it.
“Have you ever played chess, Luna?” he asked, his voice low, and his gaze still on the board in front of him.
It was easier this way—to focus his drunken mind on one particular task and hoped it stayed there.
“Once or twice with Kit,” she said, looking down at the board herself.
“Would you like to play a game? It’s been ages since I’ve played.”
He did take out a board every once in a while, hoping to inspire himself, but playing against himself wasn’t much of the solace it used to be. Because no matter how little he played, the moves he made were always the same, and by the end, he realized that the pieces were right back in the same places they’d been when he’d played against Karina during their last game.
He couldn’t bring himself to start another game since.
Luna looked as if she were worried for his sanity. “Sure, Uilleam.”
Her expression said she didn’t know what to make of his sudden appearance in her apartment. And to be quite honest, Uilleam wasn’t sure either.
He’d only known he hadn’t wanted to be alone, yet he hadn’t wanted to answer any more of Kit’s questions pertaining to Karina.
But … there was another reason he’d run from those questions.
Reasons he wasn’t ready to contemplate because the implications behind them were almost too much for him to process.
Uilleam took a moment to help himself to the bar on the other side of the room, pouring a healthy amount into his glass before walking back over to the table.
Luna was still studying him in that uncanny way of hers, trying to decipher his mood and pinpoint what was bothering him.
He didn’t understand himself.
Rearranging the glass chess pieces on the board, he gestured to them with a wave of his hand. “Ladies first.”
It was the look on her face that spurred him to speak. Certainly not because he was drunk enough that the filter had long since come down. As she picked up a pawn and moved it forward two spaces, he broke his silence.
“Has my brother ever told you about Karina Ashworth?”
Her face betrayed her before she could hide it. Kit had mentioned her at one point or another. “A little—not very much,” she quickly added as if she knew where his mind had gone.
“Outside of a select few, she was one of the only people—maybe even the only person—that I told about you,” he said thoughtfully.
A truth he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge until this moment.
“About me?”
He nodded, the alcohol making him a bit careless with his words. “After it happened, when I sent a team down to take you, I told her of my plans—or rather the contract I had agreed to. She never let me finish explaining the rest of it, considering how furious she was with me.”
There had been a fire in her eyes—a rage and disappointment unlike anything he had seen before.
“It wasn’t our first fight,” he went on. “But it was memorable.”
“What was she like?” Luna asked, hardly paying attention to the game.
He could already tell, four moves in, that he would win—her moves were a bit predictable that way, but at least this was proving to be a decent enough distraction.
The question managed to spark a smile on his face. “Smart and resourceful. Kind but cunning. We easily matched wits, and I don’t believe there has, or ever will be, a better companion for me.”
He’d been enamored with her—more so than he had ever been by another person in all his life. His uncle had always said that with enough time, perhaps he’d move on and find someone else, but they would always pale in comparison.
“What happened to her?”
A question he thought he’d known the answer to, but now … Kit had him wondering if he actually knew the truth.
“She was taken from me.”
“By whom?”
He leveled a look on her. She already knew the answer, even if she thought she didn’t.
“Elias,” she said after moment.
He nodded. “It took ages to even learn his name. I’ve been chasing that ghost for years, but when he had me shot that day, he made his first mistake. And once he made one slip, it was inevitable that he would make another.”
Like working with an Irish mobster who’d been on the opposing side of his mercenary, for one.
“And the painting you sent Celt after?”
That hadn’t actually been a part of the master plan, but it had been fun all the same. “I was bored and wanted to elicit a reaction. The mistress’s involvement was a welcome distraction.”
It had, at the very least, given him something to do.
Her brows drew together. “What makes you think Elias was the one who took her from you?”
“Pardon?”
“Well … if you didn’t know his name, or even how to find him, how do you know it was his fault Karina died?”
Uilleam didn’t mean to flinch. It wasn’t as if this wasn’t knowledge he already possessed.
Karina was dead. He was sure of it.
But that didn’t stop the pain that accompanied those words.
“No, he didn’t immediately come out and claim responsibility,” Uilleam said, “if that’s what you’re asking. For mon
ths, I … knew nothing. I couldn’t find anything, no matter who I sent looking for answers.”
Of course, he also had the years’ long bender to thank for that as well, but even after he’d cleared his head and got back to work, he still hadn’t been able to get anything worthwhile on what happened to her.
“But he’d gotten bold,” Uilleam continued, remembering the day he’d learned of the man and where he could find him. “He wanted to be known as the man who felled the Kingmaker. My downfall might have been temporary, but it had been enough that he was able to start an empire.”
One that was nearly as vast as his as far as he could tell.
“But you obviously got better,” Luna said quickly, plucking moving her bishop over to take his knight with a little more relish than necessary.
As Karina had once did.
“I didn’t get better,” Uilleam corrected. “I got angry.”
And there was certainly a difference between the two.
In her eagerness to take one of his pieces off the board, she’d stopped paying attention to the broader picture.
She hadn’t noticed what he’d been setting her up for.
It only took one move of his rook to turn the game in his favor. “Checkmate.”
She looked baffled as she stared down at the board. So much so, it brought a smile to his face.
“I obviously forgot how good you are at this.”
“Don’t be hard on yourself,” he told her, finishing the last of his drink before he stood. What would one more hurt? “You’re not the only one who’s made this mistake.”
For a moment, a heartbeat, maybe, he was struck by the memory of the times he and Karina had played chess together.
How her nose would scrunch up in concentration as she tried to best him, and the fondness on her face whenever he won.
“She was the best and worst thing that ever happened to me,” he said out loud, a truth he was willing to acknowledge.
“Why do you say that?”
“Karina showed me what it meant to truly love someone without question. She also showed me that love makes you weak.”
It softened him until he hadn’t recognized himself.
He had started to consider someone else’s thoughts and opinions and emotions over his own.
And when he had lost it all, he’d lost himself at the same time.
The vodka was making him too honest, he realized belatedly, blinking at the new glass he poured. It was time to call it a night.
“I’m helping myself to your spare bedroom,” he said as he set the glass down, needing to get out of there before he said too much.
Alcohol had always made him honest.
He placed an affectionate kiss on her forehead, but before he left her, he added, “Thank you for listening.”
Luna had more questions, but unlike Kit, she wasn’t one to pry. Instead, she merely watched him walk into her guest bedroom before he closed the door.
He leaned back against it, closing his tired eyes a moment, though that did very little to help his equilibrium.
Sleep was what he needed.
Tomorrow was a new day, and these thoughts and worries he had would fade until they were all but forgotten.
Karina wasn’t alive, he was sure.
He didn’t have an answer for how Elias had managed to know as much as he did, but there was only a matter of time before Uilleam found the answers to those questions.
He just needed to dig deep enough.
Five hours of sleep, a hot shower, and a fresh change of clothes later, Uilleam was back to normal.
He put all thoughts of Karina to the back of his mind and instead, focused on the task at hand: putting an end to Elias Harrington.
In the meantime, there had been one little task he’d needed to see done before the sun came up, and it had only taken a phone call and his account numbers to see it done.
As he sat on the balcony overlooking the Vegas Strip below, he sipped his coffee, running through various scenarios in his head about what was coming next.
“I took the liberty of ordering breakfast,” he said over his shoulder, hearing her footsteps as she came closer.
She mumbled out a response, her words lost on him.
“I have another gift for you,” Uilleam called, smiling to himself at the way she all but stumbled out to enjoy him.
Luna didn’t seem to be a morning person.
“How long have you been awake?” she asked, as if getting up in the morning was not just a chore, it was unfathomable.
“A few hours.”
She glanced down at his phone resting on the table, the time on display.
9:15
She shook her head. “Another surprise? I’m starting to feel special.”
“Oh, you’re very special,” he told her honestly as he pulled the small black box from the pocket of his jacket and passed it over to her. “More than you’ll ever know.”
In a way, she had been one of the reasons he thought more of the actions he took before he did them.
“What is this?” she asked as she ran her fingers over the velvet case without opening it. “The last time I accepted a gift from a Runehart ...”
She didn’t finish the thought, and Uilleam didn’t ask her to elaborate.
“Consider it a late wedding present.”
She seemed to ponder over that a moment before she finally opened the box and found the key fob tucked inside it, the pitchfork logo inscribed along the front of it gleaming silver and bright.
“A Maserati, Uilleam? she asked, sounding delightfully surprised. “When did you even buy this?”
He looked over his own food as he answered absently, “This morning.”
“What kind of strings come attached to this … gift?”
He almost smiled.
The Luna he’d found at Lawrence’s estate would have happily accepted anything he gave, but her years with Kit had taught her better than to not ask questions.
“This one is freely given, I promise. Besides, you’re going to need a car where we’re going, and better this one than your motorcycle to blend in with the crowds.”
Her brow arched as she regarded him. “Everyone drives expensive sports cars where we’re going?”
More than she knew. “Have you never been to Los Angeles?”
Uilleam might not have thought much of it had he not known her as well as he did. After she had learned that her mother and sister were living out there, he’d expected her to venture out and find out as much as she possibly could.
Seemed she hadn’t.
“Then you’re in for an experience. Now, if you’d get dressed, we can be on our way.”
She didn’t waste time arguing, venturing back into her bedroom.
It wasn’t long before she came back out, her hair still damp from a shower, lugging a large suitcase behind her.
“I don’t understand how you can possibly enjoy this insufferable heat,” Uilleam complained as they made it downstairs and out into the Vegas sunshine.
“Most don’t wear three-piece suits out here unless it’s at night,” she reminded him with thoughtful smile.
Suit or not, he much preferred the rain and cold. “At least you won’t have to worry about it anymore since you’ll be going home very soon.”
Her brows shot up. “Sorry?”
“Marriage counseling went well, no? I’m sure you and my brother will find your way back to each other soon enough perhaps after a little murder?”
He didn’t bother explaining how he knew about their visit to the good psychiatrist—people rarely responded well when they learned their were being watched. It was better for everyone if he kept that bit to himself.
“When did you start advocating for Kit?” she asked dryly.
Though, despite her tone, she didn’t object to what he said.
“I’ve always been a supporter of your relationship.I’d hoped to spark a romance between you when I sent you to live there.”
/> Luna rolled her eyes. “Do you just make up shit in your own head to fit your agenda?”
“It works well for me, I think. But in this case, it’s true. I’ll admit that I had some ill intentions. I did hope to hurt him through you, after al,” he said honestly.
And in many ways, he had, just not in the way he’d anticipated.
Because of Belladonna.
Whoever she was.
Though by the time he finished in California, he planned to have an answer to that question.
They were interrupted by the valet arrive in the pearly white Maserati he’d found through his favorite broker.
It was a gift, as he’d said. One meant to pay for her loyalty over the years as well as the kindness she’d shown him the night before.
It was also a token of his guilt for his part in what happened to her.
“White for the innocent,” he mumbled to himself.
“Sometimes,” Luna said, her voice softening, “you’re not so bad.”
“I aspire to grace when I’m in the mood.”
He passed her the key fob, gesturing for her to take the driver’s seat. “You’re driving.”
“Seriously?” she asked. “I would think a control freak like you would be adamant about being behind the wheel.”
“I much prefer being driven—it allows me the chance to think.”
She smiled as she slid into the car. “Or rather because you’re high maintenance.”
Well … she wasn’t completely wrong.
38
In Check
The sun shined a little brighter on the days his enemies fell.
His strategy had been flawless, and with a little help from Kit, things had gone exactly as he intended. It had proven surprisingly easy despite the odds.
Carmen thought she was making a deal with Uilleam while Elias thought he had him under his thumb. They both couldn’t possibly be more wrong.
Manipulating them had been just another chess game.
Uilleam plucked a mandarin from the bowl on display before walking over to the table where he could see his brother seated with Elias who didn’t appear particularly happy with the conversation they were having.
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