White Rabbit

by London Miller

  “What are you doing?”

  “Studying your complexion.”

  That was … odd. “Why are you doing that?”

  “When was your last period?”

  “Iz, why are—”

  “Your period. When was it?”

  Not knowing why she was asking at all, Karina still thought back, counting the days. It was certainly before she found out what he’d done with Claire McDonall.

  But that couldn’t be right … it was nearly six weeks ago.

  “Come with me.”

  The urgency in Isla’s tone made her stand quickly and follow her.

  She was just excited about something, Karina reasoned with herself. That was all. It had nothing to do with her or her last period or the fact that something had felt off, but she had chalked it up to exhaustion and the tumultuous months she’d had.

  Isla opened the door to her bedroom and ushered her inside before she closed the door again and made sure to twist the lock.

  Karina didn’t speak, not really sure why she thought her silence would change anything.

  Even after they entered the bathroom, Isla made sure to close and lock that door as well.

  She stood there silently, watching as her sister opened up the small closet door and grabbed a box from the top shelf. She offered it without a word, her gaze saying far more than her words could.

  A pregnancy test.

  There were some moments she was sure would always stick out in her memory, no matter how hard she tried to forget them.

  Like the night she had found her mother standing over John’s dead body, the literal smoking gun still in her hand.

  Or the only time she had seen Isla crying—the day after she returned from her first assignment.

  No matter how Karina prodded, she had been able to get her to open up and share.

  But she was sure, from this day forward, they would pale in comparison to this.

  To walking over to the toilet and not thinking twice before she took the test, not caring at all that her sister was still in the room, though she did turn away to give her privacy.

  And even that was easy in comparison to the wait.

  To counting down until the last possible second before looking over to read the results.

  To feeling as if she couldn’t catch her breath as she saw the positive sign staring back at her.

  No, nothing would ever compare to that.

  Because in the last two months since she had last seen Uilleam, she didn’t think anything could have effected her the way he did.

  She was wrong.

  So incredibly wrong.

  34

  Sprawling Lies

  She looked like her mother.

  That was Karina’s first thought as she studied her reflection in the mirror, smoothing her dress into place.

  She certainly didn’t look like the girl who had gotten dressed in the morning before heading into the city and to her office building.

  That girl had worn skinny jeans, chunky heels, and a smart blazer in different colors.

  The woman she was now wore a dress from a designer she couldn’t pronounce but was worth a hefty price tag.

  Appearances are most important, Katherine had told her before she’d brought the dress into the room.

  Karina hadn’t minded it so much.

  The color was pretty enough, and it did have a pencil skirt the way she liked, but something about the idea of her mother dressing her didn’t sit well.

  But it was much easier to go along with what she wanted for her rather than arguing the point.

  “You look wonderful,” Katherine said, having come to New York the night before to make sure she was still doing as told, though she hadn’t phrased it quite like that.

  “Thank you.”

  “Off you go,” she said, fussing with the necklace resting at the hollow of her throat. “Remember what I’ve taught you.”

  As if she could ever forget.

  Despite the way she’d felt leaving the condo for her first meeting on Katherine’s behalf, Karina was still a little nervous as she rode in the back of the car toward the restaurant. She wasn’t afraid—Katherine had assured her she would have security with her, though they traveled in a separate car—but she was still meeting a man she didn’t know.

  Someone her mother had said would prove very important.

  Before she stepped out, she made sure her hair was in place, no lipstick was on her teeth, and she was mentally ready for whatever awaited her.

  By the time she made it into the restaurant and to where Jordan Omerti waited, she was Karina the journalist again.

  Listening and learning.

  Determining how she could reach her end goal.

  “Karina?” he called when he first caught sight of her, his short stature made all the more prominent with the heels she wore. “Your mother said you were stunning, but I think I underestimated her.”

  She had enough practice to keep a smile on her face without managing to roll her eyes. “Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Omerti.”

  He quickly moved to pull out her chair before he poured from the open bottle of champagne on the table.

  She wouldn’t be drinking that.

  “I’m gonna have to be honest with you here, Karina. I asked your mother for this meeting because someone has come to me with an enticing offer.”

  Katherine had mentioned other people might be attempting to make a deal with him, but she hadn’t said it as if he had been serious about taking any other but theirs. “I’m sure it’s interesting. But I severely doubt they can give you what we can.”

  Shipping routes.

  Weapons.

  Currency if it was needed.

  There was far more to the Ashworth name than she had ever told anyone.

  “He seems to think he can, and I have to say, he presents a hell of a deal.”

  Deal. Her gaze snapped to him, though she maintained her calm appearance. “And this man with the offer?”

  “They call him the Kingmaker.”

  They, he said.

  He didn’t know the half of it.

  “You’ve heard of him,” he said, taking a bite of his food.

  As soon as her mind turned to him, she forgot about her mask. “I have. Hasn’t everyone?”

  Omerti laughed, good-natured. “Feels like it.”

  “And how do you feel about his offer?” she asked with a cant of her head. “I’m sure it’s a good one.”

  “Definitely worth considering, but that bastard is as ruthless as his father.”

  “No, he’s … something else.” She just prevented herself from defending him and revealing something she didn’t want the man to know.

  It wasn’t his business that she had been with Uilleam.

  That she loved him.

  That she was pregnant with his child.

  “Yeah,” Omerti agreed, not seeming to catch her slip. “He’s certainly that.”

  “You can’t do business with a man you don’t trust,” she said, as much of a remark to him as it was a reminder to herself.

  She couldn’t trust him any more than his clients could.

  “Mother isn’t just offering you a temporary solution to your ongoing problem as I’m sure the Kingmaker has offered. She means to eliminate it entirely.”

  It was all about getting one person in contact with another.

  That, Uilleam had taught her.

  “If you work with us,” Karina continued, leaning toward him as she rested her elbows on the table, capturing his attention.

  He stared at her in that way most men did when they saw a pretty woman they wanted to sleep with.

  She thought nothing else about it.

  They both knew she would only ever be a thing he coveted.

  Only one person would ever own her heart.

  “We’ll make sure you have everything you want.” That was Katherine’s guarantee. “You don’t truly think the Kingmaker is the better option, do you?”<
br />
  “No,” he said, his gaze shifting over her. “I don’t.”

  Karina smiled as she sat back, satisfied that she had him where she wanted him, even as she knew he was wrong.

  Because while she didn’t trust Uilleam at all, she did know that he was capable of things few would ever understand.

  She couldn’t see anyone being a worthy opponent of him.

  If Omerti wanted to end up on top, Uilleam was the better choice.

  But it wasn’t her place to tell him as much.

  Two months turned into three, and three turned into four, and before she knew it, there was no hiding her pregnancy anymore.

  It was the first thing she thought of when she woke up in the morning.

  The first thing she saw when she looked in the mirror.

  There was a baby growing inside her, and there was no feeling quite like it. Exhilarating and frightening. A little piece of her and the man she loved getting bigger and bigger every day.

  Wiping the steam from the mirror, Karina regarded herself critically, mindful of the slight darkness beneath her eyes and the paleness of her face despite how red the apples of her cheeks were.

  At least the nausea seemed to have subsided for the time being.

  It was one thing to read about all the changes she would go through the further along in her pregnancy she went, but it was something else entirely to actually live it.

  She hadn’t minded the fatigue as much. Some days, she would be awake and alert and ready to tackle whatever needed to be done, and on others, she found herself sleeping for more than ten hours.

  No in between.

  But this? This was quite possibly the worst part, so far.

  Morning sickness wasn’t just limited to when she first woke up. It hit her periodically through the day, and God forbid she caught a whiff of an offending smell because the next thing she knew, she would be rushing to a bathroom to hunch over a toilet.

  But in the end, no matter what she had to suffer through—no matter how challenging or tiring—it would all be worth it.

  As the temperature cooled inside the bathroom, the mirror slowly cleared, allowing her an unobstructed view of her reflection. She turned this way and that, wondering if the difference she saw in her middle was real or if she was projecting her thoughts to make them a reality.

  She couldn’t be sure, but as she rested her hand just below her navel, she liked to think she could feel the hint of a curve starting to develop there as well as the firmness.

  Better to document it anyway.

  Padding across the floor, she ventured into her bedroom to grab her phone before returning to the bathroom. She tried to find the perfect angle as she adjusted the camera, flattening her shirt over her stomach before snapping the picture.

  It didn’t matter whether she knew for sure. She still wanted to have the memories.

  Like the day she had finally decided on a name.

  A day when she had been crying over Uilleam and remembered the way he always called her poppet and just that quickly, Poppy had settled into her heart and she knew there would never be a better name.

  After snapping a couple of pictures, she readied to set the phone aside once more but paused, a burst of adrenaline rushing through her.

  As it always did when she thought of Uilleam and reaching out to him.

  It had been months since she’d last heard his voice.

  Months since he had changed his number and she hadn’t found out until she attempted to call. When she did, the tears she always tried to hold back came more freely.

  He was done, she thought, with her.

  But a part of her wanted to know for sure.

  For him to say the words.

  Before she could talk herself out of it again, she dialed Skorpion’s number, listening to it ring. Once it reached its fourth ring, she ended the call and took a breath.

  It was time to let it go.

  Time to let him go.

  Finished in the bathroom, Karina ventured out to where Isla was with her feet up on the table and a wine glass in her hand.

  Karina hardly had a chance to sit before she was hopping up once more.

  “This is quite possibly the best day of my life,” Isla said as she carried over another magazine on home décor.

  Specifically for nurseries.

  There was no question she had her sister’s support. It was quite possible that she was more excited than even Karina, but Isla had always liked babies even though she had no interest in having any of her own.

  “Oh, could you imagine,” she said with a fond expression, “I could buy her, her very first Chanel purse. Her closet will certainly be better than mine.”

  “It sounds like you’re going to spoil her,” Karina mumbled with a laugh, though she did pick up one of the magazines to flip through the pictures.

  She still, three months later, had no idea what the future would hold, especially when everything felt so up in the air at the moment. There was still a matter of getting her own place—instead of crashing at Isla’s place—and deciding what she wanted to do going forward.

  The only thing she was absolutely sure of was that she was ready to meet her baby.

  “I just keep imagining how precious you were at that age. I’d love to have a mini version of you to cuddle.”

  There was no question who would be up for babysitting when the time came around.

  Isla was still talking when she pulled out her phone, staring at the name blinking on her screen.

  Skorpion was calling her back.

  Some part of her had believed he wouldn’t return the phone call, if only because he probably got numerous calls from numbers he didn’t recognize. She thought she would just be one amongst dozens.

  Yet he was calling her now.

  “Excuse me a moment.”

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she connected the call and stepped out of the room. “Hello?”

  “Karina,” he said as if he had known she had been the one to call.

  Maybe he’d thought it was inevitable.

  “He’s—”

  “How is he?” she asked before he could finish. She felt nervous at the idea of talking to him.

  “As good as can be expected.”

  Which probably meant not very good at all.

  “Are you here?” he asked, pressing on. “In New York.”

  She thought of lying—lying seemed easier—but then thought better of it. “I am.”

  He was quiet for a long while. “Are you coming back?”

  A question she didn’t, for once, have an answer to. “I don’t know.”

  “You were the best thing that ever happened to him, you know,” he said as if he knew it wouldn’t change anything, but he still needed to say it.

  And he was arguably the best thing that had ever happened to her.

  Even as he was the worst.

  That was just the way it was.

  “He doesn’t understand,” she said, looking out the window at the tops of buildings and the sprawling city. “Actions had consequences.”

  But Uilleam seemed to believe that consequences didn’t apply to him.

  He did what he wanted to whoever he wanted and didn’t ask for forgiveness until after he got what he wanted.

  “If it means anything, he is sorry.”

  She didn’t doubt that.

  Not for a second.

  But then again, it wasn’t Uilleam telling her that.

  35

  Respect

  It was training day.

  A day Uilleam had long grown desensitized to.

  The screams went in one ear and out the other, and the wounds weren’t anything he hadn’t seen before. Even now, he could stand behind the glass, watching as the current man hanging from the shackles in the ceiling was sprayed with a hose.

  The muscles in his abdomen flexed, but he couldn’t do anything to get away from the rush of water currently beating against his side before rotating arou
nd to his back.

  These men thought they had known torture and pain before … oh, they certainly didn’t know what they were in for when it came to becoming one of his mercenaries.

  But they would learn.

  He was a good teacher that way.

  He turned away from the sight, briefly catching his reflection in the two-way mirror, hardly recognizing the man who stared back at him.

  Not the hair along his jaw he hadn’t bothered to shave in a few months.

  Or the fact that the laugh lines around his mouth had faded, he thought.

  He looked … grim.

  He couldn’t say he felt any better.

  Taking a seat behind his desk, he opened his laptop, the click of the keys punctuated by the sounds of screams bleeding in through the walls.

  The past six months had proven profitable for him.

  He was surpassing the goals he’d set for himself, further along in his plans than he’d budgeted.

  Even as he was proud of himself for the feat, a part of him couldn’t help but wonder how much more he would enjoy this position if he had Karina with him. If she hadn’t left him because of one slight.

  She had certainly stayed cross with him for longer than he had anticipated. And he knew, should she actually want to speak with him, she knew how to reach him.

  She’d done it before.

  But she hadn’t.

  There were no blog posts on the black web.

  No mysterious numbers calling his phone.

  And the few times he’d ventured over to the Royal Eve Bistro on her favorite day, she still was nowhere to be found.

  She didn’t want to be.

  And he hated that.

  Hate was far easier to feel than sadness.

  He didn’t need the reminder that she was still very much his weakness.

  A knock sounded, bringing his attention up to the door as Bishop entered his office. Despite his start, he had settled in quite well with his life here working for him, and unlike Skorpion, he didn’t very often offer his opinion on anything without being prompted first.

  And sometimes, not even then.

  “What can I do for you?”

  He held up a flash drive before handing it over. “You told me to watch Omerti. He’s been busy.”