For once, she didn’t take the time to admire the residence the way she normally would. She only briefly noted the white brick and gently twining ivy along the exterior before venturing inside after Isla.
“She wanted me to show you something.”
Karina peered back at her sister as they stepped inside the foyer. She wasn’t particularly interested in seeing whatever it was—she mostly longed for a bed and a mountain of pillows she could bury herself in for the near future.
But it was easier to just go along with what was asked of her than to argue.
Isla took her hand again, intertwining their fingers like she used to when they were children. The moment she made contact, Karina squeezed back, anchoring herself to the present.
Accepting, if only for a moment, that she wasn’t alone.
She led her through the house, bypassing the spacious living room and skipping over the bright white kitchen entirely until they reached a pair sliding glass doors that led out to a … greenhouse?
It might have once been a sunroom, but it had been renovated to resemble a garden covered by glass all around them.
She couldn’t help but think it would look beautiful when the skies opened up, and the rain poured.
But Karina found herself grinding to a halt as a solid block of color caught her attention.
Poppies.
Everywhere.
Their petals fragile even as they were bright. Rows of them that made it impossible to look at anything else.
They were all she could see—all she could smell—and as she sank to her knees right at the edge of them, something broke inside her, and it all came rushing back.
Except there was nothing she could do not to feel it. She couldn’t shove the pain away as it lacerated her heart. Her thoughts didn’t venture to a happy place as her eyes flooded with tears.
She felt it all.
But this time, she wasn’t trying to fight it.
She welcomed the agony because on the heels of it was anger.
And the two together … she wasn’t the same.
She would never be the same again.
“Karina.”
She didn’t turn at the sound of her sister’s voice. Instead, her focus remained on the flowers even before she stroked the petals of the flower closest to her.
“What do you want to do now?”
To be alone.
That was what she wanted more than anything.
She wanted to disappear from the world, and she didn’t care if that meant isolating herself inside this house until she took her last breath.
“I want it all to go away,” Karina answered softly. She didn’t think about what she was saying or what she was doing—she just spoke the words that came to mind.
“He’ll look for you.”
He would.
That was inevitable.
“Then give him something to find.”
Because for once, she didn’t want to see him.
Not now.
Not ever.
Not until she was ready, and with the way she felt now, Karina doubted that day would ever come.
40
All the King’s Men
The rumors were certainly true: It was very lonely at the top.
But as Uilleam stood on the balcony overlooking the city that was so easily conquerable, he didn’t mind it so much. For once, that driving need for power wasn’t constantly dogging his every step—pushing him faster and harder until he had neared his breaking point.
He had always liked to think he handled his stress well—that he retreated into his own mind to eventually find the answers he needed, and by the time he surfaced again, everything would be good for him—but as he looked down at his phone and realized the device hadn’t rung in quite some time now, he wasn’t so sure.
Karina, as much as he’d loved her and the way he felt as if he was complete when he was with her, had been a distraction.
A beautiful distraction he’d quite enjoyed losing himself in as much as he possibly could, but to get to where he was now … he couldn’t be soft.
She’d made him that way.
But now that he was here, and people quaked in the face of his name alone, distraction or not, he wanted her back. Make things right and repair the damage he had inflicted in this thoughtlessness. He knew, in his own way, that there was no excuse for what he’d done and that he’d taken the one thing she had always wanted, and he intended to right that wrong.
He was not above groveling.
And until she forgave him—until she was right back here at his side for him to love and cherish like he hadn’t before—he wouldn’t stop trying.
He couldn’t stop.
Turning away from the view, Uilleam shut the doors before grabbing his drink off the island, finishing it off before he poured another. The whiskey was like a balm on his soul, easing the ache he had been better at ignoring when he’d had something else to focus on.
He almost smiled at the thought of what his father would say if he were here to see him—wasting away at the thought of not having someone he desperately, desperately wanted. But then again, he doubted his father had ever felt a love like this before.
His father saw everything as a possession—even the people in his life.
Uilleam hadn’t truly been a son to him, but rather an heir or a prodigy. Someone he would count on to carry on his legacy and nothing more. So long as he did what he was told and didn’t embarrass the family name, Alexander wasn’t the sort to feel anything else at all.
He would never understand why what he had done was wrong.
But Uilleam now did. And he had every intention of fixing it before it was too late.
Though he had promised his contact he would give him an hour to find the information he needed, Uilleam couldn’t help picking up his phone and dialing the man anyway.
“What have you found?” he asked the moment the call connected.
It baffled him how quickly he had lost track of so much over the past several months—of her—but time had passed by so quickly that weeks had felt like days, and before he even realized what was happening, nothing else had concerned him other than the endgame.
Now, he was paying for that mistake because for the life of him, he couldn’t find his Karina anywhere. It was almost as if she had disappeared off the face of the earth. And as good as he was at it, he was surprised someone else could be better.
Especially not her.
“I couldn’t find anything,” the hacker on the other line said, her voice far too soft. Whether she was working for him or not didn’t seem to matter. She was still afraid of him, no matter how much he told her she had nothing to fear.
But perhaps that would come in time.
“Nothing?” he asked, just to be sure.
“Her credits cards and yours are completely clean. As far as I can find, she’d have to be living completely off the grid because she hasn’t been seen.” She sounded as baffled as he felt. “I wrote up a facial recognition algorithm to use for trace her through city cameras, but she hasn’t popped up once.”
None of that sounded right. And the more he tried to make sense of it, the more the feeling of something not being right stirred inside him.
“Keep looking,” he said, trying to ensure the panic he felt didn’t reflect in his voice.
She sounded a bit skeptical as she said, “Sure thing.”
Once the call disconnected, he tossed the device down, rubbing a hand over his hair to combat the unease rising inside him. He didn’t like the way his equilibrium felt off.
He should have better memorized the features of her face.
The curl of her lip when she smiled, or the downward tilt of her head when she found something he said amusing. How she was most beautiful when her eyes sparkled with happiness even as she tucked her hair behind her ears. Because now, when all he could do was think of her, he wished he could conjure up a clearer image.
Lying across the bed,
he listened to the metronome on the other side of the room, letting the sound soothe him as much as capably possible in the mood he was in.
Anxious was putting it mildly, and if Skorpion hadn’t threatened him with bodily harm if he didn’t give them all a chance to look into it, he would have been on the phone with him then, demanding answers no one seemed to be able to give him.
It felt like he was losing his fucking mind.
Uilleam was seconds from climbing the walls when his phone chimed with an alert he hadn’t heard in nearly seven months. It was only a moment, the barest of sounds, but the moment he heard it, it felt his body had been shot through with electricity.
He sat up in a flurry, grabbing his mobile and clicking through a number of screens until he found what he was looking for.
The alarm system that he’d had specifically installed for his home with Karina had been tripped seconds before the green light appeared once more once the five-digit passcode was entered.
Only one person had that code.
Uilleam grabbed a set of keys from the drawer, not paying attention to anything else as he headed downstairs to the garage specifically converted for his cars.
He held the keys aloft in his hand, looking for the flash of taillights before he ventured over to the car in question and slid behind the wheel. He was already driving out of the parking garage by the time he actually called Skorpion.
“Didn’t I—”
“The alarms at the townhouse were tripped. I think she’s come back.”
“I’ll check it out,” he said agreeably, not giving his opinion of what he thought of that one way or the other.
“No need.” Uilleam made a hard left, glaring at the man currently honking his horn as he switched lanes. “I’m already on my way.”
“Yeah, I can list a number of reasons why that’s a shit idea.”
Whether it was or wasn’t was immaterial—Uilleam was going regardless. He owed her an explanation, and at the very least, an apology. He needed her back desperately, and he was the only one who could fix what he’d broken.
Ten minutes later, Uilleam found himself outside the townhouse, feeling his heart triple in speed as he noticed the lone light inside and how it reflected off the glass.
“At least wait till I’m there, yeah?” Skorpion said, sounding far too frustrated that he hadn’t been able to talk Uilleam out of coming. “Don’t go in there alone.”
“What are you expecting?” Uilleam asked with a laugh he didn’t truly feel. “It’s only Karina.”
She didn’t pose a threat to him.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s the practical choice.”
“It’s been too long already,” he argued, knowing that the more time he waited, the more her anger for him would grow.
He just needed to remind her of what they had—that he wasn’t always an unthoughtful lover. And he intended to show her just that.
Even with Skorpion still arguing to the contrary in his ear, Uilleam walked right up to the front door and stuck his key in before giving it a twist and pushing the door open only to be greeted by silence.
Not the low murmur of the television as he’d come home to for those few short months, or the smell of spices and herbs in the air as she cooked.
But it was so quiet, he was sure he’d be able to hear a pin drop.
That didn’t deter him—he hardly gave it a second thought as he walked farther inside, having a look around.
A reminder of Karina turning the place into their home. She’d been so proud, he remembered now, thinking back to how excited she’d been to show him everything piece by piece.
“Karina?” he called out, fully expecting for her to answer.
He anticipated the resignation, and even the anger, he was quite looking forward to, considering he would rather have any piece of her than nothing at all.
But silence greeted him once more.
Frowning, Uilleam stepped through the foyer, looking for any actual signs Karina was here. As quickly as he had been consumed solely by his desire to see her, the feeling dwindled as he stopped looking around like a man in love and rather as a man with enemies.
The thought hit him so suddenly, his fingers very nearly crushed the mobile in his hand.
Because he knew the way these men thought.
He was one of them.
For many people, he was the root cause of their troubles, and he knew exactly where to hurt them when it mattered.
But surely, they couldn’t have learned of their connection. He’d been careful about that … though he’d been slipping where that was concerned over the last many months.
But as he crossed the threshold into the living room, Uilleam froze where he stood.
In the span of a heartbeat, his world compounded to one point—the image in front of him.
Blood.
So much of it.
So much that it couldn’t be ignored. It was too dark, too widely splashed, too savage that Uilleam stumbled over his own feet, his mobile dropping from his hands.
But he could almost dismiss it, even as each stained surface felt like a fresh wound to his own flesh, tearing him to shreds.
Almost.
But it wasn’t until he saw the curled-up form on the floor that for the first time in his life, his heart fractured.
Each crack brought on such an acute pain, it took away his breath. Made him feel as if an inferno exploded inside him.
He’d seen men fight to the death in the bloodiest of brawls, watching the training that was akin to torture to shape his mercenaries, he had even watched the last breath his father took.
For the longest time, he had started to believe he was immune to death.
But a small part of his brain caught up to what he actually saw—the curve of a slender shoulder, the long spill of dark hair that glimmered from the sheen of blood.
He felt the sight of her in his chest—as if someone had shoved their fist inside it and grabbed hold of his heart. But they didn’t let go, rather with each step he took to the prone shape on the floor, the tighter that fist got until the muscles collapsed.
Until he couldn’t stand, and for the first time in ages, he knew pain. The harsh bitter bite of it.
But he had to know—he couldn’t lose himself if he didn’t know for sure.
So even as his legs refused to cooperate, he still moved ever closer until he was suddenly there.
His hands trembled violently as he reached out, his body recoiling at the cool, nearly cold body he touched. But he didn’t stop—he couldn’t.
He had to know.
“Shit.”
The sound of Skorpion’s voice behind him didn’t prevent him from rolling her over—from hoping against hope that he was wrong.
But instead of an answer, he found brutality.
A savageness that made his heart crack and splinter.
His ears were ringing—a harsh, broken sound filtering through moments later.
Uilleam didn’t realize he was screaming.
* * *
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THE KINGMAKER SAGA
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Afterword
First and foremost, if you’re reading this, you survived!
Congratulations! I know things got a little dicey there at the end and you *might* be glaring at me, but don’t you worry. Uilleam and Karina will be back in the third installment of the Kingmaker Saga.
Don’t worry, we’re not at the end yet!
Thank you so much for reading White Rabbit: The Rise + Fall. These two books are probably the books I’m most proud of. I’ve told anyone that will listen how long I’ve been waiting to write these two and I’m here to tell you that I’m in love with their story, even as it hurts sometimes.
&n
bsp; I also want to give a special thanks to H and Kris because without them, I don’t know where I’d be. They’ve kept me going over the course of writing this book. And special special thanks to Kris who lets me send her random voice messages at three in the morning while I’m up writing.
She’s the best, really.
Thank you, reader, for coming along on this journey with me—the road is still long ahead.
xx LM
About the Author
London Miller is the author of the Volkov Bratva series, as well as Red., the first book in the Den of Mercenaries series. After graduating college, she turned pen to paper, creating riveting fictional worlds where the bad guys are sometimes the good guys.
Currently residing in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband and two puppies, she spends her nights drinking far too much Mountain Dew while writing.
For more information:
www.londonmillerauthor.com
[email protected]
White Rabbit Page 37