White Rabbit: The Rise (The Kingmaker Saga Book 1)

by London Miller

  “It isn’t necessary,” he said again, turning his phone over in his hands, his gaze on the window to his right.

  Even if Gaspard had wanted to act, he wouldn’t do so now—not while Carmelo was still in the city. Though his mentor liked to think he wasn’t as transparent as he was when it came to his favoritism, most knew that he and Uilleam had a relationship beyond casual acquaintances.

  “Besides, that’s why I have you.”

  Because unlike a lot of men he knew, Skorpion had quick reflexes. Almost as if he sensed what a person was about to do before they actually acted on it. If there was ever a man he needed in his corner should Gaspard try anything, it was the one currently behind the wheel.

  “Did you make the reservations?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “I did, which reminds me. You need to get a fucking assistant. What do I look like?”

  Uilleam made it a point to lean forward and look him over. “Like a very large assistant.”

  “I will shoot you.”

  “Then who would sign your checks?”

  “This could have gone very differently,” Skorpion reminded him, briefly glancing at him through the rearview mirror.

  “I—”

  He didn’t get to finish what he was about to say.

  Not when the sudden sound of an engine revving far too close drew his gaze to the window, just in time to see the massive truck speeding toward them.

  He didn’t get a chance to warn Skorpion of what was coming.

  He didn’t even have a chance to brace.

  Not before impact.

  Not before the sound of crushing metal and splintering glass filled his ears.

  But it was nothing compared to the pain—sudden and sharp, nearly taking his breath away—and as quickly as it came, blackness swooped in on the heels of it.

  He wasn’t sure how long he was out, but one second, he had been bracing for impact, and the next, all he could see was smoke and smell burning rubber and gasoline.

  He reached blindly for his seat belt buckle, trying unsuccessfully to get it undone.

  Something warm and wet dripped from his forehead, but he couldn’t let himself think of what it was, not if he wanted to get out of this.

  “Keanu?” he called, his voice hoarse.

  It was hard to tell through the haze and smoke whether Skorpion was still there, though he was somewhat sure he could see the vague shape of his body.

  “Keanu!”

  He swung blindly for the front seat, managing to hit the seat, feeling some relief at the weight he felt.

  Skorpion was there, at least.

  “We have to get out of the car,” he said, the words sounding muffled to his own ears.

  Giving up on the seat belt, he swung again at the seat in front of him, the ringing in his ears intensifying, his vision growing more blurred at the edges.

  When he heard the sound of Skorpion’s groan as came to, he should have felt relief.

  But it lasted for as long as it took for him to hear the sound of an assault rifle being racked …

  34

  Goodbye

  For the fifth time that night, Karina found herself glancing up at the oversized wall clock, wondering just how long Uilleam would be gone.

  Had she not met Gaspard and had Uilleam not told her stories about the man, she wouldn’t have been quite as worried once he left for the final meeting. She might have been able to get lost in one of the programs she had only been half paying attention to over the past couple of hours or even dived into a book to pass the time.

  Yet from the moment he had kissed her on her forehead before walking out the door, she had been awake and waiting. And time always passed so much slower when actively watching the clocks.

  She didn’t know, however, how many times she had picked her phone up only to put it back down again. She knew that if Uilleam had contacted her, she would have known by now, but for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what was taking so long.

  Grabbing her glass off the coffee table, she carried it back into the kitchen, snagging the bottle of rosé she had been slowly draining slowly. Even the buzz from the alcohol wasn’t enough to completely quiet her mind, but it was helping, if only a little.

  She had only swallowed a mouthful before she heard a door open and slam, footsteps following. Her heart galloped in her chest, relief flooding through her as she quickly stepped out of the kitchen, anticipating the moment Uilleam rounded the corner.

  Except it wasn’t Uilleam.

  Over the past few weeks, she had gotten used to Skorpion’s presence—not something she ever thought she would say, considering the sheer size of him and the fact that he was paid to do bad things on occasion—but seeing him tonight made her chest feel tight.

  And that was before she noticed the spatter of blood on the side of his neck.

  It was harsh against his tan skin. A tarnished shade of red that just looked wrong.

  She didn’t realize he had been talking to her until his hand was on her shoulder and she finally looked away from the blood to meet his gaze. “He’s alive,” he said quickly, cutting right to the point.

  The only problem was that those words were very specific, and she understood exactly what they didn’t say. “What happened? Where is he?”

  Because he might be alive, but that didn’t mean he was okay.

  And considering Skorpion didn’t have any cuts or wounds on his person that she could see, that made it abundantly clear that the blood on his neck wasn’t his.

  “He wants you home.”

  “What? What does that even mean?”

  But Skorpion didn’t bother answering her question before he was sweeping through the space and gathering anything he thought might have been hers.

  She should have been calm and collected—she had to be that way, considering the things she saw and heard for her job—but she was panicking. More than she ever had in her entire life.

  “You brought a suitcase, right?” Skorpion asked over his shoulder, still scanning the floor before heading for the stairs.

  She should have been alarmed by the fact that he knew his way around so effortlessly, considering he had been staying elsewhere and hadn’t stopped by during the week they were here, but Uilleam had probably told him, her mind supplied.

  Because he was alive. She had to keep reminding herself—there was no reason to panic just yet. But that didn’t stop the worry and fear from manifesting.

  That maybe this was—

  “Yo.” Skorpion snapped his fingers in front of her face, drawing her gaze to him. “You can trust me.”

  There was a steely sort of earnestness to his voice. She knew she could, and she wanted to, but the other more stubborn part of her demanded visual confirmation.

  She needed to see for herself that he was as she’d last seen him.

  “But where is he?” she asked, the words almost getting lost between them as she swallowed, afraid of his answer.

  “You really gonna make me carry you out of here?” he asked, his tone making it quite clear that he was prepared to do just that.

  “If you answer my questions, I’ll go willingly.” But she couldn’t bring herself to move or focus on anything other than him. She needed to know more than he was telling her.

  Skorpion considered a moment, then seemed to come to a decision. “He’s at a safe house that was set up years ago. It’s remote and so far off the books, no one would be able to find him there. There’s a couple of physicians there looking after him.”

  “So you’re taking me to him then?” she asked, though even to her own ears it sounded very clear that she expected to be with him.

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Why—”

  “Let’s say I did, yeah? I take you over there and the same man who shot him chooses to send a team after him now instead. What happens then?”

  “You’ll—”

  Save his life, her mind supplied before she even though
t to say the words. And on the heel of them came the fact that Skorpion couldn’t very well be in two places at once, and she would have to fend for herself.

  After all, his job was to protect Uilleam.

  Not her.

  Even if Uilleam demanded it.

  “But he’s fine?” she stressed, wishing that the burning behind her eyes would go away. Crying wouldn’t change anything.

  It wouldn’t get her to him, and it wouldn’t change the fact that something, though she still didn’t know what, had gone wrong.

  “As soon as you’re safe, he’ll reach out to you himself,” Skorpion said, this time with a pointed nod at the room she’d slept in the first night.

  There was so much she wanted to say.

  So much she wanted to do, but as it stood, she was virtually powerless.

  She would just have to wait.

  Nineteen hours. Seventeen minutes. Thirty-nine seconds.

  Karina had counted down every moment from the time she left Paris until she landed back in New York and made it back to her apartment. She had busied herself with unpacking and putting away laundry to keep from thinking about the fact that she hadn’t heard from him.

  She had cleaned everything within reach throughout her living room to forget that her phone was so silent.

  Only when exhaustion had finally made her pass out on the couch did she finally close her eyes long enough not to think about anything at all.

  But when she woke up the next morning, her heart thundering in her chest as the day before’s events quickly played on a cycle through her mind. When she found that her phone was still as silent as it had been the night before, she did something she’d sworn to herself she wouldn’t.

  She picked up her phone and considered calling her mother.

  35

  Hello Mother

  Even the gentle snowfall outside her bedroom window wasn’t enough to put Karina in better spirits. If anything, her mood only worsened as she stripped her bed of its linens and tossed them into a pile in the corner.

  Funny that she had gone nearly her entire life without ever knowing Uilleam’s name or about his existence at all, yet two weeks of zero contact with him had her practically climbing the walls.

  She’d hoped, with all the optimism in the world, that he would reach out to her once everything—though she still couldn’t say what everything consisted of—had settled. While she still didn’t know what had taken place in Paris, she could guess, at the very least, something had gone wrong.

  And even after it became clear to her that Uilleam wouldn’t be calling, she still hadn’t given up quite yet. She called the number she had for him, only to find it disconnected, and no amount of niceties or bribes had helped her at his hotel because, according to them, no one under his name had ever been staying there.

  It was as if he had vanished off the face of the earth.

  All too quickly, she was reminded that while everyone knew of the man, none of them knew him. They had no way of getting into contact with him, and even if they were able, Uilleam came to them, not the other way around.

  So without any luck, she merely had to wait.

  Again.

  But this time, she didn’t have anger toward him to give her a reason not to think of him and try to push his presence out of her thoughts.

  This time, the only thing she could feel was concern. Anxiety. Worried that something terrible had happened to him and she would never know it.

  It was ridiculous that she had developed such strong feelings for him in such a short amount of time. She hardly knew the man, and that point had been made all the more clear considering she was back in New York and he was … somewhere.

  And when she took a moment to actually think about it, she also realized that she had hardly spent more than a couple of weeks’ time in his presence altogether. Hardly enough time to develop feelings.

  But that didn’t change the fact that she lay awake at night thinking about him. Wondering if he was okay. If he was alive … Whether he was thinking about her.

  She wanted answers, and she was dangerously close to doing just about anything to get them.

  Emotions had no place in her profession. They never led to anything good, she found, and she couldn’t imagine that anything good would come from her curiosity.

  Which was how she found herself standing in line at her favorite juice bar after a three-mile jog, hoping some of the excess energy she felt would dissipate. The cafe was surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning, especially this early, but it was a beautiful day all the same, and she had nothing but time on her hands.

  Work would resume tomorrow, and she wouldn’t have time to focus on anything other than whatever story landed in her lap.

  Making it to the front of the line, she ordered a green juice and then paid, stepping off to the side to let the person behind her order.

  The chime of the bell above the glass door drew her gaze in its direction, foolish hope blooming to life in her chest. She had long stopped wondering—or even caring, really—how Uilleam found her the way he did when he just popped up.

  Now, she hoped for it.

  But instead of a man in a black suit, she found Isla strolling in wearing a blood-red dress and her signature trench coat, her heels impossibly high.

  In the week or so since they’d last seen each other, she’d changed her hair—the dark hair they’d inherited from their father significantly lightened at the ends. What Isla had once called her summer hair.

  To her credit, Karina didn’t react to seeing her sister here, of all places, though a part of her was anxious at the sight of her. The rules they lived by stipulated that they never cross paths—especially since Isla was currently on an assignment.

  Not because they couldn’t aid each other—which they often did despite Mother’s rules—but because it would only ever take a glance to see their similar facial features and discern their relationship to each other.

  It was information they kept carefully guarded.

  It was no one’s business but their own.

  Except they had already broken the rules once while she was in Paris. If Isla was here now, that could only mean things were not nearly as simple as she’d hoped.

  Careful to keep a blank expression on her face, Karina accepted her drink once her name was called, then headed outside before Isla could get a word out. The last thing she needed was their conversation to be heard by anyone.

  “Does Mother know you’re here?” she asked once they were outside.

  “Of course,” Isla returned just as easily. “Who do you think sent me to fetch you?”

  Her day, even this early, was going from bad to worse.

  She closed her eyes a moment, trying to tamp down the swarm of emotion that was threatening to take her over. “Why?”

  Isla turned brown eyes on her. “You already know the answer to that question, I’m afraid.”

  Yeah … unfortunately, she did.

  With Uilleam, everything had been terribly simple.

  She didn’t have to second-guess her hair and makeup, the way she dressed, or even how she carried herself. She was just that—herself. It all came naturally, but as the meeting with Mother drew ever closer, Karina knew her appearance was not up to standard.

  It didn’t matter that her hair was swept back into a neat and elegant knot, or that her pencil skirt and blouse didn’t have a single wrinkle or imperfection. She’d even taken an extra minute to ensure her eyeliner was as even as she could possibly make it.

  But it didn’t erase the fact that she looked tired, and that she hadn’t been sleeping well since she’d returned from Paris. And no amount of concealer would prevent Katherine from noticing.

  Ever since she and Isla had arrived at her apartment and she’d disappeared into her bedroom to get ready, she’d wondered and worried what Katherine wanted to speak to her about.

  Unlike her sister, she wasn’t officially on any assignment here. If anything, New York was mean
t to be a sabbatical of sorts before she made a final decision on whether she actually wanted to join the family business.

  Hell, even the thought of it was enough to make her reach for the delicate charm resting at the hollow of her throat and worry it back and forth, wishing it could offer more comfort, or at least a bit of clarity.

  Because, if she knew nothing else, she knew this meeting Katherine had called began and ended with Uilleam.

  “So,” Isla called from the other room, “what’s he like?”

  Karina paused where she stood, glancing out the bedroom door to find Isla standing near her dining room table, her gaze riveted on the vase of blue roses sitting in the center of it.

  “I’ve heard the rumors, of course, but those are only worth so much. I’m not all that interested in the business side of him—what’s the man like?”

  Interesting, Karina thought.

  Complicated.

  So much so that she doubted she could explain the complexities of Uilleam Runehart.

  He was, in a word, different from any man she had ever met before.

  “Whatever you’ve heard,” Karina said as she turned off the light and closed her bedroom door as she walked out, “he’s probably worse.”

  Isla turned to look at her then, her gaze appraising. “We all like what we like.”

  Yeah, she was learning that the hard way.

  Closing her eyes, she let the gentle rocking of the car lull her into a sense of false calm as she pictured Uilleam in the back of her mind. His smile. The way his laughter made the corner of his eyes crinkle. How he looked at her when they were alone as if no one else in the world mattered.

  It was that feeling she clung to as they arrived at the boutique hotel in lower Manhattan. It might have been small, with no more than a dozen rooms if she had to guess, but it had the rustic, old-world charm about it that reminded her of home.

  Before she could climb out, however, Isla reached over and grabbed her hand, her expression changing a little. “It’s only a moment.”