That was as close to the truth as she could manage.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said with a nod that made Karina think she truly meant those words. “Ready?”
Karina nodded wordlessly, shifting back onto the table before placing her feet in the stirrups. She let her mind wander as Dr. Lawrence completed her exam.
It never took long, but sometimes while laying there, it felt as if a year passed while waiting.
“Alright, all finished.” Dr. Lawrence snapped off her gloves and tossed them in the wastebasket. “I’ll give you a minute to dress before we talk.”
A few minutes later, Karina was back wearing her favorite white dress with thin straps and nude heels.
“Unfortunately,” Dr. Lawrence began once she was back in the room with Karina’s chart in her hands, “there’s still some scarring present.”
Exactly what she was afraid of, and despite the years, those words hadn’t gotten any easier to hear. The first time had been traumatic for reasons she really didn’t want to think about anymore.
Of course, she’d had much to cry about in those days so the pain had all blended into one giant black hole of agony in her chest. But it hadn’t compared to what followed.
“Scarring?” Karina had asked, knowing the fear she felt could be heard in her voice. “I don’t … what does that mean?”
The doctor hesitated for the briefest of moments before finishing. “Due to the trauma and the ensuing surgeries, it caused scarring as well as the loss of one of your ovaries. While one might be concerning on its own, both together can make it …”
Blood had rushed in her ears, preventing her from hearing what Dr. Lawrence had said next, but she could read the woman’s lips as she spoke and no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t escape the truth.
There was a possibility she would never be able to have children again.
Karina cleared her throat, shaking her head to force herself back to the present. “The last time I was here, you mentioned surgery of some sort …”
Dr. Lawrence set her folder aside, regarding her with a look that was more maternal than professional. “It is an option, yes, but I don’t want to make any promises as to the outcome.”
Meaning, it could go either way.
An answer Karina already knew, but one she had hoped she wouldn’t have to hear.
“I understand,” she said, even as she didn’t. But what more could she say?
It was a truth she’d had to force herself to accept long before now.
They finished up and Karina donned her sunglasses before she stepped out of the building and headed toward her waiting car. She was on her way back home, the city fading in her rearview mirror, when her phone rang
“It’s good to hear your voice,” Isla greeted cheerfully once the call connected.
“Same to you. Last I heard, you were on vacation.”
Isla scoffed. “Ignore Zoran. He insists work can wait.”
“I don’t disagree.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been on a vacation.
“Not you too. I already have him in my ear.”
A smile touched her lips for the first time that day. “I hear you complaining, but you don’t really sound upset.”
“Moving on. Where are you coming from? You sound … off.”
There were so many ways she could answer that question, and yet she felt the overwhelming desire not to. “Doctor’s appointment,” she said finally.
“Well,” Isla said after a moment of silence, “if you’re free now, you should come by my place and spend some time with me. I could use the company.”
Karina smiled to herself, knowing what Isla wouldn’t say.
If she had no one else, she certainly had her sister.
* * *
Growing up, Karina had always assumed their nights together would be like this.
Wearing comfortable pajamas, sipping wine of the vintage variety as they awaited their takeaway. Even now, though it hadn’t happened in far too long, these were the moments she most looked forward to.
She didn’t constantly have to think about what she was doing, what she was wearing, or maintaining the perfect facade of casual arrogance. Here, in the comforts of her sister’s home, she didn’t have to be Belladonna, mistress of all things anti-Kingmaker. She could just be herself.
Karina Ashworth.
Sister. Friend, confidante.
She’d missed it more than she could ever say.
“Go on then,” Isla said walking over with a fresh bottle of wine, ready to pour a glass as soon as she sat on the lengthy sectional beside her. “Tell me everything.”
Karina smiled, though she didn’t really feel it. “There’s nothing to tell really.”
“If it makes you cry, I want to hear about it,” Isla shot back, not willing to drop it.
That was the key difference between her and their mother. Isla possessed far more empathy though she liked to think she didn’t.
Isla might have been less patient with others, but if Karina ever had a problem, she knew she could always count on her sister.
But, the very last thing she wanted to share now was the silent struggle she’d been attempting to resolve on her own over the years.
It almost felt too personal to admit aloud anywhere other than her doctor’s office. But this was Isla, and if she couldn’t share her secrets with her, then Karina couldn’t share with anyone.
“I had my annual exam today,” she explained softly, gazing down into the glass of red wine, eyeing her reflection in the dark drink.
Isla, always one to understand what another needed from her, didn’t respond, merely waited with her own glass in hand.
Karina took a breath, even finished off her entire glass first before daring to reveal a truth she had never shared with another living soul.
“There was some scarring after the … shooting. The bullet coupled with the emergency c-section resulted in … this,” she gestured at herself, wishing she could mask the sadness and disgust she heard in her own voice.
But a small part of herself hated that it seemed her body was betraying her.
That there was another piece of her that was broken beyond repair.
“With surgery, I was hoping to minimize the damage, but it’s not always one-hundred percent effective. And since I only have one ovary left, I just …”
It didn’t take long for Isla to catch on to her meaning. And as good as she was at masking her feelings, she couldn’t quite hide the truth before Karina saw it.
It wasn’t pity, thankfully—she was sure she would have been reduced to tears had her sister expressed that—but there was a profound sadness that reminded her why she hadn’t wanted to share.
Another’s sadness made her own profoundly worse. And she was afraid of Isla cried, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from doing the same.
“She didn’t say I couldn’t have children again,” Karina added, for her sake as much as Isla’s. “But it will be considerably harder in the future.”
Next to impossible, she knew though the woman hadn’t said as much aloud. It was a reality she didn’t like to think about if she could help it.
Isla didn’t respond for a long time. So long, Karina chanced a peek in her direction, but now that she’d had time, her face was a careful blank canvas, her emotions hidden once more.
For as long as it took to bring her own wine glass to her lips, and before Karina could utter another word, she guzzled down the contents of her own glass within seconds.
Karina certainly understood the desire.
Isla waited until she poured herself a fresh glass before she sighed, the sound heavy and filled with meaning. “I’ve never told you about the first job Mother sent me on, have I?”
“No, you haven’t,” she replied, hoping she didn’t sound surprised at the very mention of it.
But if there was one secret she thought her sister would carry to the grave, it was this one.
&nb
sp; Karina didn’t know what happened, only that whatever had transpired had changed Isla in a way she couldn’t quite describe. While she loved and adored her sister, she was still willing to admit the woman she knew now was nothing like the woman she’d known when they were children.
There had been a carefreeness about Isla before. Sure, she still liked her pretty things and being the life of the room, but now there was a certain jadedness to her that Karina couldn’t quite put her finger on.
And the change had happened right around the time Isla had come back to Ashworth Hall the very first time.
“Sometimes,” she began, studying her wine the way Karina had. “the scars that linger aren’t physical.”
This words made her heart skip a beat, but it was the absent smile curling her lips even as she eyes were sad that made her heart hurt for her.
“Well … sometimes you get both, actually. It all depends on the man—I learned that the hard way so you wouldn’t have to.”
Their heavy moment was interrupted by the sound of a chime letting them know the lift was on its way up.
Isla quickly excused herself, leaving her glass on the table as she went to retrieve the food.
Karina allowed herself a moment to just breathe, to remember who she was, and that no matter what, she was fine—they both were.
Whatever happened, they would be fine if only because they had each other.
It wasn’t long before Isla returned with two rather large brown paper bags.
Karina was all too excited to eat as Isla set the food out on the table. Things might have been uncomfortable, but delicious food was like a balm to the soul.
They ate in silence for a while before Isla finally cleared her throat. “Okay, so where was I? Right, the beginning with the German. You see, I knew nothing about him beyond what you would find in one of Mother’s files.” She waved her hand as if those details didn’t matter now. “He was your stereotypical target—ridiculously wealthy, easy on the eyes despite his age, and had far more associates in the business than most in his field.”
Isla took a bite of food, chewing thoughtfully. “One thing that hadn’t been included in his file? The man was a sadist.”
Karina choked on a bite of chicken as it caught in her throat. Her eyes watered as coughed, deciding it was probably best to refrain from eating until the story was over. “Did he—“
“It’s probably not as bad as whatever you’re picturing right now. I wasn’t tortured or anything like that … not often and usually not physically. He had another sort of vocation that he enjoyed.” For a moment, Isla merely looked embarrassed, as if this was the last thing she wanted to admit. “He liked to share.”
Karina’s brows drew together as she considered her meaning, but when understanding dawned, she tried not to let it reflect on her face even as she felt her cheeks warm.
“It didn’t matter who you were to him, his sexual deviance touched everyone. I was supposed to be the most important woman in his life, but he still ordered me to fuck anyone of his choosing whenever he was in the mood. Man, woman, he didn’t care. So long as he was able to watch,” she added on a murmur.
“But why would Mother give you an assignment like that?” Karina asked, her voice low, almost afraid to ask the question.
“She needed something from him,” she responded vaguely. “It was my job to get it for her.”
“You said he was older than you?”
“Yes, forty years.”
That number made her feel physically ill. “But you were only—”
Isla rested her hand on top of hers, squeezing lightly. “Get the image out of your mind. I survived, that’s all that matters—that’s the point of this story. We survive, Karina. It’s what we do.”
“When do we get to live?” she asked, feeling more tired than she had before. “When do we move beyond just trying to make it day to day and finally live?”
Isla sat back with a sigh. “When the work is done.”
* * *
“Where’s your shadow?”
Karina poured last of the wine into her glass, contemplating whether she had downed this bottle on her own or if Isla had helped at some point or another. But even if she had polished it off, she was drunk enough not to care for once and maybe that was exactly what she needed.
“My shadow?” Karina asked, tipping the glass to her lips.
“The slightly frightening mercenary that everyone seems to fear but you.”
That might have been funny had it not been true. Of course, she knew why people feared Jackal—Sebastian, she corrected herself—he was molded and shaped to become the weapon he was, and had she not been the one to stumble across him, she couldn’t imagine the sort of life and work he would be forced to do.
But she saw the other side of him—the broken, lost man who’d been used and abused for others’ gain. She had done her very best not to be anything like his handlers had back in Gheenă who had treated him as more of a science experiment than a human being, but she wasn’t always sure if she had done more harm than good after securing his freedom from that facility.
“He’s in Romania with Kava,” Karina finally answered, thinking of the last time she’d seen them.
After everything that had happened, she felt she owed it to Jackal to give him the opportunity to learn the truth about who he had been before Gheenă changed him. She’d always known his memory was faulty and whatever training he’d been under had ultimately been what took his memories away, but she had never considered that his memory would return.
And certainly not, in part, because of Uilleam.
“It’s okay to miss him,” Isla said gently. “Or both of them, depending on how you feel.”
Karina laughed, wishing that it didn’t feel so much like a chore to admit as much. “Mother would say it’s a weakness.”
But that was the way she looked at most things. What didn’t provide significant value was seen as useless. It didn’t matter whether it was a person or not.
Sentiment didn’t exist for her.
“Weakness isn’t always bad,” Isla said, sounding thoughtful. “It’s what makes us human.”
Karina laughed to herself. Most days, she didn’t feel it. In a way, she felt larger than life sometimes—a byproduct of what she could accomplish when she set her mind to it. It was an oddly troubling thought knowing she could hold someone’s life in the palm of her hand and on a whim, crush it.
Most human beings weren’t capable of that—they didn’t even want to be capable of that.
She certainly shouldn’t have been. It was quite literally the antithesis of everything she had once stood for.
The very reasons she had wanted to become a journalist in the first place—to prevent powerful people from taking advantage of those in a lesser position.
Who had she become?
“He’s yours, isn’t he?” Isla asked, her voice impossibly soft. “Your weakness, I mean. Even after so long?”
They didn’t have to say his name to know who she referred to. Uilleam had always been the unspoken thing between them.
“Weakness or not, I did what I set out to do in the first place.”
Left his business in shambles.
Ruined his name.
And most importantly, she ensured he finally understood why his day of reckoning had come at her hand.
“Yet, you don’t seem happy about it …”
Those seven words managed to make her deflate as a sigh passed her lips. “I always thought I would be.”
She’d anticipated the moment of triumph—of finally winning—yet if this was what it felt like to be on top, she wasn’t sure, even now, it was what she wanted.
She certainly didn’t feel as if she had won anything.
“I think I’m too drunk for this conversation,” Karina added with a laugh, deciding it would probably be best to stop while she was still ahead.
The last thing she needed was to turn into some sort of emotional wreck whe
n no one needed to see that.
Maybe it was time for her to call it a night.
As she stood, readying to leave and crash in the guest room, Isla called out to her, “Are you afraid of losing him?”
At first, Karina wasn’t sure how to respond, but soon realized why she couldn’t come up with an answer. “Haven’t I already?”
4
Allegiances
“If you’re considering how best to kill me without leaving a trace, let’s avoid damaging my face, shall we?”
Uilleam was only half joking as he voiced the request—because no one in the world truly cared how they died when the only thing they wanted was to live—but he also wouldn’t put it past his brother to not be considering it as he approached him quietly from behind.
Truthfully, this had been the moment he’d most anticipated from the moment both Kit and Luna had shown up here at the lake house.
He obviously knew his brother was a touch cross with him after everything that had happened—and the secrets Uilleam had kept—and Uilleam’s way of dealing with it was to avoid it, and his brother, at all costs.
“I don’t believe Luna would be very understanding if I finally decided to end your life.”
This wasn’t said with any sympathy. More as a statement of fact.
He wasn’t surprised.
Kit might have prided himself on being logical, but that also meant he had a tendency to think without personal attachment. Luna had become something of his moral compass.
Kit helped himself to the chair opposite the fire, his gaze out on the lake very much like Uilleam’s was.
For once, there was no undercurrent of animosity lingering in the air, though there were plenty of things left unsaid. The only question now was who would be the one to break the silence between them.
After a minute, Uilleam opened his mouth to speak, but Kit seemed to have a similar idea.
“You should have told me.”
He sighed, scrubbing his hand down his face. “I considered it.”
Dark Horse: The Kingmaker Saga #5 Page 4