If there was a woman standing at the Chancellor’s side, she certainly wasn’t at all what Uilleam had anticipated.
“You’re late,” he said without any heat in his voice.
The woman in question merely smiled and kissed his cheek, leaving behind a red lipstick print he didn’t bother trying to wipe away.
“Elsie, Uilleam, this is—“
“Call me, Bunny,” the woman said, happily sticking her hand out. “Everyone does.”
She was an abundance of energy, and when Uilleam took her proffered hand, he didn’t miss the intensity in the Chancellor’s eyes from the moment their hands connected until he finally released her.
The message was received.
“Bunny is in charge of my affairs at the Obsidian in New York. If there’s anything you need, simply mention it to her and she’ll see to your needs. As I said, I’m happy to be of any assistance,” the Chancellor went on sagely, drumming his fingers on the table. “I have your safe passage to the States as well as rooms in my hotel for you and your men.”
“What guarantee do we have that Uilleam won’t be harmed.”
“Officially? None. I’m not a babysitter,” he said dryly. “If someone is determined to kill him, my safeguards will only do so much. But, the Obsidian not only has state of the art security, but for those that choose to use our accommodations, they’ve all agreed to one main rule.”
“Oh? What’s that?” Uilleam asked, genuinely curious.
“No violence of any sorts is allowed on Obsidian ground.” When they both looked at him in surprise, the man merely shrugged. “You can’t run a successful business if all of your clients are being murdered or maimed.”
Understandable.
“When would you need to arrive?”
“Within twenty-four hours,” Uilleam said, going on further to explain what they were anticipating.
Including his interrupting the party Karina was having celebrating his demise.
The Chancellor stood. “Sounds like we have no time to waste.”
No, they certainly didn’t.
* * *
“What’s on your mind?”
Uilleam was pulled from his thoughts as he and Elsie rode back to her home.
“I’m curious,” he said after a moment, “how this all ends.”
“You shouldn’t worry yourself. If things don’t work out the way we want, we still won’t allow you to stay in prison.”
Was it wrong that that wasn’t what he’d been thinking about at all? Even as the thought of a trial was daunting—as well as whatever evidence would be presented to make their case—it didn’t compare to his thoughts on Karina.
Really, she was the only thing he could think about. He couldn’t begin to know how she felt about him now beyond the residual fury, and even after everything she had done, his feelings for her hadn’t changed.
If anything, it only complicated matters more.
“How do you know when the love is gone?”
Elsie looked at him in surprise. “You won’t know until you know, but if your question pertains to you and Karina ... I have some thoughts.”
“Oh?” he asked in surprise.
He’d anticipated her wanting him to write her off and be done with the relationship entirely.
“I can’t make you any promises, but if she’s anything like I think she is ... by the end of this, you’ll have your answer.”
The only problem now was ... he wasn’t sure he was going to like the answer.
“The road ahead isn’t an easy one, I’m afraid, but it’s necessary—all the hard lessons are.”
Uilleam nodded, looking back out the window.
He didn’t know what to expect when he arrived in New York or what awaited him in the future, but he also knew it was time to stop running from it and face everything head on.
“I’m also not sure I’m the right person to ask,” she answered after a moment of silence.
Uilleam sighed, wondering when he had gotten so sentimental. “Have you never fancied yourself in love?”
She shrugged. “Not particularly. Or at least, not in the traditional sense. Sometimes I wonder if what I feel for you and Kit should even be considered love, or is it more loyalty I feel considering we came from the same tainted legacy.”
Sometimes, he forgot how blunt Elsie could be. But truthfully, he wasn’t entirely surprised by her answer if only because he’d had moments when he had wondered the same.
Their parents had ruined them in so many ways that conventional terms never seemed to apply. Even he was guilty of considering more of what a person had to offer him rather than what he could offer another.
But if no one else, he was rather certain he loved Karina.
It went beyond the fact that he had never felt like this about anyone before—it was how she changed him. The way it felt as if his chest ached when he knew he upset her. Or even the unabashed pride that swarmed him when he saw her smile.
And the fact that despite it all, she was the only one worth changing for. Not because she demanded it of him, but because he wanted to do better by her.
“But we’re not talking about my flawed logic when it comes to that emotion,” Elsie said with a wave of her hand as she closed her book and set it aside. “I’m assuming you’re inquiring about your relationship with the Ashworth girl.”
Uilleam sat back with a sigh, staring ahead at the fire. “I am.”
“Are you questioning whether you love her or—no, that’s not it,” she corrected herself. “It’s obvious you still care a great deal for her despite everything that’s happened.”
Without looking at her, he asked, “Am I so transparent?”
She laughed, though not unkindly. “You’ve come to me for advice. That’s very telling, I’m afraid.”
“It would probably be easier if I hated her,” he mumbled to himself, thinking of all that would need to be done in the coming weeks and months.
“Of course it would, but if you hated her, we wouldn’t be here now, would we?”
No, they probably wouldn’t.
Because if she were anyone else, he would have ordered her assassination a long time ago.
8
Break
Four months later …
Their mouths were moving—orders being shouted, observations noted, and whispers about who was whom in the room.
Karina heard none of it.
She watched the agents with detachment, glad for once that she was able to bury her emotions so deeply within herself her expression no longer mirrored what she was feeling.
The last thing she wanted was for anyone in this room to know she wasn’t pleased as Uilleam was forced onto his feet, or that the man who’d read off the list of charges annoyed her though he hadn’t done anything.
Instead, Karina stood frozen in place as the world carried on around her.
Because for the first time in what like like entirely too long, she didn’t know what to do.
For years, every move she made was a carefully orchestrated attack against the man currently being led out of the room. Not once in all that time had she deviated from her plan or changed her course of action.
No matter how much it hurt.
No matter how abhorrent her actions.
Karina did what needed to be done.
But this ... this was never a part of the plan.
It was one thing to ruin everything Uilleam had built—this was something else entirely.
A hand pressing against the small of her back ripped Karina out of her thoughts, the chaos and noise of the room quickly filtering in.
“We need to go,” Orion whispered, words meant only for her.
It didn’t matter that the agents walking in and out of the room pretended as if they didn’t exist, he wasn’t wrong.
But she wasn’t leaving because she wanted to avoid questions, but rather because she had plenty of her own and she doubted she would find any answers here.
Nodding, she followed him through the rear exit, her Bentley parked in the structure next door. She’d hardly slid into the passenger seat before Orion was looking in her direction.
“What the actual fuck?”
Yeah ... she didn’t have an answer to that question either.
But she would.
Soon.
Very soon.
* * *
“Bella—“
“I want to know who called them,” Karina demanded the moment she stepped off the light onto her office floor.
Her confusion at the FBI’s sudden arrival, as well as the melancholy she’d fallen into over the last several months was all but forgotten, because in the span of time it took for her to get across town, Uilleam’s arrest had leaked everywhere.
“And I want to know how Uilleam is here in New York and no one thought to inform me.”
That was what bothered her most. She hadn’t known he was in the city, let alone the country. Had she expected him to come back? Absolutely. He wouldn’t be the man he was in he hadn’t, but she had always anticipated the intel reaching her the moment he boarded a flight, commercial or otherwise.
The key to Uilleam was knowing his next move and predicting what he would do next.
That was how she stayed ahead, but now it seemed she was one step behind and she didn’t like that.
The poor girl nodded, a phone clutched in her white-knuckled hand.
And seeing her brought a memory forward.
Of a day when she had first learned about what her mother actually did for a living—how her demeanor could shift in an instant.
There had been a time when she had shrank back from Katherine’s intensity, afraid that anything she said would turn the force of it on her.
And now, she was doing the same to someone else.
Clearing her throat, Karina touched a gentle hand to the girl’s shoulder. “Sorry, Madeline. It’s been a long day.”
And she didn’t deserve to bear the brunt of Karina’s frustration. None of this was her fault after all.
The girl seemed surprised by the apology, even as she nodded, making Karina wonder if she had always been something of a tyrant and hadn’t realized it until this moment. She’d known she was hyper focused on getting to Uilleam over the years and making him pay, but until now, she hadn’t considered how she acted toward anyone other than him.
The moment her office door closed behind her, Karina forced herself to draw in a deep breath—to calm herself long enough to finally think clearly.
"Hey." Orion slipped into her office, tucking his hands into his pockets.
He'd been in here enough times to know how to turn on the protective screening that prevented anyone from seeing into her office.
She was grateful for the privacy it afforded her.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said, sweeping his arm around her shoulders. “We all get frustrated sometimes.”
That might have been true, but she couldn’t afford that luxury—not if she wanted to offer a better example.
She was supposed to be better, but now she was starting to wonder whether her vengeance had clouded her vision to the point she hadn’t recognized how she was acting.
“I appreciate you saying that.”
And she did, but it didn’t excuse her actions. She couldn’t let it.
The more she excused bad behavior, the more she would exhibit it.
They hadn’t been in her office for very long before there was a brief but timid knock on the door.
“Come in.”
Madeline looked unsure as she stepped into the office—as if she didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. It seemed only right she sent the girl something to make up for the way she’d been treated.
“I have a source at the FBI and ...”
“Could they tell you who phoned the tip in?”
Madeline cleared her throat delicately, glancing down at her feet. “It was ... well, it was Mother who called them.”
Shock kept her standing there, staring at nothing as her mind raced. She thought of the party and all of its attendees—how her mother had insisted that it needed to happen.
And now, Karina saw it for what it was.
A carefully laid trap meant for one person only.
Her mind elsewhere, Karina grabbed her coat and left.
* * *
Half an hour and plenty of rage later, Karina didn’t think twice before storming into the room, mindful that all conversation came to an end as the doors slammed against the walls, but she was too angry to care.
Her heart was racing in her chest—so fast it felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath—but she couldn’t allow herself to slow down and think about what she was doing. If she did, she would lose her nerve.
And then, what would have been the point?
The only person who didn’t seem remotely bothered by Karina’s sudden entrance was the very woman she had come to see.
Gone was her mother’s casual attire and reasonable heels that she’d been wearing at the celebration party. Instead, she was in a form fitting black dress with matching heels that were as impossibly high as the ones Isla liked to wear.
Her hair was neatly styled into a chignon at the nape of her neck and even her makeup had been reapplied in the short time they had been apart.
The woman seated before her wasn’t the same one she had walked away from earlier.
This was the woman who’d taught Karina how to use men to her advantage.
“My darling daughter,” she said with an affectionate tone, though the emotion didn’t seem to reach her eyes. “You always did know how to make an entrance.”
“I told you I had it under control,” Karina replied immediately, foregoing pleasantries.
The last thing she wanted to do was pretend as if everything was alright—as if what she had done didn’t bother her.
It wasn’t logical, and when Karina herself tried to apply reason to what she was feeling, it didn’t make sense to her either, but she couldn’t erase the way she felt. No matter how much she might have wanted to.
“I can’t say I know what you mean. Perhaps you would like to come back later once you’ve calmed—“
“I AM calm,” Karina snapped, though she sounded anything but even to her own ears. “I told you to leave him alone.”
The subtle change that came over Katherine was almost imperceptible, but Karina had had years of studying her mannerisms to see right through it.
And it became abundantly clear that the more Karina spoke, the angrier her mother was becoming.
“Let us have the room, please.”
Her voice was still perfectly level, cordial even, but that didn’t stop everyone seated in the room from standing, their chairs scraping across the floor, as they rushed to do what she asked.
It wasn’t until they were alone that Katherine finally stood and came around her desk, the sound of her heels clicking on the floor as familiar as the look of disapproval etched on her face.
For a moment, they stood facing one another, mother to daughter—master and apprentice.
Karina opened her mouth to speak once more but before she could utter a sound, pin exploded across her cheek, fire quickly following behind it as it felt as if her face was on fire.
She hadn’t even seen the slap coming, only the moment when Katherine lowered her arm back down.
“Careful how you speak to me, Karina. I am your mother.”
This wasn’t the first time Katherine had done this. Not even the second or third. She might have prided herself on appearances and maintaining a very particular image, but sometimes there were cracks in her foundation.
Cracks that revealed the woman she was beneath the surface—a woman Karina was usually careful to avoid.
It had been ages since the last time she had done something to anger her mother to this point that she resorted to this sort of behavior.
It seemed only appropriate that her need to speak up had eve
rything to do with Uilleam.
“Now,” Katherine said, as if it were Karina acting out of character, “what’s this you’ve come into my office screeching about?”
“Uilleam,” she said without preamble, ignoring the heat in her face, knowing her skin was probably glowing. “You had him arrested.”
Katherine looked at her as if she had grown a second head. “Of course I did. Darling, how much have you had to drink? Surely you saw him interrupting the festivities.”
As if she could have missed him and the way he had stared her down as if they were mortal enemies. Not that she could blame him.
She was the reason that look was in his eye. SHE had sparked that rage.
“You promised you would leave Uilleam to me. That was our deal.”
“And I abided by it,” Katherine said with a wave of her hand. “For years I allowed you to toy with him and play your little games though I would have ended him quite some time ago, but I digress. You had your opportunity to take care of him, and for reasons I cannot fathom, you chose to let him live. It’s clear to me that your heart is too soft.”
Unlike Isla, she didn’t say those words with casual affection, but rather with a certain distaste that told Karina her mother didn’t understand how she could possibly feel anything for Uilleam.
Most days, she didn’t understand it either.
She should have hated him. Hell, a part of her did, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that a very large percentage of her didn’t hate him.
But most days she had to remind herself that it took a great amount of love to hate someone.
9
Interrogate
The metal bracelets bit into his wrists, but Uilleam didn’t complain.
He refused to even speak because he knew his every move was being monitored. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see the cameras or that none of the guards charged with watching him even made eye contact, he knew the procedure.
And arrogance or not, he would be the first to admit that he was a special case.
Dark Horse: The Kingmaker Saga #5 Page 7