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

  Karina jolted, but Uilleam remained at ease, a heavy sigh escaping his mouth as he turned to look over his shoulder.

  Skorpion.

  If the man had any thoughts about seeing the two of them together like this, he kept them to himself. Even his expression didn’t betray him.

  “Five minutes,” Uilleam said.

  Karina busied untangling herself from him and righting her dress, though there was very little she could do for the rest of herself. She didn’t wait to hear Skorpion’s response, already slipping around Uilleam, but his voice paused her in her tracks.

  “If Paxton knew the game I was playing, you wouldn’t be here.”

  There were two ways he could have meant that remark.

  Except she didn’t want to know which.

  11

  Her

  Uilleam breathed out a sigh as he stretched his arms out, shutting his eyes against the world around him.

  There was no place for anger in business—for pettiness, as his brother would describe it—but Kit had always been better at containing his emotions. He, on the other hand, tended to react first without carefully considering what it might cause.

  Perhaps if Paxton had chosen to work with his brother instead, his downfall wouldn’t be imminent.

  If Uilleam were a better man, perhaps he wouldn’t be unraveling every contingency the man had in place to bring him back down to where he had been before Uilleam stepped in and cleaned up after him.

  He wished he could say it was because he wanted justice for the dead woman or even closure for the grieving mother whose interviews were still being played occasionally. But it was neither.

  Paxton had brought this upon himself.

  His fucking hubris.

  He seemed to have forgotten that his disrespect or even perceived slight wouldn’t be tolerated in any form.

  Because if there was one thing to be said about the way he worked, Uilleam worked twice as hard against his enemies than those who sought his aid.

  Now, he had a decision to make.

  One he had been stewing over the past couple of days since he’d last seen Karina. Since he’d last seen the raw emotion on her face, once when she told him she was never backing down and then again after he kissed her.

  If he were honest, he’d known then that he would give her what she wanted, if only because she made him hunger in a way he had never felt before. Like every emotion coming to life inside him was for the first time.

  Even he didn’t understand the animal desire that seemed to be rushing through his veins.

  Footsteps made his eyes pop back open, his gaze landing on Skorpion as he entered the suite, carrying two boxes of chicken that were undoubtedly meant only for him. Uilleam was sure the man consumed at least four thousand calories a day.

  “You’ve got that look,” Skorpion commented dryly before he took a seat on the sofa opposite Uilleam, better facing the television he had muted minutes before.

  “Which one is that?”

  “That you let a man think he had a winning hand only to have reveal an ace up your sleeve.”

  “I’m benevolent to a fault. I give and take whatever I see fit. He should have remembered that before trying to act against me.” His arrogance would cost him. “Besides, I want to ensure Gaspard has a very clear understanding of what I’m capable of.”

  “And you wanna use the journalist for that?” Skorpion asked, popping open the first box. “Doesn’t sound like your usual MO.”

  “That’s because you know I fancy her,” Uilleam returned dryly. “Otherwise, you would think it was ingenious.”

  If Karina was any other woman, it would be as if he was working two jobs at once. Eliminating his Paxton problem while ensuring a journalist was indebted to him who would give anything to advance their career.

  It was brilliant.

  But even he could see the difference in how this was and how it would usually be.

  The field before him wasn’t quite as transparent as he’d like it to be.

  “If anything goes wrong, she’d have to be eliminated. Or are you forgetting that?”

  “I’m not worried about that.”

  He had no reason to.

  She was too curious about him, as he was about her, to reveal his presence or involvement to anyone. And it was also for that reason that he wondered whether her interest in him was purely because of what he did for a living … or if she was interested in him.

  The former, he knew, she understood very little about, but he’d shown her more bits of himself than he had any other person in a long time.

  “Women are fickle creatures but don’t underestimate them.”

  “Though I doubt it, I’ve prepared for that contingency as well.”

  He trusted he’d read her correctly, but he knew that trust could be a blind thing at times. He needed to ensure his own safety no matter what happened.

  “Besides,” Uilleam said, “I thought we’d pay her a little visit today to make a final decision.”

  “Really?” he asked, looking up from the box on his lap. Over the span of their conversation, he’d managed to inhale a breast, both drumsticks, and a wing.

  Remarkable, really. “Of course we can wait until you’re finished with ... all that.”

  “At least there’s that.”

  Uilleam canted his head to one side. “Eating for two, are we?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Before he slid into the passenger seat of his truck, Uilleam had to ensure one important detail before he went any further.

  Though he was more than eager to put Paxton in his place and remind him just who he was up against, there were bigger and far more important deals to be had that were contingent on the way this played out.

  Even now, the conversation he’d had with Gaspard after striking the deal with Paxton.

  “I want to be impressed,” Gaspard had said during the early morning phone call Uilleam had taken while he watched his cleaners get rid of every shred of evidence inside the office.

  He hadn’t mentioned how he wanted to be impressed—which could present a myriad of problems, but it was an issue for another time.

  Which meant, however he proceeded was entirely up to him.

  And since Paxton was making it a point to get on his very last nerve, his method of impressing Gaspard wouldn’t be in the other man’s favor.

  “I can handle her apartment alone,” Uilleam said before Skorpion could step out of the car after him.

  He didn’t mention that some part of him—a part that didn’t entirely sense to him either—wanted to learn more about Karina without anyone else being involved.

  It was one thing to have him research her and report back with his findings. Her apartment was different.

  More intimate.

  A true reflection of the woman he was curious about.

  And while he wasn’t quite sure why yet, he wanted this for himself.

  Skorpion passed him a look of censure but stayed put, turning back to stare out the windshield at the crowded street ahead.

  It was easy enough to slip into Karina’s building behind a woman carrying groceries who was oblivious to who held the door open for her. She merely called back a quick thanks and continued until she reached an apartment down the hall on the first floor without ever looking back.

  Uilleam couldn’t help but survey the building—the peeling paint on the walls and the stairs leading up to the next level that could benefit from a good scrub.

  It was as if he had stepped into a different world.

  Money had never been a thing he needed to worry about, not with his family’s fortune. A fortune that spanned generations and the benefits of Alexander’s criminal enterprises would ensure that even Uilleam’s grandchildren would be born into a life of privilege.

  On the fourth floor, he glanced up at the light bulb that flickered, briefly illuminating the long hallway before shrouding it in darkness once more.

  He stopped in front of
Karina’s apartment, the number 3 staring back at him. First, he checked underneath the welcome mat for a spare key, then along the doorframe, brushing the dust from his fingers off along his trouser leg once he came up empty.

  While Uilleam didn’t make a habit of breaking into residences—he had men for that, after all—he still knew how, courtesy of the brother he hadn’t seen in many years. Kit might not have been around much, but he had shared valuable knowledge that had aided him well over the years.

  Pulling out the pick from his pocket, he carefully inserted it into the lock, counting down the seconds until an audible click sounded and the door sprung open.

  Thirty-two seconds.

  He was a little rusty.

  With one last glance to make sure no one was around to see, Uilleam slipped into the apartment and closed the door behind him.

  Lavender, he thought as he took in the space. That smell had lingered for days after the last time he had been in her presence. He hadn’t been able to place the fragrance the first time they met, nor the second, but now that he was surrounded by her things, he was finally able to pinpoint what it was.

  The apartment was modest—a tan-colored sofa with a plush, muted white throw blanket tossed across the back of it, resting on the edge of an area rug that was as wide as it was long.

  There was no television that he could see, at least not out here in the living room, and if he had to guess from the sheer number of books and papers and assorted things, this was where she spent the majority of her time.

  As Uilleam drank in everything around him, reading book titles and studying the few abstract paintings from department stores hanging on the walls, he tried to get a sense of who Karina was.

  He knew of the tenacious journalist she was—one who would much rather test boundaries than back off from a story she was following—but now, he was curious about the woman.

  And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he was so interested.

  The woman had proven to be a thorn in his side and had yet to back down even though he had threatened her in no uncertain terms. Yet here he stood.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he had been curious about someone enough to warrant this sort of reaction.

  His life had been spent studying others, trying to predict what moves a person would make before the thought ever crossed their mind. He saw what others didn’t want him to see.

  Yet with Karina, it was as if he was staring at a blank canvas, and the image refused to paint itself. This had never happened to him before, and he refused to believe that a junior reporter could prove more of an adversary than some of the men he had crossed paths with over the years.

  Shaking the thought from his mind, Uilleam focused on the task at hand, bypassing the kitchen as he left the living room entirely and found his way into her bedroom.

  Here, the floral scent was stronger.

  In here, it felt as if he was seeing a reflection of the woman who plagued his thoughts.

  White bedding stretched across a queen-size mattress, the duvet tucked in place. The pillows all fluffed and neatly placed. He thought of his own bed in the hotel where he was staying and how the sheets were twisted, the comforter rumpled.

  His mother had always told him that a disorderly bed spoke of a disordered mind, and perhaps she wasn’t wrong in that regard. Because while he was able to do his job without complaint, when he climbed into bed at whatever hour his work finished, he could never get his brain to shut off for very long.

  Thoughts of what came next—whether another client, another deal, or just what he would need to accomplish the following day—plagued him constantly. He’d yet to find anything that calmed him enough to allow him a good night’s sleep in years.

  But at least he now had something that was proving a worthy distraction.

  His mobile chimed with an alert. A text from Skorpion.

  She’s coming up.

  Uilleam checked the time, surprised to find she would be home this early in the day, but even knowing that she was almost upon him, he didn’t rush to leave her apartment. He merely set the picture frame back in place before he walked out of her bedroom.

  He was nearly back in front of the couch when the front door swung open, and there she stood, a vision in a navy blue skirt that fluttered at her knees and a sheer blouse with white polka dots.

  Elegant was always the word that came to mind when he thought of her. Everything about her was unlike any woman he had met in all his years.

  And more curious was the fact that she didn’t appear alarmed at the sight of him standing in her apartment.

  “I thought you’d send the other one instead of coming yourself,” she said, pushing the door closed but not moving deeper into the apartment. As if she were giving him the semblance that she wasn’t afraid of him but had a way out should she need it.

  “The other one?” he parroted, walking over and sitting in the armchair opposite the window.

  “Your associate? Bodyguard? I’m not quite sure what he is to you.”

  Skorpion, she meant. “How did you know I was here?”

  A smile curled the left edge of her mouth before she tucked dark strands of hair behind her ear, then pointed at her laptop across the room. A detail he had noticed when he came in but dismissed just as quickly, but now that she pointed it out to him, he saw the red light blinking every few seconds.

  A poor man’s security camera.

  “I answered your question,” she said with a slight cant of her head. “If you’d answer mine …”

  “Please,” he offered with a gesture of his hand for her to sit.

  She only hesitated a moment—and he would have paid a fortune to know what she was thinking in that pretty little head of hers—before she crossed the floor and sat, crossing one ankle over the other and folding her hands in her lap.

  Graceful in a way that wasn’t forced.

  “Why are you here?”

  “D’you truly wish to waste time asking questions you already know the answer to? Ask what you don’t know, not what you do.”

  His attempt to get a rise out of her, just to see how she would respond, didn’t work. If anything, while there seemed to be a cutting edge to her gaze now, her smile only grew a little wider.

  “What really happened to Miranda Abernathy?”

  “You believe I harmed that woman?”

  She shook her head. “I believe you know who did.”

  “Interesting. Would you be a dear and turn that off?” he asked with a nod of his head in the direction of her laptop.

  She might have been distracting—from her delicate features, down the hollow of her throat where a pendant rested, and even farther down the long length of her legs—but he wasn’t so distracted to know that he wasn’t still being recorded.

  Something he would need to get rid of in the near future.

  And if she were smart, as he imagined she was, it wasn’t the only thing she was using either.

  “Sure.” She walked over and closed the screen, the scent of her perfume lingering even after she returned to her seat.

  And when she moved to speak again, he cut her off. “And the other, if you’d please.”

  For a moment, he wasn’t sure whether she would deny the existence of the other, but instead of denying his words, she simply reached into the bag at her hip and pulled out a silver tape recorder, making a show of clicking the side button to turn it off and set it on the table between them.

  “Now that it’s just you and me, care to answer?”

  “Again,” he said, tapping his thumb against the armrest. “There’s no point in me answering questions you already know the answers to. It’s terribly boring.”

  “It’s not always about what you know, Mr. Runehart. It’s about what you can prove, but you already know that, don’t you? Otherwise, evidence to Paxton’s involvement in her death would have surfaced by now.”

  She didn’t break eye contact nor fidget when she spoke. She was c
alm, collected, and seemingly ready to catch him in a lie.

  But she wasn’t afraid.

  Not even a little.

  “What is it that you suspect I do, Karina?”

  She blinked when he said her name, a momentary break in her careful expression. She appeared caught off guard, as if now, for the first time, she suspected he saw her.

  “Helping murderers get away with their transgressions, I imagine.”

  He laughed, the sound light and surprised. “You think so little of me.”

  “Correct me where I’m wrong then.”

  He would love to, but there was no fun in telling her everything all at once.

  Not to mention, what she was describing was the very least of what he wanted to be.

  There was still much work left to be done.

  “Nothing is ever so black and white.”

  She shook her head. “It can be.”

  Tapping his thumb against the side of the chair he was sitting in, he rose to his feet and crossed to her, watching the wariness that entered her dark eyes before she dutifully tilted her chin up, refusing to show any fear.

  Was that what he liked about her?

  Her defiance?

  Her ability to stand up to him though she already thought he was capable of monstrous things?

  When he got too close, however, she stood. Not backing down. Not flinching.

  He wanted her.

  He took her face in his hands, his thumb stroking over the softness of her cheek, the curve of her lips, all but feeling the way they parted as she inhaled.

  She was very good at pretending, one of the best he’d seen, but she couldn’t hide the way he affected her.

  Not when her breath stuttered, or the way her pupils ate up every last bit of the beautiful brown of her eyes when he got close.

  No, it wasn’t all fear that kept her entertaining him.

  “You don’t fear me, but you should,” he whispered, holding her gaze. “I would eat you alive.”

  Her smile was too gentle, too soft compared to the heat in her eyes. “You don’t fear monsters. You make monsters fear you.”