White Rabbit: The Rise (The Kingmaker Saga Book 1) Page 27

  That was the rub about dealing with men who had more money than they would ever be able to spend. Whatever they wanted, they could usually get themselves.

  “I suggest you start looking,” Carmelo said with a rap of his knuckles against the arm of his chair. “Your deadline is here.”

  Yeah … as if he needed the reminder.

  “Word of caution,” he said lifting a finger into the air. “Don’t ever think Gaspard isn’t plotting against you … Snakes are very well hidden.”

  32

  Ciao

  She was in over her head.

  It was the only thing Karina could think about after he had disappeared into a back office with the Italian crime boss, leaving her sitting with his wife.

  Aurora had the glamorous appeal of a well-kept woman, but something about the way she sat with her spine straight and hands gently folded in her lap that made Karina think she wasn’t just arm candy.

  She was certainly more than that.

  “I hope you’re staying for dinner?” Aurora asked once they were alone again, her arched brows going up expectantly.

  Considering he had packed a bag for them before they left Paris, she could guess they were. “Absolutely.”

  “Perhaps you would like to help me. When those two are alone, it’ll be a while before they come out.”

  Aurora had the sort of kitchen she had always dreamed of having for herself. Quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances, and the sort of rustic appeal that could only be found in Italian villas.

  Two pots were already simmering on the stove, the scent of herbs and tomatoes nearly as mouthwatering as the sight of the sauce itself.

  Aurora moved effortlessly around, grabbing an apron that wrapped around her waist from a hook on the pantry door, then going over to the garden sink to wash her hands. Karina found it fascinating to watching her sink into her task, grabbing a platter from the refrigerator, as well a package of what looked like some sort of dough.

  Katherine had never been much of a cook. That was one of the few places her strengths didn’t lie. Her second husband—the man who’d entered her life once her father was gone—had found it endearing that she couldn’t cook. Trying in vain to teach her, he had even gone as far as to hire a chef to come in to teach her.

  She had always willingly went along with it, though her skills never improved. But she had smiled through it, poking fun at her own shortcomings—performing my duties, she had told Karina years after—when, after several years, she was just as helpless as she had always been.

  Besides, Katherine was the sort who would much rather pay the best to eat their food than whatever she could manage.

  Karina, on the other hand, loved being in the kitchen—though she had been turning to takeout far too often lately. She enjoyed finding and testing new recipes, but it wasn’t as much fun when she was cooking for herself. And as that thought crossed her mind, her treacherous heart immediately skipped a beat at the idea of cooking for Uilleam.

  “How did you two meet?” Aurora asked, her voice soft but curious.

  Her interview, Karina thought. These people were close to Uilleam, that much she had known already, but if he was bringing her here, there was a sign in that, she thought. They would want to know more about her and what she meant to him. Before yesterday, she would have said that they were just two strangers who happened upon each other.

  But now … now she wasn’t so sure.

  Even beyond what she suspected her mother had done, there was still the little matter of how she and Uilleam had met that wasn’t exactly conventional.

  She even found herself clearing her throat before she murmured a quick, detail-less account of how they had ultimately crossed paths. She didn’t mind mentioning that she was an investigative journalist, figuring Uilleam might have mentioned it well before he brought her here.

  It was interesting to see the way her lips quirked as if she found that detail charming, and Karina couldn’t help but wonder what she really thought, but she didn’t comment on that bit of information.

  “And now you’re here with him in Paris,” she said.

  Though not a question outright, Karina could hear what she wasn’t asking. Why was she here now, considering where they had started? “He’s … well, he’s Uilleam.”

  “And he’s almost impossible to say no to?” Aurora guessed. “He got that from his mother. There wasn’t anything that woman couldn’t get her hands on if she really wanted it.”

  Karina filed that information away. The way she spoke in the past tense made her think Uilleam’s mother either wasn’t in the picture anymore, or she had passed away. And if it was the latter, she wondered when it had happened. How had Uilleam taken it …

  In the short time they had spent together, he hadn’t mentioned much about his family. Yet he had brought her here. It felt as if she knew so much about him, so much so that she thought she knew him, but then there were these little reminders that she didn’t really know anything about him.

  That he was still virtually a stranger.

  “Outside of us, I don’t think there are very many others who are willing to tell him no. His brother, Kit—”

  “He has a brother?” Karina asked, the question out of her mouth before she could think to swallow it.

  Isla hadn’t thought to mention him, though now that she thought about it, she hadn’t mentioned any of his family other than the father who had once been over the family empire. Had she done that on purpose?

  “Ah, don’t worry,” Aurora said, mistaking her surprise. “The two of them go through bouts where they stop speaking. This is probably just one of their off seasons. One day, it will feel as if he doesn’t have anyone at all, and then the next, it’ll be as if the pair of them had never gone a day without speaking. Siblings, you understand.”

  “Yeah,” she said with a light laugh. “I do.”

  “Mmm.”

  Karina didn’t realize, until that moment, that she had revealed something about herself that could very well get back to Uilleam. Aurora wouldn’t know that she hadn’t mentioned having a sibling to Uilleam, and they didn’t have the sort of relationship where she could ask her to lie on her behalf.

  But Aurora didn’t mention her slip.

  “He’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met,” she said softly, pausing over the dough she was meant to be rolling, but whenever she thought of Uilleam, she always grew contemplative.

  “Don’t worry,” Aurora said as she wiped her hands off on a dish towel. “She hasn’t shared any of your secrets.”

  Karina looked over her shoulder to find Uilleam leaning against the doorframe at the edge of the kitchen, a soft expression on his flawless face. He couldn’t have been standing there long, but it was also clear he’d heard what she had said about him.

  “Would you mind if I stole her for a moment?” he asked, already walking toward her.

  “Of course, dinner should be ready in twenty minutes.”

  “I’ll have her back by then, I promise. She’s a bit anal about everyone being at the table before anyone eats,” Uilleam explained once they stepped outside into the garden.

  Karina tried to remember the last time she, Isla, and their mother had attempted to sit down for a meal together. “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Things are going to get a bit … complicated,” he said as he looked down at her, his expression more strained now. There was something he wasn’t telling her, or rather, there was something he wasn’t quite ready to say.

  “Because of your thing with Gaspard?” she asked.

  “It’s … well—”

  “Complicated?” she finished for him.

  “Precisely.”

  “You’ll never be in implicit danger,” he said, sounding as if she had questioned him about it. As if she were the one who was nervous.

  But to her surprise, she wasn’t. And even she didn’t know why.

  The only thing she did know was that she trusted whatever Uilleam had planned
. She had seen firsthand what he was capable of when he set his mind to something.

  “I trust you,” she said a moment later, smiling at the disbelieving laugh that fell from his lips.

  “Do you really?”

  “In this, of course.”

  She didn’t doubt for a second that Uilleam could get anything he wanted. She found it wasn’t very easy to go against him.

  Even she hadn’t.

  He took her hand then, kissing the back of her knuckles. “Should be fun then.”

  This thing between them could never work, and Isla had said as much.

  And considering they stood on two very opposite sides of the spectrum, she couldn’t imagine what would become of them.

  Either it was going to be the most amazing experience of her life.

  Or he would ruin her.

  And she didn’t think she would ever recover from that.

  The journey back to Paris was a quiet one.

  She couldn’t say what had Uilleam quiet and staring off into the distance, but her thoughts were occupied by him and everything she had learned over the past forty-eight hours.

  She’d always been curious about what he did and how he did it, but that curiosity felt a bit tainted now that she knew what she did.

  That her own mother considered him a target.

  It was one thing to know he was powerful. Of course it was all impressive to her because she had never met a man like him before.

  She doubted she ever would again.

  But even what she knew had to pale in comparison to what she didn’t know. Otherwise, her mother wouldn’t be interested in him. His name wouldn’t be listed in a black ledger that she kept on her person at all times.

  Tomorrow was the day of reckoning. A day Uilleam had been working toward for longer than she’d known him.

  A day that would, arguably, make him one of the most powerful men in the world.

  And she knew, even as she glanced over at him before reaching to tuck his hand into hers, that once he did, there would be another enemy on his hands.

  An enemy she could never, ever tell him about.

  Because it wouldn’t just disrupt this thing between them.

  It would change everything.

  33

  Abyss

  He’d been waiting his entire life for this.

  For as long as he could remember, Uilleam had always wanted to be powerful. What had started as a mere thought bloomed into something even he had a hard time truly explaining.

  He knew why, of course—he was a product of his father’s making, after all—but as the years passed and he grew to be in the position he was in now, only one goal had been left to achieve.

  And securing a position with the Coalition would make that a reality.

  Sure, surpassing his father was a reward within itself, but he was far more eager to cement his place within the criminal underworld. And by the time he was finished, they would all know his name.

  He heard the whispers and rumors. The way he was avoided unless the person was in dire straits.

  But for a man like Uilleam, it wasn’t enough.

  He wanted their fear and willing obedience.

  He wanted them all to quake at the mere mention of him

  His name was already revered—while a new one rose on the heels of it—but what he was trying to accomplish today … this, his seat at the table, would create a legacy.

  One last little test stood between him and victory.

  He’d met with each member of the Coalition individually, ensured he’d given them ample evidence as to why he would make a worthy addition to the organization, and now today was his last meeting.

  An initiation, of sorts.

  One where he would meet with them all as a collective to hear their final decision. He expected it to be more of a formality and not too involved.

  This final meeting between him and the six standing members of the Coalition had come because of his blood, sweat, and tears. His hunger for more.

  He wouldn’t be leaving that room until he had everything he wanted.

  “You’re not even a little worried?” Karina asked from her position in the bed, staring at him with an inquisitive expression.

  She tried to hide it, but he could see the worry she felt, and even though he knew it was unwarranted, he could still understand why she might have been nervous about what the day would bring.

  “Why should I be?” he asked, finishing with the knot in his tie before turning to face her. “What’s there to be concerned about?”

  “Well … Gaspard,” she replied rather bluntly. “I don’t know him as well as you do, but anyone can see that he isn’t fond of you.”

  That was putting it nicely.

  Uilleam would be the first to say the man undoubtedly hated him.

  That wouldn’t change the outcome of this day.

  “His bark is vicious but little else.”

  He wasn’t the sort to get his hands dirty. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t had a few men killed in his lifetime—inevitable in their line of work—but he didn’t often make a habit of it.

  She shook her head, her hair shaking with the movement. “My mother always said never underestimate a man’s hatred—especially the ones who can still smile in your face.”

  His brows shot up as he turned to fully look at her. In all their time together, he didn’t think he had ever heard her discuss her family or where she had grown up. Sure, he had what little Skorpion could find outside of her biography on the paper’s website, but he hadn’t gotten anything from her.

  And now that he thought about it, he hadn’t actually asked either.

  More curious was the fact that he wanted to know more about her, and not because he enjoyed learning others’ secrets. He wanted to know about the woman herself.

  Who she was beyond what he already knew.

  Where she had come from.

  He wanted everything.

  And once this was done, he would have all the time in the world to learn everything there was to know about Karina Ashworth.

  “Smart woman, your mother.”

  If he’d turned back to the mirror a moment sooner, he might have missed the way her expression seemed to freeze on her face, or the way her gaze dropped to her lap, but he didn’t understand what she needed to be shy about.

  He wouldn’t judge or think her less than because she hadn’t grown up the way he did.

  Sometimes, he wondered if he would be a different man had he not been raised under a tyrant’s hand.

  Karina cleared her throat as she sat up a little further, holding the sheet to her chest, the dainty gold necklace he had given her the other night still hanging around her slender neck.

  “Just be careful,” she said after a moment. “I don’t think he would want you to be a part of … whatever this is if he had a choice.”

  No, he certainly wouldn’t.

  But it wasn’t entirely up to him.

  No one in the history of the Coalition’s formation had ever been voted in unanimously. As long as the majority agreed, that was all that mattered.

  Except … Uilleam would be the closest. There was only one vote he hadn’t been able to guarantee, and that was Gaspard’s. The others he had met or spoken with individually as he’d prepared for this day over the past couple of years.

  He knew, at the very least, he had their backing.

  Which, undoubtedly, made Gaspard despise him more. Because they all knew, though it would never be said aloud, that had Uilleam been anyone else, Gaspard would have happily agreed to allow him entry.

  He was only denying him now out of spite.

  Which meant he had also succeeded in something even Gaspard hadn’t been able to accomplish.

  The thought brought a smile to his face.

  He leaned over her, his palms sinking into the bed on either side of her. “I like to think you’re my good luck charm,” he whispered with a smile, enjoying the faint scent of her perfume th
at lingered on her skin.

  She smiled lightly, fingering his tie. “If you make it out of this okay, I might actually believe you.”

  He pressed his lips to her forehead. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

  She shook her head, her expression turning surprisingly serious. “Someone has to, I think.”

  He could see she meant that—it was written all over her face. He found her concern endearing and … cute, if only because he knew it was unwarranted.

  She wasn’t used to the life he lived and the various meetings he attended, the majority of which ended in one way.

  No matter the obstacles—no matter how impossible the odds—he always ended on top.

  Uilleam made sure of it.

  “When this is done, I have a surprise for you.”

  That seemed to lighten her mood. “You’re full of them.”

  For her, he could. “I’ll call you when I’m on my way back.”

  “Play nice with the others,” she whispered against his lips.

  He could practically feel the smile forming even before she pulled back and he was graced with the beauty of it. “There are some deals I can’t make, poppet.”

  “Watch Gaspard,” she called after him, making him pause when he was nearly out the door. “I don’t trust him.”

  Neither did he, but he didn’t bother to voice that thought aloud.

  Thick gray clouds hung heavy in the early morning sky, briefly obscuring the white glow of the sunlight.

  But even as snow was promised, it was still a beautiful day, and though it might have been wishful thinking on his part, he thought it reflected what this day would bring.

  “I still think you should have worn the vest.”

  It was the second time in the half hour they had been in the truck that Skorpion had made that remark. Unlike himself, his mercenary was wearing a bulletproof vest over his T-shirt, and probably had enough weaponry on his person to make him a one-man army.

  But that wasn’t the sort of message he wanted to send to Gaspard.

  He wanted the other man to know he wasn’t afraid—that he didn’t think Gaspard had the balls to try to act against him.