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

  To anyone else, those words wouldn’t mean anything at all, but to her, they meant everything. They brought her back to a time when she had been particularly nervous about talking alone with her mother.

  Even now, she could remember the many occasions when she had stood afraid outside of Mother’s office, chewing on her nails as she contemplated running away so she wouldn’t have to face whatever mood Katherine was in, but Isla had always been there to take her hand and do very much what she was doing now.

  Calming her. Reassuring her.

  Everything would be fine, no matter what happened.

  These meetings, and the ill feelings that usually came with them, would only ever last a moment.

  “Call me once you’re finished.”

  Karina could only nod before she climbed out of the car, smoothing the front of her skirt as she stepped up onto the sidewalk and smiled at the doorman who gave her a short bow and gestured for her to go on inside.

  She stopped by the front desk and picked up the key she’d known would be waiting for her, eyeing the room number written across the back of it in black Sharpie. She rode the elevator up to the third floor, drawing in a much-needed breath as the doors slid open and she stepped out into the brightly lit hallway.

  All of the doors on this floor had Do Not Disturb door hangers fastened to the doorknobs with the exception of room 394.

  Though she already had a key card and needed only to press it against the sensor to let herself inside, Karina still found herself hesitating all the same.

  A moment, she reminded herself. It’ll only last a moment.

  Reluctantly, she pressed the key card against the electronic pad, then waited for the green light to flicker before she pushed the door handle down and shouldered the door open.

  It amazed her still how quickly she reverted to the little girl she had once been. One that had desperately hoped for her mother’s approval.

  She’d always thought of herself as the good daughter. The one Mother didn’t have to worry about or clean up after. She did what she was told, when she was told. Unlike Isla, who had a tendency to rebel when the mood struck her.

  Except this—her new place here in New York—was a small act of rebellion.

  If Mother had had her way, she wouldn’t be here at all.

  “A fresh pot of tea would be lovely, thank you,” came a voice from across the room. The soft, elegant prose as distinctive as it was deceptively friendly.

  Just hearing her made Karina stand a little straighter, her shoulder going back a fraction.

  “Mother.”

  Slowly, as if she hadn’t a clue that Karina would be popping up today—as if she hadn’t specifically requested her to—Katherine Ashworth turned on her more moderate heels, her lips only curving the slightest bit as she smiled. She looked younger than she actually was, her blond hair well maintained without a gray hair in sight, but Botox had always done wonders for her, even if it meant making it impossible to read her.

  “Darling, it’s so good to see you. I was afraid you wouldn’t have time to see me.”

  Karina’s smile felt brittle even as she forced one onto her face. “Of course. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

  Because Katherine would have made her life a living hell if she hadn’t.

  The bellhop she had been speaking to excused himself and left the room so quickly, Karina hardly had a chance to see the poor boy’s face, but if his haste was any indication, she wasn’t the only one dying to get away from her.

  “How are you, Mother?” she asked, accepting Katherine’s embrace, pressing her cheek to either side of her face so as not to ruin her lipstick.

  “Better now that I see you’re not involved in that unfortunate incident in Paris.”

  Whatever doubt that had existed in her about what this meeting would be about fled at those words, and before she could check the impulse, she found herself asking, “You know about Paris?”

  Her smile was a bit more indulgent now. “Surely, you know it’s my duty to know what’s happening in your life.”

  Once, she had thought it was sign that Katherine loved her. That she cared. The other girls at boarding school had always complained that their mothers didn’t ask about their studies or how their time was when they were away from home.

  They were too busy, they’d say, being the perfect housewife.

  They all had loved the idea that Katherine wanted to know the sort of friends Karina made. Who their families were. The connections they had … the last, of which, was never spoken aloud.

  They didn’t understand the burden there.

  “What have you heard?” she asked, unable to keep her emotions in check long enough to pretend she didn’t really care about the answer.

  The only thing she could think about was Uilleam and whether or not he was okay.

  “Oh, just this and that. Come and sit. Let’s catch up. I’m sure you have loads you’d like to fill me in on.”

  The remark might have been uttered politely, but Katherine’s gaze was a little sharp as she led her over to the settee by the fire and patted the cushion beside her. This conversation had been inevitable, but that didn’t mean she was going to enjoy having it.

  “Where would—”

  “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?”

  Karina swallowed past the knot in her throat and told her, in the simplest of terms while lacking crucial details, how she had come across Uilleam and their time together. She didn’t mind, so much, the details of the game they played or how Paxton had ultimately ended up in prison awaiting his trial, but once she got closer to the end and the invitation to Paris, she trailed off, leaving her to fill in her own details.

  But Katherine was a clever woman and able to read between the lines far better than anyone she knew. “Oh, sweetheart. You were supposed to use this opportunity to learn, not do something as foolish as falling in love. Have you forgotten everything I’ve taught you?”

  A retort sat on the tip of her tongue about how she wasn’t in love with him—that it was too soon for a feeling as strong as that—but the rest of what she was saying finally processed inside her mind.

  The implications behind them. “What does that mean, exactly? This opportunity?”

  Katherine folded her hands in her lap, her nude nails matching the shade of her heels. “You didn’t truly believe it was a mere coincidence that you happened to stumble upon him, did you? Had I not given you a nudge, you would have still been writing enlightening articles about what socialite is screwing whom.”

  That quickly, her mind took her back to that day when she’d gotten the phone call—the one that had made her wonder about Uilleam and just what he did. Before he’d ever had a name.

  The voice hadn’t been familiar—she would have recognized Katherine’s voice straight away—nor was it one she thought she had ever heard before or since, but with Katherine’s connections, she could have easily paid the person to call and pass on the information.

  Karina hadn’t doubted the caller for a second.

  “It was you then who told Camilla to let me have that case,” she said, speaking the truth aloud to help her brain catch up with all that was being revealed. “You wanted me to meet him.”

  “Don’t misunderstand, darling. You were doing quite well on your own, but our window was short. I couldn’t afford another six months of waiting.”

  Because had she not looked into that first case, she would have never made the connection between Uilleam and Paxton. And this, all of it, would have turned out vastly different.

  “Besides,” Katherine went on, seeming oblivious to Karina’s sinking mood. “Had I not helped things along, you wouldn’t have been able to get close to him at all, would you?”

  She was shaking her head before her mother could even finish. “It was never about his business.”

  “I’m aware. That was your first mistake,” Katherine returned sharply, his tone dripping with disapproval.

 
But she couldn’t focus on that.

  All her brain seemed to be able to process was the fact that without her mother, she and Uilleam would have never crossed paths.

  She would have never pushed as hard against Paxton because she wouldn’t have thought for a second that someone else had been involved. That someone else had been pulling the strings.

  Just as Katherine had been pulling hers.

  “So what was this?” she asked, furious that her voice was shaking there at the end. “Why did you want me to meet him?”

  “Because I have a job for you.”

  No other words had ever filled her with quite as much dread as those did.

  More than anything, she hated being manipulated by those who proclaimed to love her. Which was why Isla always, no matter how it might make her feel, told her the truth.

  It was also why Katherine told only lies.

  “I never told you I wanted to work for you,” Karina said as she climbed to her feet. Needing to do something. Pacing the floor was a welcome alternative to what she really wanted.

  “You’re an Ashworth, Karina. Don’t be silly.”

  You’re an Ashworth, she said, as if the name itself led credence to inevitability. As if she had always been destined to be the creature Katherine had wanted her to be.

  Men liked to call women like her black widows.

  Other times, something a little more derogatory.

  That was what Katherine had wanted from her.

  Nothing as honest as a journalist for an American paper—helping innocents get justice and ensuring the guilty paid for their crimes.

  While Katherine didn’t mind the latter so much, she didn’t just want the men of her choosing to lose it all. She wanted to be the one to gain what they had lost.

  “Oh, do sit down, dear. Our tea has almost arrived.”

  “Why?” Karina asked, ignoring her demand. “Why him? Why Uilleam?”

  But when Katherine issued a demand, she expected it to be followed.

  Only when Karina moved to reclaim her seat did she speak again.

  “Your sister always said you were a bit young,” Katherine said with a mild shake of her head, “that you weren’t ready to do what we did. I had to remind her that she was seventeen the first time I sent her on an assignment. Now, look how well she’s doing.”

  Karina didn’t have a response to that, but she did wonder about that conversation. Isla had never told her a word of it.

  “I didn’t anticipate that you would fall in love with the first man you met.”

  Then she couldn’t have known Uilleam, Karina thought, even as her stomach twisted.

  Because how could she not …

  “It was because of her that I even allowed you to come here and pursue this little hobby of yours. I thought once you realized how ridiculous you were being, you would see the error in your judgment and finally accept your place in the family.”

  She paused as a knock sounded at the door, a butler entering with a cart topped with a pot of tea, saucers, and little sandwiches cut into triangles.

  Only once she was gone again did Katherine continue. “I just wanted you to have a little taste of what it felt like. The Runehart boy should have been easily dealt with. Sure, he’s amassed a bit of respect and power amongst the right circles, but nothing I couldn’t get rid of with a snap of my fingers. But somehow, you, my dearest daughter, managed to fuck that up.”

  Karina flinched, squeezing her hands together as she looked away from Katherine and down to her lap.

  “Instead of coming to me, as you were taught, or even your sister, you somehow made him more powerful than he already was. You turned him into something … something—” She gestured with her hand, seeming unable to find the right word.

  But Karina knew exactly what she couldn’t say. “The Kingmaker. I turned him into a kingmaker.”

  In many ways, she had birthed this new identity of his.

  “Ah, yes. The title you gave him. Have you forgotten that words have power, Karina?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” she whispered, more truthful than she realized.

  She hadn’t been thinking about anything other than Uilleam. Of how he would respond when he saw it.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she said, ignoring her last question. “He’s gone.”

  “Licking his wounds, no doubt. Gaspard did do quite a number on him.”

  That quickly, her head jerked up and she stared at her mother as Katherine poured her tea the way she liked before plucking one of the sandwiches from the plate and biting into it. “Did something happen to him?”

  “Powerful men don’t reach their position unscathed. You’d do well to remember that.”

  Those words went in one ear and out the other. “Where is he?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Yes, she wanted to say. The affirmation right there, needing only to be spoken, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “What happens now?” she asked instead.

  There was, after all, a reason Katherine had made an appearance here in New York. And she knew, even before she heard her answer, that she wasn’t going to like what she said.

  “Now,” Katherine said, her gaze moving to her, “you make a choice. Are you going to choose him or your family?”

  A question with an impossible answer.

  36

  Awake

  If Uilleam could remove his useless ribs without consequence, he would dig the fucking things out of his chest with his bare hands. It would undoubtedly feel better than the hell he was already suffering with them still in.

  Every breath was a chore and brought a new wave of pain whenever his lungs inflated.

  If that had been the only thing that hurt on him, he might have suffered in silence, but every inch of him felt like an open wound refusing to heal.

  Ever since he had come to in the back of a racing ambulance, his head thick with fog and his nerve endings alight with agony, the only thing he had wanted to do was pass out again. At least he knew he wasn’t dead.

  Death wouldn’t hurt this much.

  Gritting his teeth, he planted his hands on either side of his body and forced himself into a sitting position, the pain nearly too great to ignore. But if he gave into it now, he would stay vulnerable, and that was the last thing he needed after Gaspard’s attempt on his life.

  Fucking Gaspard.

  He’d known the man was bold. He hadn’t gotten to his position in life without being willing to cross a number of lines to get what he wanted, but Uilleam hadn’t actually expected the man to do this.

  This was beyond bold—he was declaring war.

  And when there was war, others came out wanting their pound of flesh.

  Not that he blamed them. He was an equal opportunity offender, and if he had been standing on the other side of this, he would have done the absolute same and not thought twice about it.

  But even as he understood their motivations, he had also made sure word had gotten out that should anyone attempt anything against him, his retaliation would be swift and undeniable.

  Whether on bed rest or not, he was not a man to be fucked with.

  A knock sounded at the door, distracting him from his thoughts long enough that he could finally sit up the rest of the way and rest his back against the plush headboard. He might have had to clutch at his ribs and a hiss spilled from him as he attempted to move again, but at least he was upright.

  A nurse in light blue scrubs entered the room, her dark hair tied up in a bun. She wasn’t one he was familiar with, but if she was here, Katt—the doctor he kept on his payroll for occasions such as this—trusted her.

  And that assurance, for the moment, was all he needed.

  “Good evening, Mr. Runehart. I’m Rebecca, and I’m assisting Dr. Katt. It’s good to see you’re awake. I’ll need to change your bandages, but I’ll save that for after I check your vitals.”

  He sat through her ministrations without complaint, hi
s gaze riveted to the mirror across the room. She was proficient at her job, doing her best not to cause him any pain, but even as careful as she was, he could feel every second of her unwinding the bandage wrap from around his torso.

  It was one thing to feel the pain, but it was something else entirely to see the reflection of it.

  He was a mess of bruises, so much so that it looked as if he was still suffering from internal bleeding with how purple his side was. The very edges had faded the tiniest bit, and even a spot beneath his collarbone was a muted shade of yellow.

  He looked like roadkill and felt like it too.

  Before he could let the sight of himself send him spiraling, his mind shifted to another direction—one that was less painful.

  One that actually brought him some semblance of peace.

  Of balance.

  Karina.

  She was safe, that much he’d ensured before Katt had drugged him long enough to fix the damage Gaspard had wrought. But even as he knew she was back in New York and out of harm’s way—Skorpion had made sure of this—the fact that he couldn’t see her made his chest feel tighter than it already did.

  He wanted, no needed, to see for himself. To at least explain his sudden and unexpected absence.

  But that was a liability he couldn’t afford to risk.

  Not to mention, after he’d woke up in this room, Skorpion had taken away each of his phones and only ever relayed his messages—though never any from Karina. He was sure from the way the man avoided bringing her name up at all that she had called at least once.

  Safety precaution, he’d said.

  As soon as he was able to move without feeling as if he would keel over with every step, he would put an end to that.

  “Where’s Katt?” he asked as she pulled the blood pressure cuff from his arm and stepped away from him.

  “Speaking with your security,” she said with a slight nod of her head toward the door. “I’ll let him know you’re awake.”

  She snapped her gloves off, tossing them into a wastebasket as she left the room. With the door slightly ajar, he could just make out her shadow, and the others that lingered there, even before soft voices carried.