But it was nothing compared to the way his gaze shifted over, and he made a series of clicking sounds that sparked the assassin she had come to see to move forward, taking up a post in the corner of the room.
Warning or not from Katherine, however, hadn’t changed his behavior when it came to him. If anything, his attitude had only declined over the last few months, and any chance he got to treat him with less than basic human decency, he leaped at the chance.
“Is there a reason you’re requesting my presence here, or are you trying to annoy me?”
She watched the effect her words had on him, though he did his best not to appear bothered at all. But it was impossible to hide it completely, and the fact that she could so easily get under his skin was telling.
The lot of them were bullies, just waiting for the perfect moment to strike against those weaker than them.
“Your deadline is fast approaching,” he said once she’d settled. “And once it’s up, well …” He shrugged away the last of what he’d been about to say.
But his meaning was clear.
After all, she’d agreed to the demand.
It wasn’t only that she was expected to find someone to take his place here in the facility. She had a deadline.
It was one thing to decide who was worth subjecting this life to … it was something else entirely trying to find that man in enough time to ensure it happened.
As far as she could find, Grimm kept a very low profile even before he’d gone to work with Uilleam and made a home for himself within his organization.
“You’ll have your man.”
Even if she had to go to drastic measures to make sure he did.
As doubt crept in, keeping her awake at night, Karina started to wonder whether they would actually be able to find him in time.
She’d thought that with a name and a face, she would be able to track his movements clearly through the city, but she wasn’t that lucky. It was as if he knew where all the cameras were and how best to avoid them.
“Is it really this hard to find one man, even in a city this big?”
She, for one, didn’t have to remind her sister how small New York could be when it came to the circles they ran in. Surely, someone had to know of the man or where to find him.
“He does work for your lover,” came a new voice that sounded like nails on a chalkboard in her ears. “Surely, you didn’t expect it would be easy.”
Both Karina and Isla turned to find Elias walking into the room, the Italian leather shoes he wore clicking on the polished marble floors.
“What’s it like to so freely offer your opinion when no one has asked for it?” Isla asked, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as she stared at the man thoughtfully.
“I’m merely applying logic where I find none,” he replied, smile so friendly, one might have thought he’d offered a compliment.
Before Isla could reply, Karina cleared her throat, knowing that if she didn’t step in, there was a chance Isla wouldn’t react kindly.
“I’m assuming Mother sent you,” she said calmly, leveling her gaze on him. He’d become something of an errand boy for Katherine since he’d joined their organization.
But unlike the others who had come before him, he was a bit more bold in his approach. He didn’t treat them as extensions of Katherine … but rather subordinates.
Karina wrapped her hair into a messy bun before securing the strands with a ballpoint pen.
It was clear as she stared across the room at the wall of notes she had on display that she’d been looking at this all wrong.
The question she should have been asking herself was: What did Grimm do for Uilleam?
She’d thought he’d been some sort of killer-for-hire, but the description didn’t seem to fit the definition of mercenary.
Not to mention, she had yet to find a picture of them in the same vicinity.
And from what she could find, Grimm didn’t seem the sort to linger too much after a job was done.
So who was he and what did he do?
“You would think he would leave some sort of trail,” she mumbled though no one was around to hear her.
Did that mean he was special in some way?
That was the only question that really needed answering. It felt like the key she needed to find the information that would aid her search.
“I’ve come bearing gifts,” Isla announced as she returned from her trip to the kitchen downstairs.
“I thought you had plans today,” Karina said thoughtfully even as she gratefully accepted the coffee Isla passed her.
“Plans can change,” she said easily, taking a sip from her own cup.
Or maybe it was more that she was concerned. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Oh, consider me more of an interested third party.”
Karina barely hid her smirk. “It’s only been a couple of days.”
“Yes, a couple of days of you sitting in that very spot staring at the same pictures. If I had to guess, you’ve done nothing else.”
Sometimes, she forgot that it was impossible to hide things from Isla, especially when she was under as close scrutiny as she was. She knew Katherine was concerned—that much was obvious, considering the lengths she’d gone to, to have Karina come to London for a spell—but she’d underestimated the level in which her sister would be around.
“I showered this morning,” Karina offered. “That should count for something.”
“Absolutely.” Her tone was indulging. “Now, how far have you gotten?”
She read off from the miscellaneous material she’d collected, that which she’d already shared and more that she hadn’t.
It was as if she were working on a story again. This time, it was just a little more personal.
By the time she finished, Isla had a thoughtful expression on her face.
“Zoran told me once that in the absence of answers, we have to ask more questions. And I think we’ve forgotten the most vital one.”
“What’s that?”
“If Grimm works for Uilleam, and we know that he does, how did Uilleam know the meeting was there that day?”
That …
She didn’t have an answer.
It was a question she hadn’t considered, despite spending so much time searching for the more obvious answers.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin to find the answer to that.”
After all, the only men who might have been able to tell her were all dead by Uilleam’s hand.
“I suspect you know more than you think.”
Karina turned to look at her sister. “How’s that?”
“You spent more than a year with him. I’d say you were probably closer to him than anyone. If someone can say why he does anything, it’d be you.”
She knew him better than anyone.
She knew the way he thought and the way he worked.
How he saw the world and the chess game that laid before him.
And Uilleam, in his own way, had taught her how to play his game. She just needed to think like him.
“Is Zoran available?” she asked, a sudden thought striking her.
“For you, always.”
“Instead of focusing on Grimm, let’s follow Omerti in the days leading up.”
Because that was where she would ultimately find the answer to the unspoken question.
Jordan Omerti wasn’t a hard man to follow.
It became abundantly clear that he wasn’t nearly as careful about his anonymity as Uilleam or his mercenaries were.
And now that she had an idea of what she was looking for, it made it easier for her to cycle through the footage, copying down any license plates of interest and running facial recognition software on anyone who looked in Omerti’s direction.
It was long, tedious work—work that kept her up until the wee hours of the morning and on still. But in the end, after days of doing nothing else, she found what she was looking for.
The
initial meeting.
Seeing Uilleam always felt like a punch to the stomach.
Relief always came first—that he was alive and well.
Then came guilt because as far as he knew—though it hadn’t been the case when this moment had been filmed—she was dead.
And after, always after, came a burning anger that made her forget every emotion that came before it.
This day, it was Skorpion walking alongside him into the building where Omerti had gone in hours earlier. She could tell from his brisk pace and the way he all but snatched the door open, he was upset about something, and if she had to guess, it was because somewhere between their first and last interaction, someone had told him about the upcoming meeting.
Uilleam might have gone in mildly upset, but when he came out minutes later, he’d managed to surpass that.
And this time, she had a rather clear view of his face. Of the lines around his mouth that laid credence to his anger.
Or the way his brows were knitted together and he looked as if he were seconds from going off on anyone who crossed his path.
She saw the rage.
She saw the need for retribution.
She practically saw the moment he made the decision to change both their lives.
Karina pressed her hand to her stomach, trying not to let out the emotions currently climbing up her throat.
She didn’t very much like rabbit holes.
They felt endless and dark. She rather liked knowing where her searches would end, but no matter how often she thought she reached the end, there was always another path to take.
Trying to deconstruct Uilleam’s business was verging on impossible.
She thought she understood what he did as a fixer—that much she could follow along with quite easily. She hadn’t realized, though, just what all he was involved with and how it all intertwined.
Once, she hadn’t understood how he could possibly be as involved as he was, considering the number of strings he was constantly pulling.
Yet the evidence was undeniable.
The only question now was whether he would fall for the bait.
14
Freedom and Punishment
Steam wafted all around her, the bathwater tinted a pretty blue.
Outside the window behind her, the sun had just started to rise, and within just a few short hours, everything would change.
Karina no longer attempted to make sense of what any day would bring. She no longer had any expectations—not after everything that had happened … and all that would.
Drawing in a breath, she dipped beneath the surface of the water, letting the heat lull the worst of her anxiety. There was no point in being afraid now—of being nervous about how this would all end.
Not when the invitation had been accepted, and it was only a matter of time before Grimm and whichever low-level mercenary he’d brought along with him were here in Romania. She didn’t have the luxury to lose herself now.
There was work to be done.
And with that thought in mind, she pushed herself back up, breathing deep as she brushed the long strands of her hair back out of her face.
It was time to face her fears.
With her eyes closed as she let her mind wander, Karina was thankful she wasn’t alone in the back of the Jeep as they headed toward the facility down the winding road through yards of Romanian wilderness.
Zoran, though he probably didn’t know it, was proving to be a worthy distraction with his running commentary on the various ways one could die in a forest. “Bears,” he said as one might mention rain when they were hoping for a sunny day.
Isla, always one to indulge him no matter what he spoke about, asked, “Are bears native to Romania?”
“More so than any other country in the EU.”
Karina smiled to herself, not bothering to ask why he even knew that. In the time she had gotten to know him, it had become quite obvious to her that he knew all sorts of random things that didn’t always make sense.
“Well, as good as you are, I’m sure you could fend one off.”
Karina opened her eyes in time to see the incredulous look on Zoran’s face as it morphed into a glare. “You think I’m going to fight a bear?”
A ghost of a smile formed on Isla’s lips as she shrugged. “D’you remember the Armo twins?”
His expression morphed from astonishment to a look so dry even Karina laughed. “It’s a fucking bear.”
“I thought you’d take it as a compliment,” Isla replied with another shrug as if she didn’t doubt him for a second.
Karina couldn’t decide what she found more amusing—the fact that Zoran looked so incredibly disbelieving, or that her sister didn’t seem to find anything wrong with what she was saying at all.
A few minutes later, the Jeep stopped outside the compound where, for the first time in the months she’d been visiting this place, a number of cars were parked neatly in a row alongside the building. They arrived just in time to see a mature-looking couple being led inside.
Both were clearly moneyed from the sheer amount of jewelry the woman wore to the shiny leather shoes on the man’s feet. Had they been anywhere else, Karina was sure they would have been attending a gala of some sort or an opera in the city—certainly not an unsanctioned fight club that pitted men against each other until one, or the other, could no longer move.
She tried not to think too much about that as they headed inside, following the line of people who had come in before them.
But as soon as they were in the main room where the fights would commence, everyone else seemed to disappear around her as she searched through more than a dozen faces, categorizing and dismissing as quickly as she went.
It didn’t matter that many of the people in attendance had more money than they could ever spend and more power than they deserved. None of them mattered to her at the moment.
She was too focused on …
Him.
Karina jolted the moment she saw him, casually hanging on the other side of the room, a slightly shorter but muscled man standing to his right. He didn’t notice her. His gaze never ventured in her direction even.
But she certainly noticed him.
And now that she knew he was here, she couldn’t take her eyes off him or the way it felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath.
Karina had been uncertain in the days leading up to now whether Grimm would actually show his face—the invitation advertising the fight might have been addressed to him, but there was no guarantee that another of the Den wouldn’t have come in his place. Zachariah, from what she understood, could have very well assigned it to someone else.
But now, she was lucky because he was here in the flesh with no idea that his world was about to fall out from under him. Just as hers had all those years ago.
She watched as Grimm turned, his lips moving though she couldn’t make out what he was saying, but when he turned to leave, Karina moved to follow.
“Wait,” Isla said, gripping her arm. “Where are you—”
“He can’t leave,” Karina said, refusing to take her eyes off him.
He couldn’t.
Not because her vengeance hadn’t been meted out, but because if he did, the man she had come to free would be subjected to this place for the rest of his life.
She couldn’t risk it.
And when she was determined to leave, even Isla couldn’t stop her as she swept through the crowd and out the side door, following the path he would have to take if he’d come out of the door on his side of the room.
Karina could think of nothing else as she hurried down that hallway, mindful of the stares the guards sent in her direction. They might have had strict orders not to lay a finger on her, but she didn’t imagine that the moment she did something even remotely wrong, those orders would go right out the window.
Her thoughts were longing back and forth until she rounded the corner and saw him—a heavy-looking phone to his ear as he relayed w
here he was to whoever was on the other line.
It wasn’t Uilleam even as the thought made a ball of emotion form in her throat. His expression was too open, his words almost … caring.
But it was certainly not someone he wanted anyone to know about, considering the way he quickly ended the call when he found her staring at him.
She waited on bated breath for that moment of clarity—for recognition to cloud his gaze—but it never came.
She was virtually a stranger.
And with that realization came an acute fissure in her chest that felt very much like something was breaking.
He didn’t know who she was.
She hated him for that.
“Ah, the man of the hour,” a voice called out as the director emerged from around the corner.
But while Grimm might not have worried about her presence near him, he wasn’t as easy around the director.
“It’s about time we prepare him,” the director said with a clap of his hands.
She saw it—that dawning realization that things weren’t what they seemed. But it was far too late for him to fight the inevitable now. The moment he thought to turn and run, the guard closest to him pulled out what looked like a cattle prod and left him unconscious within seconds.
She watched every second of the men coming forward to lift him up, carrying him toward the pit of scorched earth and broken concrete. No one spoke a word as they completed their task. This was a common occurrence, she thought.
This wasn’t anything new to them.
But for a long while, she remained standing there, staring off into the direction he’d gone because none of it made any sense.
He hadn’t even blinked when he saw her.
There had been no regret to express because he hadn’t even known it was her he’d shot that day.
And oh how quickly that skewed the moral line inside her. When the good-natured part of her might have accepted an apology or some act of contrition—she would have shifted her anger away from him and to the man who it truly belonged to.
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