What had started as an experiment had turned into something else along the way. While she might have been curious about how belladonna was grown, she hadn’t expected to succeed in cultivating it in her own garden. Nor had she thought they would bloom so well next to the other dark and poisonous flowers in her new collection.
Considering the story she had been following with Uilleam in the very beginning, it seemed only fitting that she have an affinity for it now.
“Fortunately, I have an antidote for you.”
Twenty minutes passed as they rode in silence, just enough time for her to work through the worst of her anger—but it was still there, she acknowledged.
And for once, it didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
It just lingered at the back of her mind, ready to be called forth at the slightest provocation. But she couldn’t bring herself to mind.
Not when she was finally being heard.
There was no turning back from the path she found herself on. Too much had been lost, so much had been sacrificed, and in the end, it would all mean nothing if the man at the center of it all hadn’t learned the error of his ways.
Chance, who hadn’t drunk any of the wine, seemed to realize he was the only one not suffering any ill effects, but he wasn’t bold enough to leave as quickly as humanly possible even if she did see the desire reflected in his eyes.
And as she stood, she watched that fear multiply. His skin paled while the knuckles on his hands blanched as he gripped the table.
And for the first time, Karina felt that stirring of power—the need for it.
The siren’s call it sang to anyone susceptible to it.
She’d felt it before, in the early stages of her work at the paper. When she could have so easily utilized Orion and gathered blackmail on all those she’d been looking into at the time.
They didn’t know how much easier it would have been to see them come to ruin if she’d stepped a toe over onto the other side.
“What did you call it?” she asked, though she already knew the answer. “A gift?”
He’d thought he’d been doing her a favor. That she should have been lucky to even receive his attention. Yet nothing could have been further from the truth.
And she would happily show him that.
“Then let me offer you one as well,” she said, watching the plea form on his lips as Jackal emerged from the shadows.
“P-Please,” he said, stumbling to his feet though there was nowhere for him to go.
“Don’t scream,” she warned him just as he’d told Kava. “That will only make it worse for you.”
Beneath the table, Kava gripped her hand once more and didn’t let go, not even when Jackal finally struck.
21
Reflection
After a night like this one, Karina was glad to see Orion standing in the kitchen, stirring a bowl of batter with a whisk, making the muscles in his arms stand out.
“What are you making?” she asked even as she walked closer, forgetting all about why she had come downstairs in the first place.
“Pancakes.”
“Pancakes?” she asked, just to be sure she’d heard him correctly. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“Who doesn’t love pancakes in the middle of the night, babe?”
Well ... he wasn’t entirely wrong. “What has you up so late?”
“Same shit. Better question is why are you up?”
She wished she had a better answer. “It’s not every day you poison three people.”
Even though they would all survive after a brief recovery period, it still didn’t change what she had done. It didn’t change that she had been willing to do it in the first place.
Orion nodded as if he’d thought as much. “I ever tell you about when I met Yuri?”
He paused long enough to grab a knife and butter from the fridge, cutting off far more than he probably should have before dropping it into the pan. Already, the butter scent was in the air, making her mouth water.
“You always told me it was too dark of a story. You didn’t want to damage me.”
A pained expression crossed his face—one she easily read. Compared to what she’d gone through over the past three years, she imagined that story of his wouldn’t have come close.
“I’m the guy they call when they need something done fast. No strings. No ties to anyone. Get in, get out, and I get paid in the end. Simple, really.”
She remembered as much. He’d once described himself as the jack-of-all-trades when it came to the seedier underbelly of society. Whatever needed to be done, he could usually take care of it.
“Anyway, so Lonzo, my old contact, he mentioned there was a guy looking to move some work across a few state lines as quickly as possible. So, you know, that’s where I come in.”
She thought of the customized Challenger he drove—the one with the engine she could hear coming down the street. Half of what he’d told her about that car had gone completely over her head, considering she hadn’t understood a word he was saying, but she’d understood the gist.
His car was fast.
“Now, he doesn’t mention the job is with the Russians, and anyone who knows shit, knows you don’t fuck around with the Russians unless you’ve got a fucking pair on you or you’ve got a fucking death wish. It is what it is.”
“Or maybe you’re just crazy,” she offered helpfully.
That managed to get a smile out of him as he poured in some batter, waiting until the bubbles formed along the surface before flipping it over. “Either way, it probably would’ve been in my best interest to walk away when I did realize it was those damn Russians, but the job seemed easy enough at the time, and I didn’t think it would become this shitshow.”
“It always seems so simple in the beginning,” she agreed softly, her thoughts taking her back to a simpler time.
It wasn’t the first time she wished she could turn back the hands of time and escape to the day they’d first met. Sometimes, she played that night over in the back of her mind, thinking of what could have been.
If she hadn’t been Katherine’s daughter and he hadn’t been on the verge of becoming the Kingmaker … would things have ended the way they did?
Would he still have manipulated her?
Would she have continued to lie about her past?
Would they be together now with their three-year-old living out the rest of their lives together?
A plate being set down in front of her broke Karina out of her thoughts, her attention now back on Orion who stared at her as if he knew exactly where her mind had gone.
“Keep going,” she said, shoving those feelings back down.
“So I get to the warehouse,” he went on, sliding the pancake onto the plate in front of her before he started making another. “And guess what I find?”
“I’m actually afraid to guess.”
“You should be. Because you know who was on the floor bleeding like a stuck pig? Yuri’s old fucking driver. And guess what?” he asked rhetorically, making a show of flipping this pancake. “He left him alive just long enough to show me what would happen if I fucked up on this job.”
“Yuri doesn’t sound like a good guy to work for.”
“Yuri is Yuri,” he explained as he explained everything that defied definition. “And working for Yuri sometimes ain’t a choice. And once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no turning back. Those Russians are all about their loyalty.”
She didn’t doubt that. “How does this compare to my poisoning people?”
He offered her the very last of the pancakes before he rooted through the cabinet for the maple syrup. “Yuri wasn’t the one who had to shoot him.”
Her gaze shot to him—to the way his expression was a little guarded now.
“His message was clear. Either do what you’re told and do it right, or your replacement will do it better.”
It was a harsh reality, one that had her staring at him long after he joined her
at the table with his own plate.
“Sometimes,” he said, not meeting her gaze, “you have to do what you have to do to get shit done ... even when it muddies the water.”
Karina still wasn’t sure if she could do that.
If she could let all her doubt and fear go and just do what needed to be done.
But the way she saw it, she didn’t really have a choice.
Sleep had come easier after that, and by the time she woke up again, Orion was already gone off to handle an errand of some sort, and it was just her and Kava left while Jackal remained tucked away in the room he’d been given.
No matter how much coaxing she did, she’d still yet to get him to come out for longer than it took to fix a plate of food, eat it in silence, then clean up after himself. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to remain tucked away out of sight, but from what she had seen, it was as if he didn’t know he could venture out beyond that room.
“Would you like to watch a movie?” Kava asked, her gaze darting to the floor the moment Jackal stopped, the only acknowledgement he gave that he’d heard her question.
He seemed … at a loss for words.
“You can if you want,” Karina added, wondering if he thought maybe she would have a problem with that.
But once she spoke—or rather, once she gave her blessing—only then had he stiffly turned and perched at the very edge of a chair, looking as if he’d rather be anywhere but there.
Yes, he’d inevitably stayed right where she’d left him that night, at least according to Kava, but Karina was starting to wonder whether she didn’t truly understand all he had suffered. And she’d been wrong to think that buying his freedom would magically change him into someone else.
He needed something she couldn’t provide him, and glossing over that wouldn’t help either of them.
But now, the only question was where could she find a doctor who wouldn’t ask too many questions?
“Could I ask you a question?” Kava asked as she exited the dressing room wearing the dress they’d eyed on the mannequin earlier.
The bright blue brought out the paleness in her hair and the green in her eyes. Since they would be working together more permanently going forward, it was important that the people who ultimately worked for her looked the part for what was to come.
“Sure,” Karina answered, though she hadn’t the slightest idea what she would want to ask.
Kava was always very careful about the things she said and even the questions she asked. If she wasn’t offered the information, she didn’t pry. But after the night at her parents’ home, something had changed about her.
“Why did you do it?” she asked, fiddling with the hem of the dress. “My parents … they … well, I’m not saying I’m ungrateful. It’s just—”
“You showed me kindness when you didn’t have to,” Karina readily explained.
When others would have made their assumptions and run with them, Kava hadn’t cared in the slightest about Karina’s return to Ashworth Hall. She had welcomed her.
Kava, above all things, was kind, almost to a fault.
Others walked over her because of it. And she accepted it for reasons Karina didn’t understand, but she was determined to make sure Kava understood she didn’t have to buckle under the things that hurt her the most.
And that it was perfectly okay to strike back against those that struck her first.
“Besides,” she added, just to lighten the mood, “I’m in need of an assistant, and according to Mother, you’re quite capable.”
Kava nodded without hesitating. “Whatever you need me to do.”
This would prove to be a new start for all of them.
22
Final Plans
Then.
Hearing about an estate and seeing one in person garnered vastly different reactions in her.
Though the idea of them had always seemed a little garish, as the golden gates parted down the middle and allowed them entry onto the property, it was nearly impossible to wipe the look of awe from her face.
It was nothing short of a castle—one truly fit for royalty, considering the sheer number of rooms in the place from the stories Uilleam had shared.
Though she had been in a rather somber mood last week after she’d lost her job at the paper, things had changed somewhere along the flight. The more curious she became about the home he’d grown up in, the more he’d seemed to sink inside his own head, keeping his thoughts to himself even as he seemed troubled.
This wasn’t easy for him, that much she knew without him having to say. The life he’d lived here … The abuse he suffered … She couldn’t imagine it was easy coming here even as he’d said this was where he lived most of the year.
She could see this time was different.
This time, he hadn’t come alone.
She tried to envision a young Uilleam running around the grounds. If he had a kite he liked to fly, or a favorite ball to kick, or if his interests had been more complex even in those days, and he’d spent afternoons under the sun playing chess.
Had he and Kit spent summers here together?
Were there any good memories here at the Runehart estate?
Uilleam kept his thoughts to himself even as they reached the end of the winding driveway where he drove around the side of the fountain and finally parked.
Despite the cooler temperature, the water was still trickling down the front, creating rivers throughout the wings of the stone angel inside.
From the plush carpet floors of his car to the slightly uneven cobblestone of the driveway, she stepped out, slowly turning this way and that until she had a clearer image of just where she was.
No place had ever felt quite as alluring and foreboding as this one.
And maybe it was because they had the only car here, or that there was silence and not a living soul for miles, but something felt rather cold about this place.
It certainly didn’t feel like a home.
Clearing her head of her own misgivings, she turned to find Uilleam walking around the car, his hands uncharacteristically tucked away in his pockets.
To the outside world, he might have just appeared as a casual observer, but she could see the nerves threatening to bubble to the surface. She saw the panic he was trying to hide.
Before he could get a word in edgewise, she tucked her hand in his, twining their fingers together as she led the way up to the front steps. She didn’t miss the way he hesitated—the way he so clearly wanted to take her from this place before she saw too much.
Before she saw the demons of his past.
She knew the feeling well. It was one of the reasons she had yet to tell him the truth about her because once she did, there was no taking it back. There was no pretending she was just a girl in a random city who’d fallen in love completely by chance.
If he knew how her mother had orchestrated their first meeting … she just couldn’t risk it. Not yet.
Not until she was sure.
“You weren’t joking about how many bedrooms this place has, were you?” she asked, hoping to lighten his mood.
She succeeded in at least smoothing some of those frown lines on his forehead away. “If nothing else, there was always plenty of space.”
He removed a rather large brass key from his pocket and fit it into the lock, giving the handle a twist before he shoved the heavy oak door open before gesturing for her to go in ahead of him.
Firewood and a touch of lemon scented the air—thanks in part to the raging fire in the hearth deep within the living room and whatever cleaning polish someone had used on the floors. But while some parts were still untouched by time, she could tell from the peeling wallpaper and the spotted floor that other parts of the castle had been completely renovated.
Like the kitchen.
It reminded her a bit of the one back at their townhouse with its white subway tile and the antique silver fixtures.
“I didn’t take you for much of a kitchen pe
rson, Uilleam.”
This managed to drag a real smile out of him. The expression lighting up his face made her glad she’d been the one to put it there. “I’m helpless in a kitchen save one dish.”
“Really? Well, while we’re here … you should make it for me.”
He shed his suit jacket before reaching her side, his fingers skimming down the length of her back. “Demanding little thing, aren’t you?”
Maybe a little.
But what could she say? This was proving to be the best distraction so far.
Uilleam was ready to say something more, but his ringing phone cut him short. He offered an apologetic kiss on her cheek before he stepped away to answer, business taking over every bit of his attention.
It was a wonder he was ever able to relax when he wasn’t working. Most days, it was as if he couldn’t turn it off.
Karina contemplated standing there a moment longer to give him a chance to finish, but knowing him, this conversation could last more than an hour if he wasn’t careful.
While she was waiting, it seemed only right that she give herself a tour of the place. She wanted to see the place with her own eyes before he painted a picture that would fracture its beauty.
She wandered around the first level, moving in and out of rooms and peeking into others when she couldn’t find a light to turn on. But as she reached the second level, she slowed instinctively, remembering many of the details Uilleam had described.
She would have thought he’d get rid of anything that reminded him of that time, but instead, all the same paintings and figures and statues were all sitting in their same spots. A light sheen of dust covered it all.
Right at the end of the hallway was a painting that felt a touch … somber. As if it echoed Uilleam’s sentiment. She’d never seen anything like it.
Done in blacks and grays and white, the painting depicted a woman looking off to the side, her expression a cross between helpless and dire.
Beyond the painting was a door with a key still tucked inside the lock. It was impossible to resist the urge to see what secrets lay behind it.
Black Swan Page 18
