She had made it no secret that Uilleam was her favorite and that Kit didn’t compare in her eyes—it was her fatal flaw.
It would be easier if he could hate her as Kit did. To despise her very existence. When he didn’t have to force himself to pretend he hadn’t heard the words he did.
That he could almost believe his mother was as much of a victim as they were—as he still was—instead of what she actually was.
Complicit.
Perhaps his brother had had the right idea by leaving and not looking back. He certainly was entertaining the idea, though unlike his brother, he didn’t have a place to go. He’d have to figure that out on his own.
As if his thoughts had conjured him, Kit appeared, rapping his knuckles against the door before he entered. He couldn’t help but wonder if the feeling currently crowding his chest would ever fade.
After all, it had been more than a decade since his brother had murdered their father so poetically. Surely, his gratitude would have simmered, yet when his thoughts ventured back to those days, he always felt so annoyingly sentimental.
Except this time, Kit was here to see it.
He had never explained, not really, what that day had meant to him.
How he had managed to sleep more in the night that followed than in all the days before it.
How it had felt as if an overbearing weight had finally been lifted off his shoulders and he’d actually looked forward to what would come in the days after.
No, he had never mentioned any of that because surely, he knew that without him having to say it.
Kit was silent a long while—every bit the casual observer as he watched through the double-paned, soundproof glass.
A part of him wondered, as he always did when it came to his brother, how this affected him. Whether he still thought about his time in their childhood home. Whether what they had suffered there still lingered somewhere in the back of his mind as it did with Uilleam.
Did it hurt the same? Or had he learned to bury it down so deep that it was a distant memory.
The thought shouldn’t have bothered him.
“You’re asking a lot of them,” Kit said after his bout of silence, finally looking away from the violence to look over at Uilleam.
“Have I?” He watched as the man in black alternated his fighting style, forcing the man who could hardly keep up as it was to try again. “It’s not anything more than what the society asked of you, no?”
Kit was a master of his emotions, hardened even more by his time training to become an assassin. He didn’t react outwardly unless he wanted to, and despite having been on his feet standing straight, he didn’t fidget or shift at all.
He was every bit the man they had trained him to be.
“And what do you know of what they taught me?”
“It’s not always about what you know,” Uilleam said after a moment, finally turning away from the violence in front of him. “It’s about what you infer. And considering all the things I’ve heard about the shadowy organization, I can only imagine what grueling process was involved to turn you into what you are now.”
A troubling thought, if there ever was one, but Uilleam also recognized that Alexander had had a hand in shaping who they were. Because while they were in two different trades, they were arguably the best at what they did.
He had ensured that by instilling that sort of mindset in them from a young age.
“Perhaps,” he settled on saying, “but in many ways, this is still guerrilla work.”
And it was clear, though he still hadn’t said as much, that he didn’t approve of what Uilleam was doing.
He doubted his brother was happy about much where he was concerned. But he couldn’t allow that to stop him from achieving the goals he’d set out for himself.
“I’m assuming you’re here for a reason?”
“Your display the other night,” Kit said without preamble. “I don’t imagine that’s good for business.”
Uilleam thought of ignoring him completely or even ending the conversation before it really began, but considering the rather somber mood he found himself in, he was willing to indulge him.
“I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t be. What exactly do you think we’re doing here? Cultivating friendships? Collaborating and doing whatever’s asked simply because it’s the more complacent thing to do? Forgive me, brother, but that’s not how I work.”
He steepled his fingers in front of his face, offering a mocking shrug of his shoulder. “I haven’t come to make friends. They can either align themselves properly or get stepped over—there’s no in between.”
“And when you make an enemy of the world?”
Uilleam couldn’t help his smirk as he gestured around to where they were. “When you make an enemy of the world, make sure you have the biggest gun.”
A muscle clenched in his jaw, the only sign what Uilleam was saying bothered him. “A dangerous road you’re walking there, Uilleam.”
“Yet, it’s the only one I plan to stay on.”
“But have you considered it’s not only your life you have to concern yourself with.”
“I’m sure you can handle your own just fine, brother.”
“Can your lover?”
“Speak carefully, Kit.”
“But am I wrong? Has she undergone the training these men have in your name? Does she know of the droves of enemies you’re courting daily—some by your own making, others because you have begun to make it clear you’re ready to challenge the world?”
Unfortunately, he’d wondered the same. Whether he was asking too much of her—if she wasn’t adequately prepared to deal with a man like him. But he also knew what he would do to keep her safe—to make sure that the worst of his world didn’t touch her.
“I can keep her safe well enough.”
“Yet you can’t even keep yourself safe. Or are you electing to ignore that?”
“You’re dangerously close to making me want to harm you.”
“Others might fear you, brother, but don’t make the mistake in thinking I do as well.”
Assassins. They rarely tended to fear anything. “If you’re finished,” Uilleam said, making a point not to react to his words, “there’s work to be done and deals to be made.”
“Understand me very clearly, Uilleam. The moment I believe you’ve gone too far, I’m walking away because you’ll become a liability for me, and I can’t let that happen.”
Fair enough.
Because in the end, it would probably be better for them in the long run. If there ever did come a day when Uilleam acted and Kit didn’t respond well to it, things would certainly take a turn for the worse.
Because that moral line meant everything.
17
Final Warning
With a roll of packing tape in hand, sweat on her brow, and determination thrumming inside her, Karina slowly made her way through her apartment, going from room to room to pack up her belongings.
Even as she packed away everything she wasn’t keeping in boxes by the door, there were still more than twice that she was keeping.
She’d foolishly hoped she could both pack up her apartment and get work done afterward, but with the way things were looking currently, she would be lucky if she actually finished packing.
As she contemplated whether she wanted to take a break just to get off her feet for a bit, a knock sounded on the door.
She frowned, confusion settling over her even as she crossed the floor to peek out the peephole, not sure who she expected to be standing on the other side. A messenger from Uilleam, maybe, or Skorpion, at the least.
But it was neither.
Isla stood there, looking terribly out of place in her expensive heels, but for once, Karina didn’t feel the anxiety of having her sister here. Rather, she felt a little excited.
There was so much she needed to update her on.
“As long as you’re not here for Mum,” she greeted once she had the door open, �
�you’re welcome to stay.”
Looking every bit as mischievous as she was, Isla shrugged as she stepped into her apartment. “I like to think I serve my own interests first, but with respect to honesty, Mother does have some concerns.”
Karina didn’t doubt it.
Though Katherine had made her presence here in New York known twice so far, she hadn’t seen much of her mother since the day she had taken her out to lunch
“Fortunately for you,” Isla continued as she perched on the edge of the couch, “I conveniently left my phone back home. So if she does call, at least I have a valid excuse as to why I couldn’t answer.”
Karina laughed even as she shook her head. Isla had never been able to lie to their mother very well, if at all.
She simply went about it a different direction.
“Well, since you’re here, you might as well help me get this place packed up.”
“As much as I love you, manual labor has never been my thing, has it? Besides, I would much rather leave it in far more capable hands than my own.”
Karina let her continue, even smiled halfway through, but that didn’t stop her from handing over the tape, then sliding a box across the floor until it sat in front of her sister.
Isla sighed dramatically before she kicked off her heels and got to work. “I’m really going to have to learn how to tell you no.”
She laughed, wrapping the last of the plates in pages of newspapers before neatly stacking them in a separate plastic container. “You’ve said no plenty. Do you remember when I asked to wear that necklace you bought on holiday for my winter formal?”
Isla’s face scrunched as she thought back before realization dawned. “You can’t be serious ...”
Karina tried to fight a smile and failed. “I asked nicely.”
“It was a ten-thousand-dollar necklace.”
“I would have kept up with it!”
“Oh, like you kept up with my ruby encrusted infinity ring? If I recall, you said it ‘itched your finger.’”
She couldn’t hold back her laughter now. “I still have no idea where I left it.”
“Which is exactly why I wouldn’t let you wear that necklace. You were impossible back then.”
“Regardless,” she said, her laughter tapering off, “you have told me no before.”
Isla made a humming sound beneath her breath. “If I told you no now, would you listen?”
Her innocent tone made Karina look in her direction, not sure where she was going with this. “Depends on what you’re saying no to.”
Finished taping the first of many boxes, Isla set the roll aside before sitting, but even as there was much to do, Karina joined her on the couch, curious about whatever her sister was about to say.
Even as she also knew she probably wouldn’t like it either. “Is this about Uilleam?”
“Not necessarily,” Isla started, brushing her hair over her shoulder. “It’s not about him, per se, but rather about you. You’re young, Karina—still learning what it means to be on your own. I’m not saying I don’t understand the allure of living with a man, but I do think it’s a little … soon.”
“Iz—”
“I’m just saying,” she interrupted quickly, holding her hands up. “I moved in with a man when I was only seventeen and thought I was more than capable and ready for the commitment.”
She paused for a moment—long enough for Karina to know there was more here that Isla wasn’t saying. But she could cobble together enough of what she already knew to paint an accurate picture.
She remembered Isla’s seventeenth birthday as clearly as she remembered her own. But unlike hers, Isla had something of a ball—an elegant and extravagant party that had surprised Karina and made her want one of her own.
More than two dozen guests had arrived to celebrate—most of whom were friends and associates of Katherine—and though she had enjoyed herself, even then Karina had felt weird about it all the longer it went on.
As if more had been happening around her than she understood.
It wasn’t until later that she understood what the party had stood for—that it had been Isla’s introduction into that world.
Officially following in their mother’s footsteps.
“But …” The words she wanted to say lingered somewhere in the back of her throat, needing only to be said. “It’s very soon.”
She wasn’t even entirely sure why she couldn’t say them aloud, considering everyone knew it to be true—Isla had been one of the first people to see it in her before she had even acknowledged the feeling herself.
“I know you love him,” Isla said gently, delicately—as if they were merely two sisters having a conversation about a boy—“and I’ll be the first to admit that this is the happiest I’ve ever seen you, but that doesn’t change the way I feel.”
Silence stretched on a moment as Karina tried to think of something to say.
“I’m not saying you’re not ready,” she finally said after blowing out a breath, “but knowing now what I didn’t then, I would have wanted someone to tell me to think on it some more.” She gestured at the boxes surrounding them. “It’s never too late to give something a second thought.”
The problem was, she was already doing that even as she prepared for this next step between them.
She hadn’t forgotten there were still so many secrets left between them, and one of them was standing right in front of her.
“Do you think he would understand?”
It went beyond a simple miscommunication.
She couldn’t even say she was particularly evading.
She had outright lied to him about everything from the very beginning. It didn’t matter that she loved him with every part of her being and that none of that had been fake or pretend.
There was a chance none of that would matter to him at all.
He could very well just see it as a betrayal.
“I think,” Isla said carefully, “that it’s better to tell an unkind truth than to learn the person who loves you has been lying to you. And if he’s half the man you say he is, then he will at least hear you out.”
The mood in the room had grown somber, so many things lingering between them and left unsaid.
But as quickly as Karina wanted to sink into her bad thoughts, Isla laughed lightly, her mood shifting an entire one-eighty.
“And considering he’s the Kingmaker at the moment, he might even consider it a compliment that you played the man who plays others.”
She could only hope.
18
Secrets
Moving into her first apartment hadn’t been easy.
Not only had she slept on an air mattress for a month or so before her mattress and bed was finally delivered, but it had taken ages to get her apartment the way she wanted considering she hadn’t had a way to move furniture on her own since she didn’t have a car.
Moving in with Uilleam was a breeze compared to that experience.
Unbeknownst to her, Uilleam had hired a team of movers who’d practically cleared out her apartment in a little over an hour—a task that would have taken her ages to complete if she had been by herself. The most she had grabbed were the few boxes filled with personal things, all of which she was able to fit in the trunk of the Range Rover.
While giddiness had settled deep inside her from the moment Karina had opened her eyes this morning, there was still a kernel of fear at the unknown that she could ignore. Some days it felt as if they’d known each other for a lifetime, and it made perfect sense for her to throw caution to the wind and move in with him.
But other days, it felt as if she didn’t know him at all.
As if she were still treading on the surface of the water and the depths of him had yet to be explored.
But it was too late to turn back now, even if she wanted to. Her lease would officially be up in a matter of days, and though she was caught in a bit of midday traffic, she was pretty sure the movers had arrived by
now and were taking everything inside Uilleam’s house.
Their home.
No, she just needed to talk to him to remind herself why they were doing this, and there was no better way than to hear his voice. That was all it took sometimes.
Stopping behind a car at a red light, she reached for her phone and dialed Uilleam, putting it on speaker before leaving the device sitting on the seat beside her. But for once, he didn’t answer.
She briefly considered calling him back a second time but figured it wouldn’t be long before she actually saw him in person, considering he’d told her he would meet her at the house.
Drawing in a calming breath, she tried not to think too much about what she was doing and tried to focus on the promise of the unknown.
This was going to be great. She was sure of it.
With her thoughts formally occupied, she rode in silence until she reached her new neighborhood where the rather large moving truck was parked along the curb and the movers were already in the process of unpacking it.
Smiling to herself as she found a temporary parking spot, Karina climbed out of her truck, spotting Skorpion as he helped unload, able to carry far more than the average man should.
It was during moments like these when he looked wonderfully normal and not like a mercenary tasked with being a personal guard. Not for the first time, she wondered where Uilleam had found him—whether there was a story behind their relationship or if they were just two people who had come together at the right time.
While she usually reserved her questions for Uilleam, today she was feeling more bold than usual, and before she could help herself, she walked up the sidewalk toward him, mindful of the men still moving all around her.
“Don’t tell me he has you here doing all the work,” she said, peeking around him for any sign of Uilleam, but she couldn’t find him anywhere.
One thing she liked most about the man was the way he didn’t hide his amusement. It was written all over his face from the slant of his mouth to the way his eyes crinkled at the corners.
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