His voice grew muffled, then there was Uilleam’s unmistakable voice, his irritation clear even through the phone, but she didn’t care how he sounded.
She was just happy to hear his voice after so long.
It brought a beautiful sort of agony.
“Speak.”
Even though he sounded short, as if this conversation was a waste of his time, that didn’t mean his voice didn’t still have an effect on her—or that she was any less in love with the sound of it as she had been the last time they talked.
“Hi … it’s me.”
God, the walls she had put up around herself came crashing down as if they had never been, the agony bittersweet because even as she wanted him, desperately and hopelessly, she also knew things would never be as they once were.
Not when she still sat in the back of this car, a hand resting on her swollen stomach, still concealing her biggest secret yet.
“Karina,” he said immediately, the surprise in his tone evident.
At least the irritation he’d felt wasn’t because it was her calling. Skorpion must not have mentioned that she was the one looking for him.
There was so much she wanted to say, yet there was no time for her to say it all.
“I need to see you,” she said the only thing she could think to say.
It just didn’t seem right to tell him she was pregnant over the phone. She needed to tell him in person.
“I—no, I don’t care what his argument is. Eliminate him.”
He wasn’t talking to her, she knew, but somebody in the background.
“Uilleam—”
“Hold on,” he said, this time clearly to her before his voice cut out entirely.
She was almost sure he’d hung up until she looked at her phone. Skorpion’s name was still there, the time still ticking by second by second, yet she couldn’t hear anything.
Whatever he was saying, he’d muted the phone to ensure she couldn’t hear him.
The restaurant where she was meeting Omerti loomed just ahead.
She was out of time.
Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to tell him now, just so he could now … If he gave her a chance later, she would explain and apologize for keeping it from him for seven months. He deserved that much at least.
She just needed to tell him this secret first.
Her heart was in her throat, thumping so hard that she felt more nervous telling him about the baby than she had about meeting with Omerti.
“Uilleam, if you can hear me, there’s something I need to tell you.” The phone felt impossibly hot in her hands as she licked her lips. “I’m—”
“Karina, I need to go.”
His voice cut back in so quickly, she stumbled to a halt, fumbling her words. “But this is—it’s important.”
“Later,” he said, his voice sounding agitated.
She tried not to let that hurt. “This can’t wait. I’m—”
“I’m busy, and I’ll call you later.”
She didn’t get a chance to respond, not when the call disconnected a moment later.
The silence of the Town Car seemed all the louder as she tucked the phone away and forced her gaze out the window, thinking of all the things in the world that made her happy so that the tears currently stinging the back of her eyes wouldn’t fall.
It was useless to cry over things she couldn’t change—but that didn’t stop the tears from coming. No matter how furiously she dabbed at her eyes in an attempt to make sure not a single one fell.
She certainly wished she was able to turn the hurt on and off the way he seemed to.
Could she truly have meant nothing to him?
Had their time together been just a figment of her imagination?
Closing her eyes, she allowed herself a moment—only a moment—to let the pain and hurt wash over her. To feel it before she stuffed all of those emotions in a box and locked it away.
She didn’t have time to unpack them right now.
Later.
She’d deal with it all then.
It was easier, once she stepped out of the car, to tamp down the tears and move forward with her day.
She smiled when she was meant to as she walked into the restaurant. Even held conversations, albeit short ones, with the few people she crossed paths with until she was finally led to the table where Omerti was waiting for her.
He had already worked his way through a plate of barbecue before she’d even sat down. “Good to see you again, Karina.”
She smiled, playing the part. “I’m hoping we can come to a worthwhile arrangement by the end of our time together.”
“Certainly. Having second thoughts?” he asked as if he could sense where she was going with this.
But how could she even attempt to explain the complicated thoughts in her head—especially knowing that when Mother found out what she did, she would be cross with her in a way Karina was sure she had never been before.
“I’ve heard rumors about the man you’ve been meeting with,” Karina said after a moment, making the words appear more casual as she reached for her glass of water. “The Kingmaker, they’re calling him.”
A name she had inadvertently birthed.
A position she hadn’t intended to make.
But she couldn’t change the past, no matter how she wanted to. No matter how badly she wished she wasn’t the one sitting at this table.
“You’re wondering whether he’s made me an offer?” he guessed.
No, she already knew he had, which was why her mother had sent her here to circumvent it. Except now, she was having second thoughts.
“I know what it’s like to be on the opposing side of him.” More than anyone else, really. “Perhaps there’s a way to make this lucrative for all parties involved.”
If she could find a way to make sure everyone got what they wanted, it would be a win for her.
And then, she could finally confess everything to Uilleam once he knew what she had done, and they would go from there.
Katherine wouldn’t be terribly pleased, but she was still getting something out of the arrangement, so she would hopefully not be too upset.
She could make this work.
“Why on earth would you want to do that?” he asked, seeming genuinely curious.
“Because it’s better not to cross the Kingmaker,” she answered simply. “He doesn’t respond well to perceived slights.”
Her life, growing up under a woman who had never been afraid to pull down the veil off the rest of the world, should have prepared her for the sound the first bullet made.
A sharp, staccato crack that had her flinching before she could even process what she had heard. The chaos that sparked all around her still didn’t compare to the sound of that bullet.
And it only took a split second to realize where that bullet had ended up as Omerti’s head jerked back with the force of it, a red circled burrowed in the middle of his forehead, even as his eyes rolled back with alarming swiftness.
A scream shredded through her as she lurched back, nearly tipping the chair back as she rushed to stand, trying to get away, fear making her heart hammer in her chest.
People scattered all around her, not caring who or what they bumped into in their bid to escape the gunshot that had already found its mark. They didn’t care that glass was shattering all around them, or that people were getting trampled, and Karina was afraid she wouldn’t get away as they did.
Omerti’s security and even the man Katherine had sent along to this meeting with her all fell within seconds of each other.
Her ears were ringing now. Her hands shook and trembled even as her legs turned to quivering Jell-O.
She had to make it out—to escape and get away from this before—
A sound escaped as she felt it.
There was no pain, not right away, just an unimaginable pressure from a point of force going entirely too fast.
It jerked her back and brought tears to her eyes, even as she bl
indly reached for the injury, staring in horror at the red that saturated her hand.
She’d been shot.
That was when she felt it—a pain so blinding it took her breath away. It made her want to scream because of the agony that only seemed to be growing even as she grew cold, though warmth seemed to seep through the side of her dress where she lay on the ground.
Her own blood was keeping her warm.
This was the end, she realized as her vision dimmed and grew blurry.
This was where she would die ... and Uilleam would never know the truth about how much she had loved him or about their baby growing inside her that he would never get the chance to meet and love as she did.
This was the end of everything.
37
Merciless
The hotel room was a very real visual of what Uilleam’s mind felt like.
From the unmade bed to the overturned chairs and the overall mess that was the living room, but none of it fazed Uilleam as he sat on the floor in the very center of it all, wishing that the burn of energy had managed to calm his frantic mind.
But no matter what he destroyed, he was still as antsy as he’d been earlier and all the mornings that came before it since Karina had walked away and he’d fuck all to make her come back.
If anything, he’d pushed her away more after that last time he’d seen her—when he’d let his anger and bitterness make him act out.
Emotions he hadn’t been able to shake in the months that followed.
He was beginning to miss those old days—when he’d been able to lose himself in his work. To focus on what needed to be done rather than the things he couldn’t change.
Like the little fact that his lover and confidante had disappeared off the face of the fucking earth and seemed rather intent on having nothing to do with him now.
Except she had called, he now remembered. Her voice soft and a bit frantic, though at the time, he hadn’t processed any of that—not after he’d learned of what Omerti was plotting behind his back.
He had needed to handle that first to make sure he showed the man exactly the grave mistake he had made in thinking that he could turn against him. Now, he only awaited confirmation.
And once that was finished, the job would be over. He would have everything he needed to move forward with his plans.
This time, there would be no innocence. No denial that he’d had a hand in the man’s death. He wanted the entire fucking world to know what he was capable of.
They would quake at the thought of crossing him.
Oh, how quickly his mind had descended into madness without her around to keep him grounded—to be the source of light in his dark, unforgiving world.
Yet he had no one to blame but himself for the decisions he’d made and the results he himself had caused.
What good in him she had brought out had deteriorated well over the past seven months to the point that he didn’t even recognize himself on most days. Not that he bothered to try to anymore—it wasn’t as if he would particularly like what he would find when he looked in the mirror.
Uilleam wasn’t sure how much time had passed as he rested back on the floor, his hand tucked beneath his head, the metal of his ring digging into his finger, before a knock sounded at the door a moment before it opened and Bishop walked in.
The man entering the room wasn’t the same one who had left earlier.
His expression was more stoic. Hardened in a way.
Because of the complication, he suspected.
The woman neither of them had realized was there.
The woman Omerti had been meeting with behind his back whose contract he’d planned on taking.
One day, he was sure, he would regret his actions. Perhaps even feel guilty about them, but for now, he didn’t have time to consider that perhaps it would have been better to leave someone out there as a witness to what had taken place.
But that day wouldn’t be today.
“Is the job finished?” he asked, looking back at the ceiling, wondering if he could find the secrets of the universe in the texture.
“Job is done.”
“Witnesses?”
“Most didn’t see anything of value.”
“And the other—the one meeting with Omerti?”
“If she’s not dead … she probably wishes she was.”
Good enough.
Then it was time to move on and chase a different avenue Omerti’s death had closed.
38
Drowning
Bright lights and impossibly loud sirens jarred Karina into consciousness seconds before the pain followed, just as jarring and mind scrambling as it had been before.
Except now, black dots were winking at the edges of her vision, her lungs seeming to fail her.
“Miss, can you hear me?”
Someone was yelling to the left of her—she could hear the muffled quality to their voice as she turned in that direction, even reached out just to grab hold of something—but her vision was tinted red, and everything was blurry.
So blurry.
Why couldn’t she see?
Why did it sound like her ears were ringing?
Why were the sirens so deafening?
What was happening to her?
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” a new voice proclaimed, sounding alarmed and very, very Irish.
Karina wasn’t sure, in her disoriented state, why that stood out to her the most, but she didn’t care. She just needed something to anchor herself—to fight against the blackness threatening to take her under.
As if she were wading through a pool with weights tied to her ankles.
She was drowning when the only thing she wanted to do was swim.
“I need a bag of O neg, stat,” a woman said, her voice firm but frantic as she came forward, flashing a bright light in Karina’s eyes. “Ma’am, can you hear me?”
She attempted to nod, wondering where the loud staccato beeping she heard was coming from, and why it was so close to her, but everything was moving so fast that she couldn’t make sense of any one thing.
“Ma’am, can you—can someone get me pediatrics down here!”
Pediatrics was …
Babies, her brain supplied a moment too late.
Pediatrics oversaw the care of babies and pregnant women. She—
“My baby.” The words were lost behind the oxygen mask she wore, but at that moment, she didn’t care if they deemed it necessary or not—she yanked and clawed at it, fumbling with it even as the nurses attempted to stop her, but she refused until it finally moved away from her mouth.
But the moment it was off, she felt as if she wasn’t getting enough air, and that was when she realized where all the noise was coming from. The machine to her right.
One with a cord that connected to a clamp on her finger to monitor her heart rate. Her heart was racing so fast, she couldn’t breathe, but she didn’t care about herself or what happened to her beyond this moment.
She only cared about the life growing inside her.
“Save my baby,” she begged the woman in the blue scrubs attempting to calm her, though there was no point. “Please, don’t let her die.”
She needed her to know that she didn’t care what happened to her—that the little baby nestled inside her had so much to live for.
She needed to live.
Especially not when Karina reached out and saw blood on her own hands. She was bleeding, she realized, though she couldn’t feel a thing.
Save my baby, she thought she said again as those black spots started winking faster.
“Shit, she’s hemorrhaging! Someone find me that goddamn bleeder.”
Dying, she thought distantly.
She had never given much thought to her death—she’d always preferred not to think about it—but this … this was what it was like to die.
And she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Not if it meant Poppy got to live.
The abyss stared
back at her, a murky image that wouldn’t take any one shape. She could almost touch it with her fingertips, but just as she skimmed the surface, Karina was jerked violently away from it—the image blurring and disappearing entirely until she blinked her eyes open and she was awake once more.
Awake.
She was awake.
She tried to make sense of that, of everything in her immediate surroundings. Something was wrong—something that made her chest ache and her body feel hollow.
“Shit, you scared me half to death!”
Karina blinked at the familiar voice, surprised to find Isla standing across the room with tears in her eyes. It had been a long time—too long, she thought—since she’d last seen her sister express sadness in any way. She took after their mother more in that regard. They didn’t like to show weakness.
Yet it was so freely expressed on her face now …
Moving to sit up, the pinch in her hand made her first look at the IV taped in place, then at the railing on the bed where she lay. Certainly not the one she’d been sleeping on for the past six months. And of course not the one she had shared with Uilleam for not nearly enough time.
Where was—
“Oh, darling. Thank God, you’re awake. You had us worried.”
Mother was here?
“What’s happening? Where am I?”
Isla used to be better at hiding her pain—she’d had enough practice—but as Karina finally struggled into a sitting position, she was sure she saw a tear roll down her face.
But more than that, she felt the hollowness again.
Her hands instinctively went down to cover her rounded belly, to feel the comforting weight of it, knowing what was nestled inside, but she felt … wrong.
Empty.
It was Katherine who spoke. “Karina, sweetheart …” She seemed at a loss for words, something that didn’t happen often.
There might have been genuine sorrow on her face.
An expression that made her heartbeat speed up, that had the heart monitor beeping faster, the sound impossibly loud in silence of the room.
“What’s happened?” she asked again, her voice sounding weak to her own ears. She was so tired, so very, very tired, and the only thing she wanted to do was sleep, but she couldn’t.
White Rabbit Page 35
