White Rabbit: The Rise
London Miller
LM Books, LLC
LM Books LLC
PO Box 1202
Lilburn, GA 30048
Copyright © 2018 by London Miller
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Also by London Miller
Volkov Bratva
In the Beginning
Until the End
The Final Hour
Valon: What Once Was
Hidden Monsters
The Morning
Time Stood Still
Down the Line
Den of Mercenaries
Red.
Celt.
Nix.
Calavera.
Skorpion.
Syn.
Iris.
The Wild Bunch
Crooks & Kings
Shadows & Silence
Seasons of Betrayal
Where the Sun Hides
Where the Snow Falls
Where the Wind Whispers
Standalones
Acquainted
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For Uilleam
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Contents
Also by London Miller
Newsletter
The Would-be King
1. A Field of Poppies
2. The Fixer
3. What Wasn’t Said
4. Decisions
5. Complications
6. Cease & Desist
7. The Stupidity of Man
8. First Encounters
9. Curiouser & Curiouser
10. The Games Begin
11. Her
12. Midnight Meetings
13. Truth or Lies
14. Examples
15. Royal Eve
16. Promises are Promises
17. Final Warning
18. Edge
19. Want
20. Yours
21. Another Life
22. Evenings
23. Hush
24. Take Me
25. Pretty Woman
26. Gaspard
27. Sweet Nothings
28. Dearest Isla
29. Worth
30. Wear the Crown
31. Bella bella
32. Ciao
33. Abyss
34. Goodbye
35. Hello Mother
36. Awake
37. A Welcome Return
38. In the Late Hour
39. Idle Conversations
40. Spark
41. Consequences & Choices
Newsletter
Acknowledgments
About the Author
How much would you pay to be a king?
Uilleam Runehart
The Would-be King
Head up and back straight with his feet shoulder-width apart, Uilleam Runehart awaited the inevitable.
He knew what came next if he didn’t pass his father, Alexander’s, inspection.
He knew the pain that came when he failed tests he sometimes didn’t even know he was taking.
Every single part of himself and his bedroom had to be absolutely pristine. From his hair and starched clothes, to the sheets on his bed and the floorboards that didn’t have a bit of dust on them.
Alexander demanded perfection in all things, even as it was impossible to obtain. Anything less and one risked his displeasure—and no one wanted to be on his bad side.
It never ended well. Not when his temper was notorious.
Weeks had passed since his last inspection, but Uilleam still had the bruises from the last time he failed to be anything less than the ‘ideal son.’
But even as he stood there waiting—not daring to mutter a single complaint lest someone overhear—he had yet to hear the familiar thump of heavy footsteps coming down the hall or the scattering of servants that always accompanied Alexander’s arrival in the right wing of Runehart Castle.
Something was different today though.
The castle was almost unbearably quiet.
And though some part of him should have been happy he had managed to make it this long into his day without hearing his father raise his voice, his mind wasn’t at ease.
Standing there a moment longer, he fidgeted with the coin he kept tucked away in his pocket, trying to decide whether it was worth abandoning his post here, venturing out to find Alexander and get this over with.
On the one hand, it could buy him favor—what little would come of it—because Alexander would admire the initiative. On the other hand, should anything be out of place, a beating would surely follow.
But he couldn’t let fear of what might happen stop him.
Before he could talk himself out of it, Uilleam walked out of the sanctuary that was his bedroom and ventured down the long empty hallway toward the west wing, briefly slowing in front of a closed bedroom door with the jagged crack that was impossible to miss down the very center of it.
Once, this room had been his very favorite place in the entire world—a room that had been his safe haven in a place that demanded one.
A room that had been vacant for several months now.
No matter how often he passed it each day, a pang still echoed in his chest. A pain he wished he could bury so deep he couldn’t feel it anymore.
Because while he’d cried himself to sleep many nights when his brother had gone off and left him behind, that pain was starting to feel a lot like betrayal now, and that thought made him uneasy.
He loved his brother the most, and the thought of that love ever becoming tainted distressed him. Turning away, he put both to the back of his mind.
Runehart Castle had more than a dozen rooms, as many bathrooms, and looked as foreboding as most castles of old, save for the many modern amenities and the complete renovation the place had gone under after Alexander had bought it.
But as beautiful as it might have been, it wasn’t home.
It didn’t inspire warmth or comfort as a home should, and it certainly wasn’t somewhere his friends, the very few he had, could visit.
It was too cold here. Too barren.
As if it were abandoned, even as they lived there.
Beyond the castle itself, it wasn’t the only reason Uilleam spent much of his time alone. His father was too unpredictable.
Too easily riled.
He could be smiling one moment, charming everyone in sight, and then in the next, he became the tyrant so many labeled him.
And considering every inch of the castle was fortified—it was Alexander’s pride and joy after all—no one wanted to be locked in here when he was on a rampage.
It was better he not condemn anyone to be in the presence of his father, he’d
decided ages ago. He would suffer alone.
Much too often, he thought of burning it all to ashes to end this miserable existence.
Fire cleansed things. Purified them.
More than once, he contemplated just how long it would take for the centuries-old structure to collapse into rubble if he set flame to it.
How fast would the fire spread before it consumed every inch?
How long would it take before nothing was left standing but soot and old memories?
The thought shouldn’t have comforted him as much as it did, but it got him through the day all the same.
He might have lived here all his life, but he felt no sentimental attachment to it. These walls had secrets, and he was growing tired of listening to the whispers.
Casting all thoughts of smoke and ruin aside, Uilleam descended from the second level, pausing in the oversized kitchen where two cooks were busy preparing for the night’s events.
He didn’t know who would be attending the party his mother was throwing or why—not that he cared either way—he only knew that he would need to look his absolute best for the guests and not embarrass Alexander in any way.
Mother’s orders.
But even as he could see the two in front of him clearly working—neither truly paying attention to him beyond soft spoken greetings—the castle seemed rather empty. The servants should have been milling around, completing the day’s tasks. Seen, but not heard as his father liked to say.
The fact that they weren’t should have been the first indication something was amiss, and he should probably return to his rooms, but Uilleam rather enjoyed seeking out what he shouldn’t.
Dangerous, curious things excited him. He sought them out as one would Pandora’s box.
It was a compulsion he didn’t bother to fight. He was his father’s son, after all … despite his feelings on the matter.
And that was no better reflected than right here where his family’s legacy spanning generations hung on stone walls. War generals, a knight, and even an earl, his family’s power was legion, but for the past few generations, the Runehart men had strayed from the public eye and political offices.
It was no longer prestige—legal, upstanding prestige—that they sought.
Now, it was something a little darker.
Something a little more wrong and forbidden.
And because of that choice, there was one unspoken rule in the Runehart family—what happened in the family, stayed in the family.
With the lives they led … it was better never to speak of anything one saw or heard—a fact that should have alarmed twelve-year-old Uilleam, but he wasn’t like other children his age.
His tutors liked to call him special when they thought he wasn’t around to hear them.
He might’ve taken those words as a compliment had they not looked so concerned when they said it.
He wasn’t sure what it meant, not yet, and no one would tell him when he dared to ask.
Soon, though, he would learn.
Very soon.
As he passed the courtyard with every intention of going up to Alexander’s office, something out of the corner of his eyes stole his attention, bringing him up short.
He wasn’t sure, at first, what he was seeing. Not when the huddle of men in dark attire blocked most of his view, but something caused them all to move at once. All taking a single step backward, and the gaps this caused allowed him his first glimpse of the bloodied man kneeling on the concrete.
One of the man’s eyes was nearly swollen shut, nothing more than a narrowed slit. A deep gash bled profusely from a cut above his brow. Purple discolored bruises already covered nearly every inch of his face and upper torso.
Every breath had to cause the man tremendous pain.
But even as he was nearly beaten unrecognizable, the silver chain that dangled from the man’s neck was all too familiar.
Peter, his name was, though it was one of the very few things Uilleam actually knew about him. Not his age or whether he had a family. Nor how long he had actually been working for Alexander.
Just a name.
And if he were being honest, he wasn’t even sure if the man’s name was actually Peter, but it was as good of a name as any.
From the looks of him, it didn’t appear as if anyone would be calling him anything other than a distant memory very soon.
Standing above Peter with the sleeves of his silk dress shirt rolled up to his elbows and blood spattered across his severe face, shirt, and knuckles was a man who most, especially in this place, had learned to fear.
The man Uilleam called father.
Uilleam was tall for his age, though a bit thin, but Alexander was a bull of a man—as tall as he was muscled. He looked every bit the leader of a criminal organization no one could quite put a name to.
He was more akin to a savage than anything else.
Uilleam didn’t think he’d ever even seen him smile before. At least not a genuine one.
His brother, Kit, far away now, would have turned in the opposite direction and ventured back to his room before any attention could be called to him, but Uilleam was too curious to move.
A fault of his he had yet to rectify.
So instead of disappearing before Alexander could see he was a witness to the brutal beating he was inflicting on the man sprawled on the ground, Uilleam drew closer to the glass, keeping his hands firmly at his sides instead of pressing them to the glass the way he wanted.
“Mercy,” the bleeding man finally forced out between split lips, his one good eye going up to Alexander in subjugation. “Please.”
“What’s that?” Alexander asked, his voice like thunder.
The man didn’t know how to speak quietly if he tried.
“Anything,” Peter said before coughing violently, a spray of blood coating the snow in front of him. “I’ll do anything.”
Those words played over and over in Uilleam’s head. His mind took them apart, put them back together again.
Understanding the implications behind them.
But he wasn’t thinking about the brutal beating that had brought the man to this point.
He wondered what else could bring a man to his knees …
What else could make someone beg for their life?
What would a man be willing to offer if it meant his suffering would end?
How could he be on the opposite end of that?
Uilleam wasn’t sure how long he stood there, watching as his father continued to rain down blows, not caring that the man had started to sob, holding his arm up in weak protest to protect himself, or that the gold engraved ring on his finger was leaving ghastly marks in the man’s flesh.
No one stepped in to save him.
No one lifted a finger against Alexander at all.
They all stood silently as the man took his beating without fighting back. For fear of what would happen to them if they did.
Uilleam should have felt a stirring of disgust at the grisly sight before him, especially since he had once been on the receiving end of those very same fists, but he felt nothing.
Just the same curiosity that often got him into trouble.
Curiosity that made him wonder what it would be like to possess such power.
To be the only saving grace in a desperate man’s pleas.
To become something feared and revered.
To never be weak again …
But it wasn’t his fists he wanted to use to make people kneel at his feet.
He wanted them to quake at the very mention of his name.
1
A Field of Poppies
New York wasn’t just a place—it was a state of mind.
Karina Ashworth only knew what she had seen in the movies or read in the pages of a book. As she’d sat on a plane nearly a year ago today, staring down at the clouds beneath the wings, she had expected to find a bustling city.
One ripe with brutal confessions and endless secrets.
With more buildings than parks and the sort of air about it that said one needed to be resilient to withstand the brutality of it all.
It was vastly different from the town with rolling hills and sprawling trees she had grown up in. No matter where she moved to—and she’d moved quite a bit in her adolescence—her mother never settled on a house (whether the house, itself, was big or small) that didn’t have a garden of some sort, with enough greenery around that spring meant it was always picture perfect.
She had known living in a big city would be a change from everything she knew, but she’d welcomed it. She’d looked forward to it from the moment the possibility had been put on the table.
And after nearly half a day on an airplane with little sleep, she had walked through JFK International Airport with a couple of suitcases and stars in her eyes. She’d been eager to see the city her sister, Isla, had talked so much about because, unlike her, Isla had actually traveled beyond the town they’d lived in.
From London to Melbourne, across the globe to California, then up to Canada and beyond.
It had felt like stepping into an entirely new world when she had arrived in New York.
Even as she had worried about how she would fit in with the sea of strangers around her, she had also felt a kernel of excitement about the fact that she was virtually unknown to everyone around her.
White Rabbit: The Rise (The Kingmaker Saga Book 1) Page 1
