One week later …
Keanu had traveled to a variety of places to meet with the Kingmaker over the years—the back of a sweatshop in Hong Kong, back alleys in Berlin, and the isolation ward of an asylum during one of his more paranoid times—but never had they met in a place as public as the LA Zoo.
Too many people. Too much noise. And above all else, Uilleam tended not to do business with too many innocents around. A rule, as he called it.
Everyday for a week, he’d received one phone call a day, a voicemail left after each. He’d had every intention of leaving them unanswered, but he’d given his word to see this to the end, so whether or not he was still annoyed with the man in question, he still listened.
A time, a date, and a location.
All leading up to this moment where he searched the scores of people milling around, all of them oblivious to the man sitting on the stone bench at the top of the hill mere feet away.
Uilleam still had a knack for looking out of place where everyone around him was dressed casually. Though he still wore a business suit, he’d at least left his jacket off, the sleeves of the black button down he wore rolled up to his elbows.
Seeing him, one might have thought he was on his way—or coming from—a funeral.
Opaque sunglasses shielded his eyes, his head tilted down as Keanu joined him on the bench.
He didn’t let the silence stretch for long before asking, “Any reason why we’re here?”
“She was here,” he said, his thumb brushing over the folded note he held in one hand. “Three days ago, in fact. She sat in this very spot and after precisely sixty minutes had passed, she waved at that camera.”
He pointed to one of the security cameras mounted on the nearest building. The only camera, it seemed, that faced this bench.
“Why?”
“If I knew the answer to that, I’d probably know why she seems to hate me so much, but as of now, both answers elude me.”
Keanu thought back to his brief conversation with her, wondering if anything she’d said would allow any insight into her thoughts or what she was planning, but the answer didn’t come to him any easier than it did to Uilleam.
Her motives were still a mystery to everyone but herself.
“She knows I’m here,” Uilleam went on, his voice carefully controlled. “Which is illogical. She knows I have all of my people searching for her, yet she came here of all places and made sure she was captured on the security feeds.”
Keanu might have smiled had he not sounded so contrite. “She’s taunting you.”
“To her own ruin.”
“You asked me here to talk about your crazy ex?”
The question was almost enough to spark a smile. “I have something for you.”
Picking up an envelope resting on the bench beside him, he passed it over, explaining nothing. Keanu had a mind not to open it, positive he wouldn’t like whatever was inside it.
“Save it,” Uilleam said before he could make a decision. “It’s for your eyes only.”
Keanu arched a brow, but didn’t bother responding. “This is it?”
Uilleam nodded. “For now.”
He stood, pocketing the envelope, looking back at him. “Should I be expecting another call?”
“Not from me, I don’t imagine. But soon.”
Keanu didn’t doubt that for a second.
A war was coming, and whether he was under a contract or not, he was part of it. It was only a matter of time before Belladonna was standing at his doorstep and he had no choice but to pick a side.
“I’ll be seeing you, Skorpion. Give your family my regards.”
He nodded, fully intending on leaving, but before he could, he had a thought. “Maybe it was never about her.”
“Sorry?”
“It’s been pretty clear from the start that Ada never had anything substantial on Karina. You equated her worth to that of what she had from the firm.”
“And?”
“Obviously, Karina knew that. If she wasn’t leading you to information about her, maybe she was giving you information on Spader.”
What were the odds that the governor he’d heard rumors of had an account with the very person Karina had practically laid in their lap?
Either she was a terrible criminal, or she leading them toward something much bigger.
“Interesting.”
Yeah, Keanu thought so too, but for now, it wasn’t his job to bother about a governor or anyone else.
“Watch your back, Uilleam. I don’t think you should sleep on her.”
Keanu didn’t look back as he left.
* * *
“Something’s troubling you.”
Keanu glanced up at Ada standing in the doorway, watching him with that soft expression she always wore after she put Soleil to bed.
He waited until he was back home to turn the envelope over and open it up, pulling out the bundle of papers inside. A picture was tucked between the folds, several of them in black and white, shot from a distance with the subjects unaware.
“What’s this?” Ada asked coming up behind him.
“A gift,” he answered without having to read a single word of any of it.
“I didn’t think the Kingmaker was the type of man to give gifts.”
He wasn’t, or at least he wasn’t the type of man to give a gift if there wasn’t something in it for him. But it wasn’t going to matter this time if whatever was inside the envelope came with strings, he wasn’t giving Uilleam the chance to pull them.
For a moment, Keanu considered tossing the thing into a drawer unopened, but before he could talk himself out of it, he flipped it over and dumped out the contents, confused by the set of pictures he found.
At least, until he went through each of them one by one, and the corresponding death certificates.
“This is rather morbid,” Ada said, still looking over his shoulder. “Who are these men?”
He could have told her who they really were, that they were responsible for making Soleil an orphan, but that, compared to what he actually knew, wasn’t entirely the truth. “They’re meant to ensure I pick the right side.”
Uilleam was transparent that way.
Belladonna might have hinted at truths that he didn’t know, but Uilleam would ensure he still had Keanu’s loyalty for as long as he was able.
And he’d known just how to get it.
* * *
Three days later …
Humble beginnings.
They were nothing to be ashamed about—perhaps more special because of them.
Ada couldn’t remember the last time she’d been to her childhood home, even when she still lived in London. When she thought of it, she always imagined a little hut tucked in the middle of nowhere—a place unfit for four people—but now, as they rode toward Gravesend, her heart in her throat, she wondered if it would look the same.
Gravesend was an ancient little town untouched by time. The cobblestone streets were still just as old and beautiful as they’d been when she was a girl.
“But we’re driving on the wrong side of the road,” Soleil said to Marie in the backseat, repeating the same concern she’d had since they arrived.
“It could be argued,” Marie said with a knowing smile, “that it’s the Americans that have it backward.”
As they bantered, Keanu reached over and rested his hand on her thigh. “You okay?”
“Nervous,” she confessed. “You’re the first man I’ve ever brought home to meet my parents.”
High school was spent with her nose buried in a book and after, there had never been anyone she was serious enough about to bother.
“It’ll be fine,” he said easily.
She hoped so.
In the weeks since everything had settled, she’d grown to love Keanu more now that she saw him outside of his role as a mercenary. He was wonderful, thoughtful, and undoubtedly the best thing that had ever happened to her.
Now, after just
a few short months, she couldn’t imagine her life without him.
Though he’d told her to unpack her luggage, she hadn’t a chance to get around it before he’d already had it done, making it abundantly clear he wanted her with him.
She hadn’t complained.
As the hospital came into view, Ada’s heart skipped a beat.
There was no avoiding it now.
Marie and Soleil were out of the car first, oblivious to her inner turmoil.
Keanu was next, walking around to her side to open the door. “They’re going to be happy to see you,” he said, even knowing her father had yet to wake up.
She wanted to believe that—she had to believe that.
Hand in hand, she walked with him through the front doors, stopping by the front desk to check in before heading down the hallway that smelled faintly of antiseptic.
By the time they reached her father’s room, she drew in a breath, preparing for the worst even as she hoped for the best.
Ada didn’t bother knocking as she eased the door open and stepped inside.
Edna was sitting at Charles’ bedside, brushing his hair into place before turning to look at them. Her smile appeared a moment later.
“So good to see you, love,” she greeted with open arms and the sort of smile only mums could give that made your throat feel like it was clogging up. “It’s about time you came for a visit.”
Ada didn’t have the right words to say that would make this easier—that would help calm the tears that were already forming despite her best efforts.
So much time had been wasted as she chased a dream that wasn’t worth having, then ultimately trying to fix the very thing she’d broken in the beginning. But even as that thought saddened her, on the heels of it came the reminder that she now had time to fix it.
That she no longer had an excuse as to why she needed to stay away.
All because of Keanu.
She owed him far more than she could ever say.
She could feel him at her back as she released her hold on Edna to step back. The severed contact only made it easier for her gaze to drift up and widen slightly, even as her smile did the same.
“And you’ve brought a man.”
“Mum, this is Keanu,” she said with a proud tilt of her head in his direction.
She looked over him in obvious interest before turning her gaze on Soleil who was smiling broadly.
“And who is this lovely little one?”
“I’m Soleil. Ada helped me pick out this dress. See?” She did a little spin, happy to show off the bright yellow sundress she wore.
“Nearly as pretty as you are,” Edna gushed in the way all mothers did when it came to children. “Come now, I’m sure I can find you some sweets.”
Ada was quickly forgotten as Edna swept Soleil away, their hands intertwined. Marie walked over to their father, assuring herself his condition hadn’t changed before she joined their mother.
Tears burned in her eyes as Ada made her way over to her father’s bedside, reaching out rest her hand on top of his. He was thinner than she remembered, more gray in his dark hair, but there was no mistaking the stubborn chin and the prominent jaw.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered for only him to hear. “I was awful to you when you never deserved it.”
She stroked the back of his hand as she fought back the emotion clogging in her throat.
“But I won’t ever leave again,” she promised, “and I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you and them.”
For a moment, she thought she felt his fingers twitch, but when she looked up at his face, his eyes were still closed.
Ada looked back at Keanu, still standing near the door, a soft look on his once hard face. She knew what was important now, and she would never lose sight of that again.
She loved him all the more because of it.
“Let’s go see if I can win your mother over,” he said with a shake of his head.
Ada didn’t doubt she would love him.
It was impossible not to.
CODA
Even the most brutal events rarely imprinted themselves on Uilleam Runehart.
Since he was a boy and watched a man get shot to death right in front of him—had even felt the fine mist of blood on his face—nothing tended to make him react. A thousand dollar an hour therapist had once told him he was desensitized to violence, that the part of his brain meant to process the ugliness of it all couldn’t discern it.
It wasn’t until years later that he realized that doctor was wrong. He’d learned rather quickly that he wasn’t as emotionless as he’d thought.
First came the day Kit had murdered their father.
Alexander had been a tyrant his entire life, and while Kit had suffered the brunt of his abuse he liked to inflict, Uilleam had still relished the day he finally stopped breathing. Uilleam had a tendency to look back on that day with a certain fondness that probably wasn’t healthy.
Second was the day ‘the Kingmaker’ became more than just a title—when everything he’d hoped and strived for came to fruition. The day when he no longer lived in the shade of his father’s legacy.
Third, and notably the day when he had changed the most was the day he’d come to find the love of his life beaten to death in a pool of her own blood, nothing left of her face but brain matter and broken bits of skull.
Even now, sitting on the terrace of Kit’s restaurant, he could still smell the coppery scent of her life’s essence mingled with the cloaking smell of death.
His chest tightened at the memory of the all consuming grief and disbelief, and even the way his knees had felt when he’d hit the ground, struggling to breathe.
Nothing in his life had ever affected him quite like that.
They paled in comparison.
The pain of it had been worse than anything he’d ever felt. He could still remember the heartache—the agony. Cutting his heart out would have been less painful.
In the years he’d spent building an empire, nothing had wounded him quite like that day—not even the day when a hired assassin put six bullets in his chest.
The day he’d lost Karina and whatever humanity he had left at the time, the jagged pieces left behind had never been put back together properly.
But the tiny, delicate note tucked away in his trousers’ pocket was another reminder that the pain he’d felt and let consumer him had been for nothing.
Did you miss me?—K
An innocent question, yet it burned all the same.
Most assumed the initial tattooed on his finger was an homage to himself—that his arrogance called for it. He’d never bothered to correct them.
Karina had been his strength and his weakness, one he had never wanted to give another the chance to exploit. He’d thought he’d be able to keep her safe from the myriad of enemies who would harm her if they knew it would affect him.
But he’d never suspected she was the one plotting against him.
Losing her had been enough to send him spiraling for years, wracked with guilt until he’d returned with a vengeance, swearing to avenge her, but all of it—the scheming and plots of murder—had been for nothing.
Karina was alive.
Alive and targeting him.
He should have been furious at her deceit, but his foolish heart only felt relief that she was still alive and unharmed.
‘Nothing but a weakling,’ Alexander would have said if he’d seen him now. ‘Always have been.’
Uilleam had strived to scrub that description from his mind—had become ruthless in the process—a hardened veneer covering the kindness he used to possess.
But she had always been his weakness, even from the very beginning when she’d challenged him with a smile on her face that never failed to thaw the ice around his heart. He hadn’t minded then.
After building the image of what others saw, she’d made him feel human again.
“I’ve never liked that look on your face,” a voice
called thoughtfully as it approached.
The voice—her voice.
After he found her on the floor of their brownstone, he’d heard it within the chords of songs, a whisper in the wind, even in his own head until he was sure he’d gone mad from it, but he’d never thought he’d hear it again.
Until now.
A small part of him had wanted to believe this wasn’t real, that someone—who would die painfully—was attempting to play a game with him and Karina hadn’t come back from the dead.
But as he turned, his gaze finding the woman in the white dress walking toward him, he knew once and for all the rumors, the speculation, all of it was true.
As beautiful as the day he saw her that very first time standing in front of her old office building, Karina Ashworth stood before him. Her face had been free of any makeup, her ears and throat clear of adornments. She’d been in a pair of tight white jeans, a grey tank top, and an oversized red cardigan.
Innocent and corruptible had been his first thought, like the journalist she’d pretended to be.
Nothing like the woman standing in front of him now.
Just as Luna had said, she wore all white—from the pantsuit that clung to every curve, to the white lace peeking out from beneath the labels, and even the towering heels she wore, a flash of red along the soles as she walked.
Maroon colored her lips, and the long, sable-colored hair he’d loved to run his fingers through wasn’t in the messy bun she’d loved to wear. It was straight as a pin and spilling down her back.
He didn’t recognize the woman she’d become.
Was this all part of the new role she’d stepped into all those years ago.?
Was this Belladonna?
The Karina he’d known had never shied away from color of comfort—she’d hated heels and only wore them when absolutely necessary—the woman standing behind him now did.
She tilted her head to one side as she regarded him. “Did you miss me?”
Those words …
The note she’d written him felt like it was trying to burn a hole right through his pocket to reveal that he’d still clung to it like a prized possession over the six months since he’d received it.
Den of Mercenaries [Volume Two] Page 22
