Synek tensed as he turned to look at her. She was half-hidden behind Tăcut, his body a shield for hers, and even as she tried to move around him, he stopped her with a look, but she appeared grateful all the same that everyone had stopped before she spoke.
“Even if the contract is broken,” she said, her voice soft and unbearably sad, “no harm can come to the Kingmaker by anyone under his command. Should it, he’s installed a contingency plan.”
It was Red who scoffed, Fang forgotten for the time being. “You could send an army, but that still won’t save you from taking a bullet to the head.”
“And what of the life of your wife and children, Niklaus Volkov?” the Kingmaker asked, looking in his direction. “Would you provide them a life without a father simply because you didn’t know how to walk away? Without a mother? I’m sorry, did you think it would end with you?” he asked with a shake of his head when Red shifted on his feet. “Let’s not pretend you don’t know what I’m capable of.”
Very carefully, he undid the buttons of his shirt, revealing a scar on his chest. “After the first attempt on my life, I had a pacemaker installed, and should it, for any reason, report that my heartbeat has stopped by any hand that is not my fucking own, two-point-seven million dollars will be transferred from my account into a man’s trust whose name you do not know and whose identity you will never be able to find. If a single one of you raises a hand against me, you all die. And your wives. And your children. And whoever the fuck else I believe you’re close to.”
His gaze turned to Synek, narrowed dangerously. “There is a reason they call me the Kingmaker, so make no mistake, the only person you need fear is me.”
“Right.”
Synek didn’t put his gun away because he needed to, or even because he doubted, though he didn’t, the truth of the man’s words. He put it away because it didn’t matter.
Not anymore.
Not when his name was out in the world and questions would be asked.
The contract was void by his own doing.
Celt was the first one to speak. “Better watch yourself out there, Uilleam. The snakes are very well hidden.”
The game … the Den … it was over.
This time, when Synek turned for the door, it was for the very last time.
Chapter 46
Nix
For once in his life, Kit Runehart was the calmest he had ever been.
He had always prided himself on keeping a level head, of being aware of anything and everything happening around him. He was a master of secrets and had been for years—ever since he had stepped into the role of assassin with the Lotus Society.
Even before that job had come along, Kit had needed to learn very quickly the secrets of others if he wanted to avoid the tyrant whose roof he had lived under.
Except when it came to his wife and brother, he often reacted without thinking. Shoot first. Question later.
That was his first mistake.
His second was underestimating the woman his brother had fallen in love with.
In the beginning, he hadn’t wanted to learn Karina’s secrets. Not because he wasn’t curious about her, but because he knew some were his brother’s secrets as well, and he didn’t want to know more about the ones his brother kept.
Sure, he was more than willing to aid in finding her once it became clear that she was the one targeting Uilleam and provide assistance where needed, but now, after learning of yet another of his brother’s betrayal, he was ready to leave them both behind.
If they wanted to spend their lives destroying each other, he wouldn’t stand in their way.
He had far more to consider now than he ever had before.
Before now, he had already considered taking Luna away for a much-needed vacation after the past few years in their lives, but now that she was carrying his baby, he wasn’t willing to risk her.
She was too willing to run into the face of danger for them, his Luna. Her loyalty came without question, even as frustrating as that could be at times. And he knew, without question, that she loved Uilleam, sometimes more than he did.
She loved him despite himself, and it was for that reason that Kit could no longer stand idly by and let her continue to risk herself in his name.
They could no longer save his brother from his decisions. Uilleam would have to save himself.
But before he walked away from it all, Kit wanted answers. Answers that Uilleam, despite his best efforts, wouldn’t be able to answer. That was the problem when hearing a story from the outside looking in; only his perception of events was clear.
If he wanted the truth—or Karina’s truth, as it were—he would have to get it from the source.
Months of training and years of practice made it easy for Kit to slip into the glass and steel building, his movements seamless and not noteworthy. To the few who walked the lobby, he might as well have been any other rich businessman in the state of New York.
No one looked at him twice.
“The elevators,” Kit said quietly, just loud enough to be picked up over the comm in his ear. Winter was on the other end, feeding him navigation.
He hadn’t explained the extent of what he was planning to do here today, but she could probably guess, and he also knew that some answers he sought would be just as important to her as they were to him. For that reason alone, he suspected, she was aiding him.
He rode the elevator up seven floors before stepping off again, switching to the next one, and then rode it down twelve floors onto the secret level that many didn’t know about. This lift had specifically converted to take him down to the private floors not listed on the blueprints to the building.
There were very few things Kit couldn’t find when properly motivated, and Belladonna was one of them.
Removing his gloves as the elevator stopped once more and the doors eased open, Kit took a step forward, not surprised in the slightest to find the men waiting for him on the other side, their guns trained on him.
Wisely, they stood immobile, neither willing to make the first move.
Belladonna had taught them well.
“Take me to her,” he said, not having to give a name. They all knew who he had come to see.
Neither moved, at least until one’s head tilted ever so slightly, telling him the man was listening to someone he couldn’t hear. After a moment, the guard nodded once and straightened, gesturing for Kit to follow.
He might not have known her during the days in which his brother had fallen in love with her, but it was nearly impossible for him to picture a girl who had been as innocent as Uilleam had proclaimed her to be.
Not only had she posed as a journalist, but she had managed to keep up the lie for more than a year. That took a level of commitment not many could sustain.
He couldn’t help but wonder now whether he would have noticed her deception from the beginning.
To his surprise, as Kit was led into an office of grays and white marble, the only guards Belladonna had with her were the two currently walking on either side of him.
“Quite foolish to have so little security,” Kit remarked as he stepped farther into the room, his gaze assessing and evaluating until they landed on her.
“If you were here to kill me,” Belladonna said with a ghost of a smile. “I wouldn’t have seen you coming.”
Dark hair fell over her shoulders as she reclined, watching him from the moment he crossed the floor until he sat in the chair opposite her desk.
“That’s true.”
And it was.
They both knew what he was capable of.
“So sure that I don’t intend to harm you?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“I doubt Luna would forgive you if you murdered me.”
Perhaps. Perhaps not. “Her capacity for forgiveness is unparalleled.”
But for now, it wasn’t a question he needed an answer to.
“I imagine your brother doesn’t know you’re here,” she said with a tilt of
her head, glancing down at the page number of the book she’d been reading before he came in.
The Art of War.
How appropriate.
“What do I owe the pleasure of your company, Kit?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest as she regarded him.
Her gaze shifted to the right, enough to send her security walking back out the door and closing it behind them. Kit removed the comm from his ear, switching it off before setting it on the desk for her to see.
This meeting would go no further than this room.
Had he not been studying her so closely, he might not have noticed the way her gaze flickered and the slight tightening of her shoulders. Belladonna—Karina—could pretend as much as she wanted, but he saw the truth she didn’t mean to show.
Some part of her feared him and how this meeting would end, but she was too proud to put an end to it.
Or perhaps she had a strategy?
It was what his brother would do had he gone to see Uilleam instead of coming to see her.
It was clear, after he’d taken the flight to Wales after Luna, that she wanted his attention.
Now she had it.
“How long have you known,” he asked, “that my mother was alive?”
It was clear from the expression on her face that she wasn’t expecting this question, but even still, she answered. “Since the beginning. He told me what she had done to you—how she treated you, rather, but even with his loyalty to you, surely you couldn’t have truly thought he would be able to murder his own mother?”
No, he hadn’t.
While every man’s moral compass was different, Uilleam’s began and ended with those he considered family. If someone wasn’t family to him, he didn’t care very much about their life.
For all Uilleam cared, the world was expendable.
He had been as surprised as anyone when Uilleam had confessed what he had done, or rather, confessed to what he thought Kit wanted to hear.
“I didn’t need for him to kill her.”
“No, I’m sure you didn’t,” Belladonna said as she shook her head, now sitting up as straight as he, hands folded primly in her lap. “Of course, an assassin wouldn’t need anyone’s aid in taking a life, but that isn’t the point, is it? Despite the deplorable woman she is, Uilleam couldn’t bring himself to harm her. Force her into exile, however? He could manage that.”
“I take it that was your doing.”
Just as she had stopped him from taking Luna’s life so long ago. The thought was enough to bring a pang to his chest. No matter what she had done, without her, Kit wouldn’t have his wife or the wee baby growing inside her.
For that reason alone, he would spare her life.
“He provided the lie,” Kit said a moment later, still watching her. Studying her for the tells she probably didn’t realize she had.
But he had learned long enough how to find one’s secrets and exploit them.
“He gave you the answer you wanted,” Belladonna retorted, a new fire in her eyes. “Uilleam only had you and your mother left after you murdered your father. Your sister walked away from the family long before she could ever see the mess the two of you made of it. Now imagine, just for a moment, that he had killed your mother, who would he have then? How many times have you abandoned him over the years? Threatened him. Betrayed him?”
Curious. “I only did to him what he did to me.”
“If ever there was a crime Uilleam committed against you, it was loving you too much.”
“As I recall, he betrayed me first,” Kit responded, not because he actually believed that, but because he wanted to see what her reaction would be. He was finding that everything she was saying was in complete contradiction to what she had tried to make them all believe.
This, he thought, was why she hadn’t wanted to see him.
She had baited each and every one of the mercenaries deliberately, saving his mother for last … That wasn’t for Luna—she hadn’t even known who the woman was. Sending her there had been Belladonna’s attempt at sparking a reaction from Kit.
Undoubtedly, she had known that he would follow Luna there, and already enraged, he would have murdered his mother where she stood.
The thought had crossed his mind, and the mental image had been enough to put a smile on his face, but he’d understood then just as he understood now that she had wanted exactly that.
“You left him when he needed you most,” Belladonna returned. “You were older, and he looked up to you. He even believed that once you finished with the Lotus Society, you would come back for him.”
“And I did.”
“But only after that bastard of a father nearly killed him.”
“Curious, isn’t it?”
She blinked, her gaze lifting to his. “I’m sorry?”
“I didn’t understand your angle with the mercenaries at first. Anyone in your position would have had them all killed or, at the very least, hurt their family in some way. It’s not as if you didn’t have someone capable.”
She had the Jackal—Sebastian—and others, he assumed.
Men just as strong and capable as any Uilleam had.
It would have been the most logical move. She could match wits with the Kingmaker, but she would need someone else to take on his mercenaries should there be a need.
“You spared all of them.”
“Is that truly surprising to you, Kit?” she asked, mock curiosity in her tone. “I thought I made it clear that I held no ill will toward the mercenaries. I’ve said that from the beginning.”
“Yet while you set out to prove that my brother was the person they needed to fear, you’re not doing that with me.”
“Because you’re well aware of who your brother is.”
“So you needed to find another reason to get me out of the way.” He leaned toward her. “Which tells me this isn’t business for you, Karina, as you might want me to believe. It’s not about me, or the mercenaries, or anyone else. It’s about you and him. It’s personal.”
Her mouth fell open, a retort sitting there on the tip of her tongue, at least until she processed what he had said. Her expression finally registered exactly his reason for being here and what she had inadvertently told him.
“Before coming to see you, I asked myself three questions. Why did you leave him the first time? If you were never a journalist, if the Karina Ashworth he knew had never existed, then why would anyone think you ran because you feared him? You already knew his secrets before he ever told you. You targeted him.”
Her hands clenched, a slight movement he noted before she settled again. “Is this meant to impress me?”
“But whatever you were meant to do, you failed.”
“Are you—”
“Because you fell in love with him,” Kit finished as if she hadn’t spoken. “That was never part of the plan, was it?”
Defiance lit up her eyes—righteous indignation—but she didn’t deny what he said. He wasn’t wrong.
“Perhaps it’s time you leave, Kit,” she said as she stood. She was all of five-foot-nothing, yet she wasn’t afraid to stare him down, daring him to continue.
But he saw now what she didn’t want him to see—the pieces of the truth dangling there for him to put together.
He saw it all.
“Perhaps it was sacrifice or Uilleam himself that made you leave him the first time. Perhaps it was a part of the plan, but something convinced you to try to fix things with him. Someone.”
This time, there was something else gleaming in her eyes. A trace of fear. “Leave.”
Kit already knew he was close to the answer, had known it from the moment he’d arrived on his mother’s doorstep. The answer had been right in front of him the entire time. He just hadn’t been able to put it together.
“August eleventh, you told him, was the day you called but he told you he was busy. That he didn’t need to see you. What did you want to tell him?”
He didn’t know now whet
her it was fear or disbelief that kept her quiet, but her silence was an answer in and of itself.
“And not even six months to the day, he found what he thought was your broken body on the floor of your home covered in blood,” he continued, “and ever since, you’ve been determined to destroy him. Which brought me to my next question … what on earth would possibly make a woman in our profession fake her death, then stalk the man she wanted to hurt?”
Belladonna didn’t respond, but it was there in her gaze. The truth.
She was just waiting for him to say it.
“For years, you’ve carried this on, baiting him, toying with him, and even going so far as to aid others in their quest to harm him, but no one was allowed to hurt him. Or is that not why you had Elias Harrington fed to pigs? It takes quite a lot of love to hate him the way you do.”
“What is your point, Kit?”
“You spared his mercenaries.”
“As I’ve said, you can’t always blame a man for the orders he takes. They don’t have a choice.”
“But you gave them one. Each and every single one of them. You were the one who found the contingency in the contract. Not Winter. You led her to it.”
She didn’t have to agree for him to know. Instead, she didn’t respond to that at all. “What do you care, Kit? The mercenaries don’t mean anything to you.”
“You told Luna that you didn’t offer her the truth because it would hurt Uilleam. You offered her the truth because you knew what it felt like to have your life manipulated by my brother, isn’t that right?”
“That’s not a big mystery.”
“You’re not offering anyone the truth because it would hurt Uilleam,” Kit said, “you’re offering it because each person has someone to lose. Families. Wives. Husbands. Children. You want us to leave him to his fate.”
The dip of her eyes was almost imperceptible. “It’s what he deserves.”
“Which still begs the question, what would cause a woman to go on a years’ long vendetta offering truths and aids that no one asked for? What would cause a woman who still loves a man to this day to want to hurt him as badly as she does? You see, I know my brother—I know who he was back then. He didn’t think before he acted. More often than not, he said fuck the consequences and attacked those in his way without caring about the collateral damage.”
Den of Mercenaries [Volume Two] Page 73
