Dark Horse
The Kingmaker Saga #5
London Miller
LM BOOKS LLC
Copyright © 2019 by London Miller
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Praise for London Miller
“London Miller writes with both complex emotion, high paced intensity and a diverse cast of misfits that you can't help falling in love with.”
Bestselling Author, Mary Catherine Gebhard
“This series continues to play out much like a chess game with all the players being moved around but with no known end …”
Amazon Reviewer, Sandy
“The way the Den of Mercenaries and Wild Bunch series are intricately woven into each other is impressive.”
Edgy Reviews, Lily
Also by London Miller
The Kingmaker Saga
White Rabbit: The Rise
White Rabbit: The Fall
Black Swan
Red Herring
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.
Something Green.
The Wild Bunch
Crooks & Kings
Shadows & Silence
Seasons of Betrayal
Where the Sun Hides
Where the Snow Falls
Where the Wind Whispers
Standalones
Acquainted
Newsletter
Keep up with all things London Miller, including exclusive cover reveals, giveaways, and more!
http://eepurl.com/dADuKn
For H
Contents
Prologue
1. Lost
2. Reborn
3. Survive
4. Allegiances
5. The Table
6. War Dogs
7. The Chancellor
8. Break
9. Interrogate
10. 200 Million
11. A Night to Remember
12. Coffee Conversations
13. The Search
14. Check
15. Want
16. Truths
17. Harsh Realities
18. Choices
19. Guess Who’s Back?
20. Unfortunate Truths
21. Harbor
22. Awake
23. Crown of Flowers
24. Reunion
Newsletter
White Rabbit: The Rise Sneak Peek
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Prologue
Previously, in Red Herring ...
Even as the world seemed to celebrate around her, the only thing Karina Ashworth wanted was to shed the too tight dress she wore, kick off the gravity-defying heels she’d thought were a good idea an hour ago, and climb into her bed and sleep for as long as she possibly could.
The fatigue she was suffering wasn’t like anything she had ever felt before—not even how she’d felt during her first trimester of pregnancy when napping had become something of a favorite pastime for her.
A glass of bubbling champagne appeared in front of her, making Karina look up in surprise as the hand that had held it there withdrew.
Orion, who was arguably her favorite person in the world currently, smiled down at her as he took a gulp of his own drink—though she suspected whatever was in his glass was a lot stronger than what he’d given her.
“You’ve got that look,” he said conversationally, helping himself to the seat next to her.
“Which look would that be?” she asked, though she had a pretty good idea what his answer would be.
“Having second thoughts?”
Karina wanted to say no, that everything she had worked for had gone exactly as she had intended for them to, but the longer she gave herself to think about it, the more she couldn’t bring herself to actually answer the question.
She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
“I’m having a lot of thoughts,” she settled on saying, the closest thing to the truth she could manage. “I just haven’t made sense of them yet.”
Because things still felt very much unfinished, and if there was anyone who would understand what she meant, he would.
It wasn’t as if Uilleam was even dead—there had been no finality to their last meeting.
No closure.
Moreover, she knew he wasn’t finished with her yet.
She doubted he ever would be.
“You pulled off the impossible though, didn’t you?”
Karina blinked, focusing back on Orion, realizing she had let her mind wander again. “Have I?”
She wasn’t so sure she believed that.
“You’re the only one here who’s managed to put the dude on his knees. So, yeah, I’d say you have.”
Her gaze scanned the scores of people below them.
To the men walking the floor, she had done the impossible—took down a man who was supposed to be invincible.
And she knew—even though she didn’t know half the people here—that they had all been on the receiving end of Uilleam’s ruthlessness at one time or another.
Undoubtedly, they all wanted to see him fall nearly as much as she had. Yet, they hadn’t been able to manage it.
But it still didn’t feel like something worth celebrating because she knew something no one else in the room was willing to admit to her face.
She smiled over at Orion, even as she lifted her drink to toast him. “I’ve also managed to acquire new enemies.”
“How do you figure?”
It was the law of the jungle—basic animal instinct. “No man wants to follow another.”
Just as she had taken on Uilleam, someone else would inevitably come along to take her on. “It’s never easy being king.”
Or queen, as it were.
It was only a matter of time before whoever it would ultimately be felt confident enough to strike, but for now, she was as safe as she would ever be … even with Jackal currently indisposed.
“Why the long face?” a cheery voice asked, intruding on their conversation.
Orion’s expression shifted as Katherine stepped between them, but he merely sipped his drink and walked away without saying anything. His distaste for her mother was left unspoken.
“Just tired,” Karina response, not remotely interested in sharing what all was on her mind.
Katherine had never been the most understanding of sorts.
Especially not wen it came to Uilleam or her complicated feelings toward him.
“Well smile, darling. This is a party.”
Ah, yes.
A party of Katherine’s making—one that involved an excessive amount of expensive food and drinks, surrounded by people who were only interested in how one could further their own agenda rather than her successes.
When Katherine had first suggested the party, Karina had been more than a little reluctant to attend.
This party wasn’t truly about her, not really, but rather about the man she had forced to go into hiding—the man everyone in this room collectively hated.
Karina didn’t necessarily min
d cheering a bad man’s downfall—she had done it on more than one occasion—but this felt wrong for reasons she didn’t want to think about.
“How you haven’t moved on from that man in mind boggling, but I guess the first is always the hardest.” Katherine might have attempted to sound sympathetic, but she didn’t look as if she understood the concept at all. “Give it a little more time, and I’m sure he’ll be nothing more than a distant memory—as he should be.”
Karina didn’t have the heart to admit she wasn’t so sure that was true.
Retrieving her flute of champagne, Katherine tapped a knife against the crystal, silencing the room and bringing the attention up to them on the terrace.
Men and women alike looked fondly upon them—as if they were happy to merely gaze upon them.
Sheep, the lot of them.
Katherine’s smile was radiant as she said, “To my daughter.”
The strangers below clapped all too happily, beaming at her as if she were truly above them all, though not a single one of them knew who she was or what all she had done and sacrificed to get where she was.
They didn’t know the lives that had been forever altered.
They didn’t know the pain, sweat, and tears involved in actively destroying a man who felt as if he were a vital part of her very being.
They only knew this—a moment filled with champagne and fine food. They knew nothing.
Gradually, the clapping tapered off and they all tipped their glasses up in her direction, Karina preparing to do the same if only because it was expected of her, but as the room grew quiet once more, she heard it.
Slow, almost mocking applause.
The sort that made a chill crawl its way down her spine, and she knew, even before she started searching the crowded floor below, who she would find.
A part of her didn’t want to believe it—she was almost sure her exhausted brain was projecting his image—but no matter how often she blinked, he still remained there.
And sure enough, just off to the left of the room, Uilleam sat wearing a black suit. He didn’t care that all the attention in the room had shifted to him—that he still, despite everything that had happened, managed to silence a room without any effort.
He was still, despite what she had done, the Kingmaker, and everyone knew to be afraid.
He sat with that easy, almost mocking smile on his face—as if he knew he didn’t belong here, but he didn’t care.
His eyes, though … they told her everything his expression didn’t.
There was an anger there the likes of which she had never seen before. It burned with a ferocity she could feel even as her distance.
And all of it was aimed at her.
The attention in the room might have shifted back and forth between them, but Uilleam never took his eyes off her.
Not for a second.
“Security!” Katherine called rather loudly, sounding put out. “Please escort the gentleman out, if you’d please.”
That was all it took to spark a smile on Uilleam’s face and oh did it do things to her she didn’t want to think about. That was the thing about him—his arrogance was an attractant, even as it was one of the main things that troubled her about him.
And when one of the men in black suits moved in his direction, Uilleam didn’t have to utter a word before men in war gear, black masks, and equally dark clothing came out of the shadows, rifles at the ready.
Four of them.
From every direction.
From each corner of the room.
Even behind her.
Orion was on his feet in a second, stepping between her and the anonymous man before she even realized what was happening, his own gun trained on the mysterious mercenary.
But unlike the others below, this one didn’t carry his rifle in his hands, but rather had it strapped across his back.
Uilleam’s doing, she was sure.
Because even as Orion kept his weapon level with the man’s forehead, the mercenary didn’t reach for anything to defend himself. Not even one of the knives sheathed at his belt.
Uilleam’s message was clear—he didn’t want her hurt.
Yet.
This was a choice on his part—he was sparing her because it was what he wanted.
But if he thought his display of force would make her fear him, he clearly hadn’t learned the very hard lesson she’d attempted to teach him.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Uilleam began cordially, as if he were among friends and not in a room full of people that probably wanted him dead. “I, like many of you, enjoy a nice celebration, but just a word of caution. If you want to live to see another sunrise, I would suggest you leave.”
Karina couldn’t be sure, not when she was seated so far away, but something was vastly different about him—a change that had come over him in the last four months since she’d last seen him.
He didn’t look as desolate … or as lost.
No, he looked more like the man she used to know—the one who had managed to charm her in the middle of a ballroom without really trying.
One minute, the room seemed frozen in place not sure how to act. The next, they were scattering as quickly as humanly possible to do as he bid.
It seemed he still had some power behind his name, after all.
A number of guests who lingered, their curiosity would be the thing that ultimately got them killed.
But his act of intimidation didn’t sway her.
Karina set her drink aside, the party forgotten. “Letting you live was a gift, Uilleam.”
He, undoubtedly, knew she didn’t have Jackal with her. She also knew that he was making it a point to show her that though she had laid ruin to his Den and the mercenaries who’d called it home, he always had a contingency place.
But he was in her territory now. He no longer had the power.
Her dress fluttered behind her as she stood and moved toward the marble staircase, mindful of how this looked.
It seemed ages ago now that their positions were reversed—that he had been the one descending, and she had looked up at him in awe.
She’d been the naïve prey and he’d been the hungry predator.
How times had changed …
His long-legged stride ate up the distance between them, aided further by the fact that the crowd below was dissipating and the few who remained were quick to move out of his path.
“And a curse for you, poppet,” he replied just as easily, almost to the foot of the stairs by the time she reached the bottom.
No one dared intervene or step between them.
But she knew, even as he was the only thing she could focus on, that they were the center of attention.
She had been sure Uilleam would remain in hiding to lick his wounds in peace, but she should have known he would come back—albeit, sooner than she had anticipated.
It was in his nature.
He’d come for her—this moment was inevitable.
And as he finally closed the remaining distance between them—that fire in his eyes only burning brighter—she couldn’t help the trace of awareness that swept through her at the look on his face.
For a moment, it felt as if the world stood still around them—as if they were the only two in the room.
He pinched her chin and forced her gaze up to his before he smiled. “You played a good game, love.”
She refused to be swayed by that. “I warned you to stay away.”
“Oh, but poppet, it’s my turn now. And I promise,” he murmured as he stroked her jaw. “You won’t like how I play with you this time.”
Karina swallowed, unsure how to respond—unable to even think of how to reply. But before she could, he took a step back, surprising her as he casually walked toward the center of the room.
She couldn’t begin to understand what he was doing, and more curiously, the security he had brought along with him took measured steps out of the room until they had disappeared completely.
Karina glanced up at Orion, seeing her confusion reflected on his face.
But Katherine … she merely looked expectant.
Karina looked back at Uilleam, intending to walk to him, at least until he started to unbutton his jacket and slipped it off his shoulders.
“What are you doing?” she asked before she could help herself.
“As I’ve told you,” he said carefully, kneeling on the floor, his gaze back on her. “The war is never over until it’s over.”
Then he winked.
A confusing gesture that made her mind race, at least until the doors to the banquet hall burst open and several men rushed inside, all shouting orders for everyone to get down.
The very sight of them made her heart sink in her chest.
Karina had never blinked in the face of his mercenaries, or even the many assassins she had met over the years. But those were men she had learned to trust despite their affiliations.
The men here now … they were the real enemy.
“Uilleam Runehart,” a man announced as he marched proudly into the room, the navy blue windbreaker he wore open at the front to display the bulletproof vest he wore beneath emblazoned with three yellow letters along the front. “I’m Special Agent Angelo Ramon. You are under arrest for the murder of Governor Michael Spader, international arms trafficking—“
The FBI agent was still listing a number of charges as another agent placed a pair of silver cuffs on Uilleam’s wrists.
Karina tried to remember how to breathe.
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