by Yasmin Angoe
Paul caught her surveillance, a slow smile creeping across his face, and moved closer to Georgia, keeping his gun at her back, smug because he held all the cards.
“You are a resourceful woman,” he said. “Kneel.”
Nena balked, images of Papa on his knees flashing in her mind. “What?”
Paul raised the butt of his gun as if to hit the back of Georgia’s head.
“Wait. Stop! Okay.” She held her hands out, taking careful steps as she entered the room to sink onto the floor. Her voice was hoarse. “Don’t hurt her.” Slowly, she sank down, inhaling tiny breaths to ease the piercing pain.
“The boy worked you over good, eh?”
“What’s next?”
Paul cocked his head to the side. “Now you choose.”
She swayed a little, waiting, her side—hell, her whole body—throbbing.
“Over fifteen years ago, I made all the choices for you. I sent you to live a new life.”
“You sold me as a slave.”
Georgia struggled against Paul’s hold. She tried to twist out of his grip, but he squeezed her shoulder and faced her forward.
“I gave you a new life,” he corrected. “I helped you realize your potential. Look at you, wudini. Assassin. Killer. Lethal. Rich, now. Smart. Even beautiful. You should be thanking me.”
She said nothing.
“Also, contrary to what you think, I did care for him, despite his failings.” He regarded her. “Perhaps I chose wrong, eh. You are the survivor. The one. The queen among knights.” He chuckled.
“I would have died first.”
He shrugged, trailing the muzzle down the side of Georgia’s face, her neck, her shoulders. She squirmed, trying to distance herself.
He swung the gun back to Nena.
“You get to choose now. I’ve got my seat on the Council. I’m untouchable now and can do what I want with their blessing because I can give them the territories they need. I can make things happen for them like they never could.”
He didn’t know he was ousted, that his dispatch was decreed. Whoever his benefactor was, whoever had helped him evade the Tribe fifteen years ago and worm his way in now, hadn’t been able to outmaneuver Delphine Knight.
“You’ve got your seat at the table,” she said. “Let the girl go.”
His eyes sparkled. “I want the table.”
“Let her go, and you can have it. My dad will give up High Council.”
Paul pursed his lips. “You must think I’m stupid. Even if Noble abdicated his seat, it’s not enough. This”—he poked the trembling girl with the muzzle of the gun—“is my safety net. You can have her back once you kill your dad.”
Paul had presented that similar offer to her papa—kill his brother to save the rest.
“We don’t have to kill him. He’ll give it up, and then the Council will follow you.”
“With Noble alive, there will always be questions, second guesses.”
“I won’t kill my dad.”
“Then she dies.” He chambered a bullet.
Georgia’s body was so still Nena feared she was going to pass out.
“Paul.”
“Make your choice. Or the girl joins her father.”
79
AFTER
Georgia’s eyes welled with tears.
“He’s not dead, Georgia,” Nena said quickly, not wanting the girl to believe for even a second that her father was dead.
She held Georgia’s gaze, shaking her head ever so slightly at the determined look in Georgia’s eyes, the firm plant of her feet like she’d learned when they’d had their lessons. Her expression indicated she already understood what Nena wanted her to do next.
They were out of time.
“I don’t have all day, Aninyeh,” Paul snapped.
Georgia stepped back gently until the muzzle of the gun was flush against her back, just as Nena had shown her. She twisted suddenly, taking Paul by surprise and pushing his gun arm out and away from her. She jammed her fist into his solar plexus.
He staggered, grunting. Georgia’s other arm snaked around his gun hand, keeping clear. She held on to his arm as she pulled the gun backward and snapped it out of his hand. It fell with a thud to the floor. Then she kicked him in the leg for good measure.
Nena didn’t spare a moment to commend her prodigy for executing her disarming move so efficiently. She kicked the gun out of the way, then jumped to her feet, hurling herself at the disoriented Paul. They tumbled to the ground.
Nena struggled against the pain in her ribs to restrain Paul’s writhing beneath her. His anger fueled him. He might have been older by thirty years, but he was a stone-cold killer in fantastic shape.
It was hard for Nena to breathe. Paul took advantage of it, landing a body punch to the very area that could tolerate it the least. Nena sucked in air long and hard, tears springing to her eyes. He grabbed her neck, rolling her until she was on her back on top of him. He tightened his forearm against her throat.
Georgia scooped up the gun and held it awkwardly on the two adults in a deadlock.
“Don’t do it, girl,” he growled. “I’ll finish this one off; then I’ll come for you.”
“It’s okay, Georgia. Get out of here,” Nena eked out. “All the way out. Don’t stop.”
Georgia listened, and with one last, long look, she ran. Nena heard her feet pounding down the stairs.
When she was sure Georgia was clear, she lifted her head as much as she could and released it. The back of her head smashed into Paul’s chin and nose. His head snapped back against the floor. Simultaneously, she pulled her remaining knife from its holster and slammed it into Paul’s thigh like it was an epinephrine injector. He howled, loosening his noose enough for her to roll off him.
He grunted, breathing through the pain. She heard the knife clatter to the floor after he pulled it out.
She was out of weapons, her last having been firmly planted in Paul’s flesh, and she was dizzy and trying to crawl away. She could hear a high-pitched sound, like metal against a sharpening stone. Her heartbeat raced. If only she could get enough distance between them to regroup.
She chanced a glance over her shoulder. Paul had limped to his feet. With one hand clamped over his wound, he had managed to grab the machete.
“You like knives?” he asked, spitting blood and approaching her. “Well, so do I.”
She froze, staring at the machete as it scraped against the wood, making an awful, sickening sound. It wasn’t the same machete from years ago, but its symbolism was as potent as the original.
“Bit of nostalgia, eh, wudini?” Paul grinned, favoring his injured leg.
She rolled over on the floor, exhausted. She could get out of the way. She could run. But her ribs slowed her down; the stab wound in her side hurt like a bitch. Her head swam. And she didn’t trust her speed or her strength at the moment. She had no more time because Paul was coming at her, blade raised. But instead of running her through, he used the butt of its handle to strike her on the face.
He grabbed her shirt, hoisting her to her feet. With his forearm against her throat, he rammed her backward into the wall.
“Fuck a unified Africa. You think I’m the only one who feels this way? I’m going to dismantle everything Noble built. Eradicate the Knights like I did the Asyms,” he whispered in her ear.
“One thing I’ve learned about you,” Nena said, raising her arm and driving a palm strike right beneath his nose, “is that you’ve always talked too much.”
His head snapped back. Her hand made a claw, and she pulled it across his face, grabbing his cheek in her nails and spinning him to the wall, where she kneed him twice in his stomach. He doubled over.
He used the machete to hold himself up. He began to lift it, but Nena kicked her foot out, stomping on the handle and his hand gripping it. She backhanded him in the face, the impact of it flinging him backward. The machete clanged to the ground. She bent down to pick up the heavy weapon. It felt alien
to her. It felt wrong.
With the tip of the blade, she pushed him until he was against the wall. And then she pushed the blade in farther, leaning in closely, their foreheads nearly touching. She watched Paul’s expression, how he winced in pain, the rounding of his eyes when shock hit him, the confusion at being bested. The blade’s tip punctured his flesh, sinking in as she put her body weight into it. She didn’t stop pushing until the wall stopped her.
Paul’s knees buckled. He sank down, and her with him, the machete protruding from him. She refused to take her eyes from him. She grasped the hilt of the long blade and yanked it out. Paul’s hands feebly reached for her, bloodied and weakened.
She shifted to the side of him, into position, curving her hands around the blade’s handle like a batter readying to hit the ball.
“You . . . can’t,” he wheezed. “I’m Council!”
She raised the machete high above her shoulder. “And by the African Tribal Council, you are sanctioned for dispatch.”
And with a whip through the air, she brought it down, separating Paul’s head from his body.
80
AFTER
Nena sat at the bottom of the staircase, battered, stabbed, bloody, and asking about Georgia, Cort, and Elin.
Witt replied through her phone, “At the hospital where the girl’s father was admitted. Your neighbor took the girl there.”
Her team member Alpha hovered nearby, keeping his eye on her and making sure every order was being followed per Witt’s instructions. The Cleaners had already been called, and Network was doing its thing to keep the whole affair as low profile as possible.
“Keigel.” She swallowed a spasm of pain where Ofori had drilled into her. She was thinking probably a broken rib, hopefully no damage to her kidney. “You’ll put more security on Dad and Mum?”
“Already on it.” She heard Witt’s wry smile through the phone. “Not my first rodeo, my dear.”
She didn’t care. “And Elin?”
Witt answered her with silence.
She nodded her acknowledgment, though he couldn’t see her. She needed to be stronger only a little while longer.
“His son?” one of the Cleaners asked as he approached. In his hands he held the tools of his trade: heavy plastic to wrap Paul’s body and industrial-strength duct tape to keep it wrapped until they could place it in a barrel with lye for quicker decomposition. Ofori wouldn’t suffer that fate. She had other plans for him.
“Take special care of the body,” she said. “Put it on ice. I’ll take care of it later.” She ignored the dubious look he gave her.
He looked for confirmation at Alpha, who nodded. “Do as she says. Wrap him.”
She was glad neither of them followed up with more questions. Right now, she needed a ride to the hospital to see Cort and Georgia.
From there, however it turned out with Cort, Keigel would take her home. And then she wouldn’t have to be strong for anyone, if only for a little while.
In the late hour, the streets were thankfully deserted, so she and Alpha barreled toward Mercy Hospital, where Elin assured Nena that Cort was stable and resting in his room.
Elin was waiting for her in the hallway outside Cort’s hospital room. Nena was anxious to see him, not because she worried over his health but because he now knew the truth about her. What would he do about it?
“He’ll be okay. The bullet went in and out, and he has a pretty serious concussion from the blow to the head.”
Nena processed the information. Elin was giving her fervent looks as if she wanted to say more. She wanted to ask after Oliver. How did Nena tell her what had happened to him? And more so, would Elin be able to forgive Nena for killing him?
She met Elin’s questioning gaze. Delivering the news was the hardest thing she’d ever have to do. If she lost Elin, she couldn’t fathom how she’d cope. Elin had been her rock. Would she believe Nena had no choice?
Elin took a breath. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” Her tone was dull. Her eyes held trepidation, but she’d clearly resolved to be the Tribe leader she was supposed to be.
“He is.” Nena waited for a beat. “By my hands.” She didn’t usually explain her actions, but she owed Elin this.
“I learned . . . Oliver . . .” The expectant look, mixed with curiousness, on Elin made Nena falter. She hadn’t even had the chance to reconcile who Oliver had been; how would Elin? Or anyone? She hoped Elin’s questions would come later, not now, because she had no answers to give beyond her next words.
“Oliver was Ofori. My brother who I thought died with the rest of my family back in N’nkakuwe.” The words rushed from her so fast Nena could barely understand them herself. But she pushed forth while Elin backed away from her, hand at her mouth, eyes wide and not understanding.
“How?” Elin managed to ask.
“I tried, very hard, for it to end differently. But Ofori—Oliver—Paul’s brainwash was too great. I couldn’t stop him,” Nena tried to explain. “I am sorry.”
She was with every fiber of her being. Elin hadn’t deserved any of this.
“He loved you,” Nena added. “You were one of the last things he spoke of. Before . . .” She ducked her head.
Elin’s face was a mask of false stoicism. “Yeah, well, it was all a part of his plan? His and Paul’s?” She didn’t need a real answer, so Nena remained silent. “All of it was a ploy, and I’m quite over being a pawn.” She rolled her eyes, laughing dryly. “The next man better watch the hell out.”
Nena watched as her sister subconsciously twirled her new wedding ring on her finger.
Elin sniffled, shaking herself back to the present. “Anyway, you should get in there and sort things out.”
Nena gestured toward the police milling around the hall. “What’s the story?”
“They’re going with an attempted abduction. Apparently, the detective Oliver killed was a friend of Cort’s?”
Nena nodded. Mack.
“The police suspect retaliation for a case they were working on that Cort was going to try. They think the plan was to kidnap Georgia and blackmail Cort to not prosecute or something of that sort. It’s the story Cort came up with.”
Nena nodded again.
“They found Georgia’s cell phone in someone’s backyard, and she told them she ran from the assailant, was picked up by your neighbor who brought her here.” Elin slipped her hands into her pockets, yawning.
“Did she tell you what happened to her?”
“Said she ran and Oliver chased her through the neighborhood. She thought she lost him by hiding in a doghouse.”
“But he found her.”
Elin’s eyes were red rimmed. “He found her and brought her to Paul.”
Nena inclined her head toward Cort’s closed door. “How much does he know?”
“Everything. I know you said to explain things to him, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. So the kid did.”
Nena waited a beat, unsure if she wanted the answer to the question she was afraid of asking.
Elin gave her a sympathetic look. “He’s just angry right now. And in shock.”
Nena mustered up a wry expression. It seemed her brother was not the only family she’d lost that night.
Her sister yawned again, and Nena suggested she head home and call their parents to let them know everything was fine. Nena was exhausted, too; the adrenaline was long gone. The pain from her injuries came at her like a truck. If they’d let her, she could lie on the hospital floor for a week. However, there was one more thing she had to do.
Nena limped to Cort’s room, gingerly holding her stab wound. She waved away offers of assistance from the hospital staff who saw her. She would be fine, and she didn’t want to answer questions. She stood in the doorway, waiting until Cort and Georgia noticed her, ignoring the officer assigned to protect them as he tried to tell her she couldn’t be there.
“She’s okay, Bill,” Cort said, locking eyes with her. “Thanks.”
She
waited for Cort’s next move, but he only stared at her, a storm gathering behind his eyes.
Georgia pointed the TV remote she’d been holding to turn the volume down, her eyes anxiously ping-ponging between Nena and her father.
81
AFTER
Nena broke their three-way stare, hoping she could make it through the moment she’d have to pay the piper with Cort.
“You are unharmed?” she asked.
Georgia nodded vigorously while her father countered with, “What happened to the man who took Peach?”
“Dead.”
They looked at her. Georgia already knew, having passed Ofori on her way out of the house; Cort looked as if he were about to be sick.
“This is like a fucking movie,” he fumed, grimacing as he tried to adjust himself in the bed.
Nena said, “You two are no longer in danger.”
“How big of you,” he snapped, his face screwing into unrestrained anger. “Aren’t you like an assassin or something? It’s what Peach says. Hell, come to think of it, it’s what you’ve been saying the entire time I’ve known you. And here I thought you were joking.” His voice was gaining strength. “That’s your job, for real? To go around killing people?”
“Not good people, Dad,” Georgia quipped.
That wasn’t true, Nena thought. They weren’t always bad people. But she wasn’t about to correct the girl now.
“Peach, be quiet.”
“Something like that. Yes,” Nena said carefully.
Cort narrowed his eyes. “And it’s true you killed two guys the night you brought Peach home?”
“I told you, Dad, they were gang members who were trying to kill me. Nena saved my life.”
Cort’s nostrils flared. He turned slowly to his daughter. “Georgia.”
Nena had never heard Cort speak to his daughter so sharply and full of barely restrained anger. Misdirected anger. It was her Cort was really angry with. Her who’d betrayed him. Georgia must have known not to push him, because she quickly snapped her mouth shut.