Chapter One. The Huntsman
CHAPTER ONE
The Huntsman
NOW …
“Bring me her heart.”
I swallow a grunt.
Bring me her heart.
How cliché and … expected. Then again, there’s nothing particularly fucking original or inspiring about Abena Diallo.
Yeah, as “queen” of the Mwuaji for the last nine years, she’s ruthless, with a moral compass that’s permanently pointing somewhere south and no conscience to speak of.
And those are her better qualities. Still, in our world—a world where crime and murder are just appetizers to the main course of power and corruption—that’s standard operating procedure. Hell, that shit’s required.
Still …
No imagination.
“I want it done as soon as possible.” Abena spins around before striding toward the high-backed ebony chair rimmed in silver and glittering black diamonds, the top fashioned into a crown of wickedly sharp, deadly blades.
Like a throne.
She’s really leaning into the “queen” thing.
The ornate chair. The black raised dais.
The huge oval mirror with the ornate, gold-encrusted frame behind the “throne.” The velvet drapes pulled back to reveal a view of the Boston skyline and the gleaming waters of the harbor as moonlight hits it.
The cavernous room with a cathedral ceiling of glass that invites the night sky inside.
The array of weapons—swords with jeweled hilts; short daggers with gems decorating the actual blades; shields with the Mwuaji “coat of arms” mounted on the walls.
It’s overkill, if you ask me.
And hints at compensating for the lack of something. Curiosity about exactly what that deficiency could be flickers in my mind like a candle’s flame before sputtering to darkness.
Yeah, I don’t give a fuck.
As an assassin, I don’t usually question the motivation behind a kill order. I have allegiance only to myself, and if it doesn’t affect this party of one, I don’t care about the who or why someone finds themselves at the end of my gun or knife. Or whatever weapon I choose to dispatch a target.
My lone rule is no children.
But Abena isn’t commissioning the death of a child.
Just her niece. Because the woman is a threat to her crown.
See? No imagination.
She sinks down on the chair, settling her fingers on the arms, her back ramrod straight.
Her gaze, as black as the chair underneath her, meets mine.
If she expects me to flinch or shrink from her dark scrutiny, she’ll be disappointed.
Even that flicker of lust that’s simmering just beneath the calculation doesn’t move me.
Someone would need to feel curiosity, interest, or fear to do that.
Someone would need to feel, period.
That someone isn’t me.
“This is time sensitive, and I need her dead before the week is out. How much?” she presses, crossing long legs encased in white leather.
“Five million.”
They’re the first words I’ve spoken. She’s given me the target and a time limit; I don’t need anything else. I can get to work.
She glances to her left at the only person in the “throne room” besides us.
The man stands nearly as tall as my own six-foot, six-inch height, with shoulders damn near as wide as the huge window behind him, and his pure white locs brush against his elbows as he bends his head over a device in his hands.
Moments later, his blue eyes—even more brilliant against his umber skin—meet mine before he turns to Abena and gives her a small nod.
“The money should be in your account now. Remember, Huntsman. By the end of the week. And no failure.”
I don’t bother responding to that.
One, she might have just dumped five million in my untraceable account, but I don’t work for her. She doesn’t employ or own me. No one does.
And second, failure is never an option. And it hasn’t ever been an issue. What I set out to kill ceases to exist.
After turning, I stride across the room and leave without glancing back at the woman who issued a death warrant for her niece. From personal experience, I already knew this, but …
Family is a muthafucka.
I don’t stop as I leave the office building constructed of steel, glass, and bad intentions and shove out into the humanity teeming in the downtown streets, regardless of the late hour.
It’s nearing one in the morning, but people crowd into the business sector as if it were the North End or the Theater District.
This is Mwuaji territory though. Business never stops.
Not while there are guns to run and stolen goods to import and export.
The family, known for supplying most of the Eastern Seaboard with weapons and illegal goods from art to drugs, controls Boston Harbor and several other piers and docks in Massachusetts and western New York. Business and crime never sleep.
“We good?”
I don’t jerk at the sudden appearance of the tall, wiry, hooded figure next to me. I sensed Jamari several minutes ago when I exited the Mwuaji headquarters and he fell behind me, tailing me. Covering me. Even though I’ve ordered him to beat it several times.
But he’s stubborn. And sixteen.
He’s also lucky I don’t kill kids. But if he keeps fucking with me, as soon as he turns eighteen, he might be fair game.
“Yeah,” I say, my answer abrupt with a whole lot of get the fuck on.
But as usual, Jamari ignores my tone and keeps pace with me. Even though he’s still a teen, he’s nearly as tall as me and his long legs easily eat up the ground.
“What’d she say?” He doesn’t wait for my reply …
probably because he knows by now there won’t be one.
“She wants you to off her niece, doesn’t she?
Bet. I know she does,” he prattles on, at least keeping his voice down as we reach a corner and turn into the alley where I parked my restored, modified raven-black 1969 Pontiac GTO.
Slipping several bills to each of the kids I asked to look out for my car, I open the driver’s door and slide inside. A second later, Jamari drops on the passenger seat and slams his door shut, then lowers his hood, revealing his shoulder-length dark brown locs and damn-near-too-pretty profile.
“I’ve heard things, and it’s the worst-kept secret in Boston that she wants Eshe offed,” he continues, his fingers drumming a beat on the door panel and his leg jumping in an impatient rhythm.
The kid is like a downed wire after a storm: Restless.
Popping. Never still. “Shit, some of her own people even think she’s the one behind Aisha’s death.
I know the Mwuaji are fucking killers, but taking out your own sister just so you can be queen and leaving your niece motherless? That’s some nasty work.”
Just shows how young and na?ve he still is, even for someone who’s seen some of the worst shit humanity can do to one another and themselves. Nothing surprises me at this point. Greed and power are some of the tamest reasons for murder. Some of the sanest.
“Most people don’t pay attention to a kid,” Jamari says.
I snort. Only the dumbest fucks don’t consider any- and everyone a potential threat to their lives.
Age, sex, size … None of that measures up against desperation.
“They say things,” he continues, fingers drumming faster, knee bouncing quicker, “and more than a few in that family would rather see Eshe as their queen. Feel it’s her rightful place.
And if someone hadn’t gunned down her mother, she would be.
If I overheard that talk, I’m pretty fucking sure Abena has. ”
He’s not telling me anything I don’t already know. People kill not only to grab power but to keep it. And Eshe Diallo, whether she covets the role of queen or not, is a threat. Simply because others would like to see her there. Too many.
So she has to go.
And unluckily for her, it’s become my job to see that she’s no longer a threat … or competition.
It isn’t personal. It never is.
A faint pinch of something echoes behind my rib cage.
An image of Eshe Diallo flickers in my mind like a projector’s beam hitting a screen, and though I met the Mwuaji’s olori only one time, that visual is crystal clear, branded on my brain, my memory.
A stunning face that isn’t pretty—at least not in the classical sense.
It’s too bold, the bone structure too severe, too strong for something as simpering and weak as pretty.
She’s arresting. Those stark cheekbones, stubborn jawline, flared wide nose, piercing, oval-shaped hazel eyes, and fucking prurient offense of a mouth are like jigsaw pieces gathered from different puzzles but ones that somehow fit together to form a fierce, striking image.
And then there’s that petite body with its deceptively soft-looking curves.
The firm handful of her breasts. The flare of her hips, perfect for a bruising grip. The thickness of her gorgeous thighs.
Pretty? No.
Lethal and fuckable? Hell yeah.
I would say it’s a crime that she has to die when her only sin was being born to a queen. But that would be a lie. Eshe Diallo has committed plenty of sins in her short life. All anyone has to do is look into those multicolored eyes and see that soul is as clean as a Boston gutter.
And for a man like me, that’s as beautiful as her face.
“H-Man,” Jamari murmurs, his leg and fingers suddenly stopping their twitching. My own shoulders twitch at that ridiculous nickname he insists on calling me. “Are you really going to…? I mean…”
“Don’t go there, kid,” I say, my growl rolling through the car’s interior in an ominous warning.
I don’t discuss business with anyone. Period.
And once I accept a job, I don’t fail. Ever.
Jamari falls silent, and his fidgeting resumes as he turns his head toward the passenger-side window.
That pinch pulses in my chest again, but this time I ignore it.
Eshe Diallo will be dead by the end of the week.
And there’s no room in this world for regret or second-guessing.
That, too, is part of the job.
I stare at the cottage nestled in the middle of a New Hampshire forest like it’s a dog that took a big shit on my boot.
What the fuck is this?
It took me the better part of three days to track down Eshe’s location, and a cottage straight out of a goddamn fairy tale didn’t even register on the list of places I’d find her.
Built to almost disappear into its surroundings, the dark brown, pitched, and deeply sloped roof and dark green walls blend into the trees so well, the light seeping out from the wooden shutters almost appears like sunlight filtering through leaves.
Whoever constructed this building either had a flair for the whimsical or was defensively strategic. Maybe both.
Still, this … bit of playful fancy doesn’t fit the cold, reserved olori I’ve come to kill. A sterile, spartan apartment with blackout curtains, well-planned exits, and maybe even some deadly booby traps, sure, but not this … thing that belongs to dwarves hi-hoing it to work in the mines.
What—and I repeat—the fuck?
For some reason, Eshe disappeared to this place, and as much as I resent the curiosity poking a dagger-sharp fingernail at me, squashing the questions, the interest is undeniable.
Why the hell is she out here in the middle of nowhere, in southern New Hampshire?
Out of protected Mwuaji territory by herself?
No backup, none of her family? Who does this property belong to? Why does it even fucking exist?
Just as the last inquiry parades across my mind, I deliberately shut the shit down.
Not my fucking business. And neither is Eshe Diallo.
Only how to infiltrate her current location without tipping her off before my knife meets her neck concerns me. Not the woman herself or her life choices.
My eyes narrow on the two shuttered windows bracketing the wide, green-painted wooden door as I slip on my “hood.” I never hunt without the black leather balaclava, and though it’s only me and the olori in these godforsaken woods, this time’s no different.
There’s been minimal movement in the cottage, a shadow breaking the golden light trickling from inside just three times since I’ve been standing here, hidden behind a huge tree trunk and its thick, heavy canopy of leaves. Either she’s getting ready to turn in for the night or—
The tingles stabbing at the nape of my neck are my only warning.
I whip around, my hand flying to the middle of my lower back and the knife tucked there.
But it’s too late.
A hot pain flares in my neck, followed quickly by a sensation of burning lava pouring through my veins.
Reflex has me slapping at my throat, and I snatch a needle out of my skin.
Rage explodes inside me, and a growl rolls out as I meet a pair of gleaming eyes surrounded by thick dark curls.
“You,” I snarl.
Then everything crashes to black.