Chapter Seventeen. Malachi #2
“No. I just want clarification.” Eshe tilts her head.
“If you’re referring to the time when you sent the Huntsman to kill me but I ended up sparing his life instead of killing him, then yes, I lied.
But”—she raises her voice over the rumblings from those gathered—“if you’re talking about the time he broke into my house, coming for my ass a second time, well, that’s a little more complicated.
Because that would’ve been after you supposedly killed him because he didn’t take me out.
So I don’t see how I could’ve murdered a dead man in the first place.
See my dilemma? So you’ll have to be more specific. ”
Her incendiary statement is like throwing gas on a five-alarm fire.
Shouts of disbelief and anger bounce off the marble walls, and Abena shoots to her feet.
Her second climbs the steps and positions himself next to her, tension drawing his big, tall body tight.
The only person not affected by the outburst of confusion is the chaos agent—Eshe.
“The fuck you just say to me?” Abena hisses, and the room falls silent. Probably because these fools are greedy to catch every word. “Did you just accuse me of—”
“Attempted murder,” Eshe snaps, cold fury and disdain dripping from her tone.
“Don’t be such a fucking snowflake, Abena.
Not like that hurts your feelings. Especially when that’s the least of your crimes against this family.
Murder of my mother, our oba, being your worst.” She releases a low, maniacal laugh.
“Treason? You first, bitch. I call it revenge. Justice.”
“This is too fucking much. Even for you,” Abena thunders, her face twisted with a murderous fury.
Huh. For the first time, we have something in common.
“You actually believe you can get away with this kind of betrayal? I’m going to kill you, Eshe.
And it will be my pleasure to do it personally.
I’m going to carve your fucking heart from your chest—”
“Like I told you before, what you’re asking for—this won’t be cheap.”
The gravelly voice booms from the room’s internal speaker, startling me. The guards on either side of me flinch, and Abena recoils at the sound, her second moving in to steady her.
The fuck is—
Before the thought can fully form, an image flickers on the blank wall next to that mirror behind Abena’s chair.
The visual is shadowed, a little grainy, as if the camera was tucked away. But it’s clear enough to show the faces of two people in the room.
Abena and her faithful second-in-command. Both appear younger in the image, her second’s dreads not as long, but it’s them.
“Do I look like money is an issue? I want it done,” Abena says, pacing out of the frame for a moment, then returning. “Mirror, give it to him.”
He bends down, hands the other person in the room a duffel bag.
“That’s half of what you quoted me. You’ll get the balance when you do the job. And this time, do the damn job. If you hadn’t fucked up the kidnapping, then I wouldn’t even be here right now. I’d have enough money to get the fuck out of here and start my own family.”
“We didn’t fuck up shit,” the other guy scoffs, taking the bag. “It’s not my or my guys’ fault your sister’s a goddamn beast in these streets. It was either return the kid or lose our fucking lives from either her or the head of my family if he found out about it.”
“Well, this’ll solve both our problems. Kill Aisha, and as the new oba, I’ll make sure the investigation goes nowhere. Got it?”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Holy. Shit.
Shock pummels the air out of my lungs. The hell? Did I just hear what…? Yeah, Eshe believed Abena was behind her mother’s death, but this … to hear what sounds like the plotting of it?
I glance at Abena, whose face is frozen into a horrified mask. Her hand flies to her open mouth, covering it as her head turns back and forth as if searching for … what? An ally? A way to escape?
She’s not going to find either in this room that’s quickly turning against her.
One swift sweep of the crowd reveals the hate flattening their eyes and darkening their faces. Shit, the rage that’s slowly swelling, building, it contains a power and heat of its own, and it’s all directed toward her.
“I have to admit, I’m disappointed. Having heard so much about the Huntsman, I expected, I don’t know, more excellence and care with your work.”
The video switches to a scene I’m intimately familiar with. Abena in my house with ol’ boy standing right behind her after that initial hit on Eshe went to hell.
Instinctively, I jerk my gaze toward the back of the throne room, looking for a tall, slender figure with shoulder-length brown locs. There’s only one person who has access to the security system and the cameras I have running in my shit twenty-four seven.
Jamari.
Jamari’s here somewhere. A maelstrom of emotion piles into my chest at the thought of the teen putting himself in danger for my sake. At the idea of him riding to my rescue.
“You want to explain to me why I received word less than an hour ago that my niece was spotted riding through downtown Boston? I paid you to get a job done. To carve her fucking heart from her chest and give it to me in a box. This shouldn’t have been too hard a job for the gotdamn bogeyman of the underworld.
She’s one woman. You mean to tell me the Huntsman can’t kill one fucking woman?
” she flatly asks. “Did you even find her?”
On-screen me doesn’t answer, and Abena chuckles, shaking her head.
“And just think, I was going to offer you this pussy as a congratulations for a job well done.” In the video, Abena smiles, and it’s as cold and calculating to me now as it was then.
“I still might get the dick. But as I fuck your cold, dying body instead. The only good man is a dead one, after all.”
“Try it.”
Abena hesitates, and her second shifts forward.
“Run me my money back, Huntsman.”
“Four days left on the contract, Abena.”
“I don’t think so. One thing I’ve learned well in life is if you want a man to do the job right, give it to a woman to handle. So consider that contract dead. And you right along with it. Mirror.”
It’s like a triggering case of deja vu, watching Abena’s second remove a cell phone from his suit pocket and put it to his ear.
“Come here. Now. Same way.”
A low swell of murmurs ripple through the throne room as moments later, the two now dead Mwuaji soldiers enter my apartment.
“This is where I leave you, Huntsman. I would say it’s been a pleasure, but unfortunately, it hasn’t.”
She can no longer deny sending me to assassinate Eshe just as she did her sister. She’s the star of this fucking double feature.
“Bitch!” Abena roars.
Eshe jackknifes to her feet, the guards around her no longer restraining her.
Out of my peripherals, I catch movement in the restless, surging crowd.
Tera. Doc. Nef. Kenya. Maura. Sienna. Her Seven, minus Penn.
And another woman wearing a black hood and face mask.
They melt from the rest of the audience, forming a half circle around their olori.
It’s a blatant show of solidarity, of loyalty.
Of disrespect to Abena.
Tera passes Eshe a bowie knife.
“I challenge—”
Before Eshe can complete the words, Abena’s second bolts toward her, but I clocked the tightening of his body. And before one of her Seven can intervene, I’m already in motion, charging across the room, bowling through people, knocking them to the floor.
“Mine.” A roar born of pure rage barrels up my chest and erupts from my throat.
I leap in the air, my body crashing into his, taking us both to the floor with an impact that jars my bones.
My vision swims at the agony from my injuries, and pain sizzles through my veins.
Bile surges toward the back of my throat, but I fight through, shoving the agony, the nausea, back. My life depends on it.
More, Eshe’s life depends on it.
We roll, separate, and jump to our feet, facing off. Shock flickers inside me as my handcuffs loosen on my wrists. At some point one of my own guards must’ve unlocked them—I’m betting on the woman. Removing them, I toss the chains aside.
From what I’ve noticed, neither one of us talks much, and we don’t waste words now as he unsheathes a knife and charges me.
I feint to the side, and my ribs scream in protest, but I continue moving into him, taking him by surprise.
Grabbing his wrist, I twist it until the bones give an audible crack and the blade falls from his limp, dangling fingers.
I swipe his feet out from under him. His back hits the floor, and I snatch the knife up, and despite the pain radiating from the stab wounds in my arms, I grit my teeth and drive the dagger through his open mouth, pinning him down. His body jerks, seizes, and then his eyes glaze over.
That was for going after mine.