“Try it,” I flatly invite.
For a moment, uncertainty and fear flicker in her dark eyes. Her second shifts forward, his steady stare finding me. But his blue gaze doesn’t shake me. Don’t no man put fear in me. Not anymore.
“Run me my money back, Huntsman,” Abena snaps.
“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.” She addresses her counselor: “Mirror.”
She doesn’t pull her gaze away from me, doesn’t say anything else to the man. But like they share some kind of weird-ass telepathy, he pulls a cell from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, dials a number, and puts the phone to his ear.
“Come here. Now. Same way.”
It doesn’t take a muthafucka from MENSA to figure out he’s calling in hittas to take me out. The irony that Abena just hated on men as incapable yet surrounds herself with them to do her dirty work isn’t lost on me.
Fucking hypocrite.
We stare at each other, the silence thickening, deepening with her intent and my rage. Nah, that’s not entirely correct. Yeah, I’m hot that she plans to have me murdered. But after being drugged, chained, and threatened, Ineedthis. Already, excitement sings its sweet melody in my head. Hunger creeps through my blood, whispering its craving to rip, to hurt, tokill.
A calm settles over me as the only door to my loft opens and two men dressed in black enter. Only one person should knowwhere I lay my head. While I don’t trust anyone and wouldn’t put anything past a living person—shit, wouldn’t put anything past a dead one either—I 100 percent believe Jamari wouldn’t breathe a word about this location. So how did Abena discover my address? Yeah, as soon as I leave here, I’m going to make it my mission to find out. And when I do, they gon’ see me. And I’m gonna be the last person they ever see.
Nobody betrays me and lives to tell about that muthafucka.
“This is where I leave you, Huntsman. I would say it’s been a pleasure, but unfortunately, it hasn’t,” Abena says, edging backward.
See? Still so fucking unoriginal. No wonder Aisha was the better queen.
“I’ll be seeing you soon, Abena.”
She freezes, and again she’s not fast enough to hide that flash of fear. It feeds the hunger. I almost smile. Almost.
Scoffing, she covers the betrayal of nerves with a flick of her fingers and turns her back on me as if she isn’t afraid.
“Goodbye, Huntsman. Have a happy, painful death.”
Her scary ass hightails it out of there, because that bravado is going to last for only so long.
When the door closes behind her and her second, I shift my attention to the remaining men in the room.
Young. Midtwenties at most.
Corded muscle. Wide, defined chests. Powerful thighs. Strong.
A three-point black crown with a red blood drop above and black praying hands beneath on their necks. Blooded-in Mwuaji soldiers. Killers.
These aren’t innocents. Not that it makes a difference. When they came up in my place, they made their choice between living and dying.
Slowly, I back up toward my kitchen, a map of the room spreading across my mind. Island. Refrigerator. Oven hood.
Deliberately, I inhale, quieting the exhilaration, the joy, the need. The quiet pours in. I stop, my focus sharpening on the hittato the right as he pulls his SIG P365 while the other doesn’t move for his Glock yet. Cocky. That in itself will get him killed.
The two look at each other, and in the time it takes them to glance back at me, I move in a blur of motion. Leaping across the space separating us, I reach out, grabbing the Glock 26 attached underneath the edge of the island. I hop onto the shooter to the right, wrapping my legs around him. Arm outstretched, I shoot the other hitta in the eye before dropping, rolling, and popping his boy in the temple as my back hits the floor. Warm blood splatters across my face and neck.
It takes seconds.
Not even enough to get me winded.
Gotdammit.
