Only one person walks out of that ring. The other is carried out.
“Yeah, but the bets have been rolling in since this morning when we sent out the message with the lineup. We’re already looking at three million, and it’s just three o’clock. By the time we open the doors, we most likely will have hit the ten-million mark,” I say, twirling my own glass of Patrón, staring down into the gold depths. “Boston is full of Dane Graveses and Black Knells.”
Cold as fuck? Yeah, but still true.
“Abena just sent word that she’s not attending.” Sienna glancesup from her iPad, her hazel scrutiny landing on me. Setting the device next to her on the wide arm of the recliner, she leans forward, propping her elbows on her thick thighs. “So what’s the plan from here?”
“And while we’re discussing that, bitch, where in thehelldid you get that mask? It looked authentic, and I know you didn’t really kill the fucking Huntsman,” Kenya tacks on.
“I got my ways.” I shrug, taking a sip. “And yup, it’s real as fuck.”
“Okay, okay, keep your secrets. Just know, I have my own ways of finding them out.” Kenya narrows her eyes, jabbing a finger at me, then back at herself before pounding a fist into her open palm.
“You better tell her.” Penn points in Kenya’s direction, nodding.
Lightly snorting, I set my tumbler down on the glass end table, next to the necklace Tera stripped from her neck as soon as she stepped in my house. All of them did, as if they couldn’t wait to shed the stink of Abena off them. I get that shit. I study each face of my Seven before pushing up from the couch and stalking across the living room until I reach the tall, nearly floor-to-ceiling window on the far wall.
The view of the surprisingly domestic and pretty street with its towering trees, softly lit windows, and kids’ bikes left in driveways looks innocuous enough. But buying a house on this particular street in this particular neighborhood was the point. Any onlooker can’t tell that this cookie-cutter home is heavily wired and armed with a damn-near-impenetrable security system that Nef had installed.
Well, impenetrable except for a certain Huntsman.
“Here’s what I want to know,” Maura says. “Yeah, Tera let you know that Abena had sent the Huntsman after you. But you didn’t knowwhen. So how did you figure out when he was pulling up so you could get the drop on him?”
“Y’all never fail to clown me about that tracker I put on his car, but thanks to my forethought, I was able to get the drop on him first,” I say, still staring out at the rapidly turning gold and red leaves that have started falling on my front lawn.
“Forethought.” Maura snickers. “That’s what we’re calling it now.”
I don’t share the details of chaining him to the bed or having his dick in my mouth. They know of my two-year… fascination with him, but they don’t know how deep it runs. They see it as some crush to tease me about, not as my obsession. But hell, how can I explain something to them that is sometimes hard for me to understand? How do I describe this need I have for this man that defies logic or common decency? I have no boundaries when it comes to him, and all I can say is that from the moment I saw him for the first time, my soul—as dirty and damned as it is—called out to him. No, cried out. Maybe like recognized like. Feral recognized feral. Sinner recognized sinner.
I don’t fucking know.
He’s mine.
He’s mine like no one else has ever been. Not even my mother.
She belonged to the family as well as me. I had to share her, her time. The oba was everyone’s equally.
But Malachi? He belongs only to me.
Even if he doesn’t accept it.
Fortunately, that’s not a prerequisite.
For some reason, I’ve held back on sharing that with my girls, though it makes no sense. Not when I tell these women everything.
Well, almost everything.
Without my overt permission, I rub my thumb over the smooth flesh where my right pinkie used to be.
“Who knew stalking could save a life?” Kenya snickers.
“I did.” I shrug and turn around to face them. “But there’s something I didn’t tell you. I kind of let you assume that the Huntsman slipped away from me. The truth is… I had him…I mean really had him. My gun aimed at his forehead. All I had to do was pull the trigger.” I pause, and instead of the leaves skipping in the wind, I see Malachi—not the Huntsman—and those mercurial gray-blue eyes glaring up at me, unblinking… accepting his death as I pointed my Glock at his forehead. “But I didn’t.”
“Say what now?” Tera barks, dropping her feet from the coffee table in front of her to the floor and straightening. “Run that shit back by me. You had him? You had the fucking Huntsman dead to rights—the key word here being ‘dead’—but you didn’t kill him?” She shakes her head so hard, her brown bangs swish across her dark brown skin. “Nope. I said that shit aloud and it still doesn’t make sense. Now I know you have this crush on him and shit, but the mu’fucka did come there tomurder yo’ ass. You’re damn right I believed he escaped or maybe even you two got into it but he still got away. But not ever did it cross my fucking mind that youlet him go. Because that would mean you deliberately allowedthe deadliest assassin in our worldto live so he could return and have another shot atmurdering you. Explain that shit to me. Please.”
Even though Tera spoke, all of them watch me with varying degrees of disbelief. Even Nef, who usually doesn’t display any emotion at all.
Thrusting my fingers through my hair, I grip the curls and tug, letting the pinpricks of pain flaring across my scalp center me, help me focus my thoughts. Folding my arms across my chest, I lean back against the wall and meet each of their gazes.
