A warning.
She got to Sienna. And at any time, she can get to my other Seven.
The guilt, thick as tar and just as filthy, returns to coat my mouth, chest. I briefly close my eyes, then open them, meeting Tera’s dark, enraged gaze.
“No more waiting. We’re bringing the war to that bitch’s front step.”
I sit with my back pressed against the wall of the shadowed loft, tucked into the corner as if hiding there can also hide me from my racing thoughts or prevent my cracked, warped mind fromventuring to a street on a different dark night, leaving me unable to claw my way back from the past.
No, gotdammit, no. There’s nothing good that lies down that path. I have to stay grounded in the here, the now. Penn doesn’t have anything to do with Ma, and neither does Sienna. They’re not the same.
She’s okay. Penn’s going to be okay. Sienna’s going to be okay. They’re not like Ma. Penn and Sienna are coming back to me and will be as good as new.
Regardless that Penn still hadn’t moved, hadn’t woken up by the time Tyeesha arrived to take over the next shift at the hospital… Regardless that Sienna lies in another hospital room, recovering from a GSW. They’re still going to. Be. Okay.
I cling to that even though the assurance is as thin and delicate as a spider’s web. The fact is my friends, mysistersare in that hospital because they chose to follow me. Because of me. I almost lost two of the few people I allowed close to me since Ma died, and the thought is suffocating. The guilt is a noose around my neck. Sitting there, watching Penn’s round, bruised face, looking so small… listening to the machines beep and hiss as they worked to monitor her breathing and heart rate… hearing her parents’ hushed voices and soft cries… Studying Sienna, her shoulder bandaged, and her face spasming with pain even in her sleep…
I can’t avoid the knowledge that this is on me. If not for me, they and all the rest of the Seven would be safe from this Poison, from Abena. This is my war, and I dragged them into it.
Who else will be sacrificed for my revenge? My ambition?
A sound from the rear of the loft reaches my ears, but I don’t glance in that direction. Don’t need to. Even when the light tread of footsteps pauses and a shadow disturbs the thin strip of moonlight peeking through the wooden blinds pulled over the floor-to-ceiling windows, I still don’t move.
Why would I?
I mean, I’m inhisdomain, after all.
“You’re determined to either fuck with me or die. Which is it?”
Now I shift my attention from the far wall and meet the barrel of a Glock 26 and Malachi’s narrowed blue eyes. My lips part, but after a moment, I close them. What can I say? Because admitting that I feel safest with the hired assassin determined to take my life doesn’t sound particularly smart. Or sane. It sounds way too fucking pathetic.
What’s even more pathetic? The relief and lust that flood my body. Good thing my ass is planted on the floor. Both have me equally weak at just the sight of him. At just the whiff of his leather, storm-struck, and gun oil scent, that taut knot slowly loosens in my chest, and I suck in a breath. But at the same time, a corresponding twist tightens low in my belly in a sweet, dark, heated pain.
That’s what he is to me. For me.
Confusion and clarity. Pleasure and agony. Vice and purity.
My Achilles’ heel.
“Fuck,” he mutters, disgust lacing his voice. Tucking his weapon away behind him, he stretches his arm toward me, and I don’t hesitate to wrap my smaller hand around his much larger one.
He tugs me to my feet, the corner of his mouth curling as his gaze flicks down to the corner where I was sitting, tucked between his couch and the wall.
“The fuck you doing here, Eshe?” he demands, dropping my hand as if he can’t stand touching me. If he wiped his palm on his joggers, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Wouldn’t have stopped me from going upside his head for the blatant disrespect and hurting my feelings, but nah, I still wouldn’t have been surprised. “Do I even need to bother asking how you know about this place, too?”
I release a heavy sigh. “Dead horse. Let that muthafucka lie down, damn.” I drop down on his couch and cross my legs up under me. How many times I got to tell this man he’s mine? Isit my fault he doesn’t believe me? Or won’t accept it? Not that he needs to accept the shit for it to be true. “For such a brilliant man, you’re acting as dense as a bag of Remy straight bundles.”
He looks at me with that spooky, dead-eye stare. “I have no idea what that shit means, but I’m going to assume you just called me stupid. And if that’s the case, let me remind you, you broke into my shit like you’re homeless.”
I ball up my face. “You’re so insensitive. The correct term is ‘unhoused.’”
“My bad, then. You in my shit like you unhoused as fuck. Why’re you here?”
I pause, my heart suddenly beating a thick, nervous tattoo in the base of my throat. My pulse races like the cops are in pursuit of it. Slicking my tongue over my bottom lip, I momentarily squeeze my eyes closed. When I reopen them, Malachi’s gaze jumps from my mouth to my eyes.
“The truth?” I rasp.
“Sure. Why not?” His blank, stoic face doesn’t reflect the sarcasm dripping from his tone.
