Rolling my lips, I bite the top one and quietly step inside. Silence greets me. As it should. Contrary to Malachi’s assumption,I’m not moving completely random. Though Abena is a chaos agent, she’s also a creature of habit. Doesn’t matter if she’s been partying, fucking, or sleeping like a baby, she has a cup of peppermint tea at 2:30 every morning. That’s my in. My opportunity to get to her.
I pause in the mudroom, listening for noise—voices, footsteps. Not hearing anything, I still reach into the same side pocket with my monocular and pull out a stick with a small circular mirror on it. I slowly hold it out and peek into the glass. No one appears in the reflection. Satisfied, I return it to my thigh. Carefully stepping out, I—
A big, unyielding hand clamps down on my shoulder, yanking me back behind the wall and into the dark shadows of the mudroom. My heart leaps for the base of my throat, and I send my elbow flying back into a rock-hard wall of abs. A familiar sensual scent infiltrates my nose a second later, and I pivot, meeting bright eyes through the rectangular hole in the dark ski mask.
“I don’t have time for this,” I snap lowly.
“I don’t either, but here we are. No plan. Your overemotional ass about to go off half-cocked so we can get killed. Or worse.”
I frown. “What’s worse than getting killed?” Well, aside from being kidnapped and trapped.
Like I said, all that’s visible are his eyes, but they’re giving,Bitch, I wish we had time for show-and-tell.
Before I can reply, he slides around me and disappears into the corridor.
“Shit,” I mutter, then quickly, lightly charge after him.
I know this place better than every feature on my face—nah, every feature on Malachi’s face. I’ve crawled, walked, scaled, run every inch since I was a baby. Just because I moved out once I hit eighteen and Abena couldn’t hold me here any longer doesn’t erase my memory. Or the love for it etched into my heart. My grandmother, my mother—our mothers before them—all lived and ruled here. This obodo is our history. And now history is about to repeat itself with me assassinating a ruling oba.
An almost-eerie calm settles over me as I follow Malachi up the curving staircase to the second level. We pause at the top, scan the floor, then continue on to the third floor. A part of me wants to balk at letting him take the lead. Especially when this is my mission, my aunt, my burden. But there’s also no one I’d trust more to head into war beside other than my Seven.
Then there’s the fact that, given he still wants to kill me—so he says—the smart thing to do would keep him in front of me rather than in back of me.
As Malachi’s foot hovers above the second-to-last step, I tap his shoulder. He halts and glances back at me. I shake my head and point down at the step. As long as I can remember, that step squeaked. It would possibly alert someone to our presence.
He nods, getting my message, and climbs over the step. I repeat the motion, and seconds later, he reaches the third landing with me right behind him. Malachi flattens his back to the wall and peeks around the corner. Without looking back at me, he holds up two fingers, relaying there are two soldiers standing guard.
After easing his hand to the sheath at his thighs, he removes one, then two knives. He pauses. Then, in a motion so fast that it’s damn near supernatural, he moves out and hurls them down the hall. I’m right behind him, running. And before the bodies can hit the ground, I catch one and he hooks the other. Carefully, we lay them down on either side of the door. Just as Malachi bends down and removes his weapons from the soldiers’ throats, the door at the end of the hall that leads to the kitchen opens, and a guy holding a tray and tea set steps out.
Shock flashes over his face. In the few seconds between him digesting that we’re standing in front of him and dropping the tray to go for the gun at his hip, I’m at his throat, my SIG jammed under his chin.
“Don’t even think about it. I’ll kill you and help your mama pick out the picture for the programs and the T-shirts. You get me?” He nods, his dark eyes narrowed, the tea set on the traynot betraying one rattle. Admiration for him trickles through me. Even with a gun trained on him, he’s not cowering. “You’re going to take that tea in to Abena like you usually do. Don’t go in there trying to be cute. I’m telling you now—if I even feel like you’re attempting to throw ol’ girl a lifeline, I’m blowing your shit back. Understood?”
He nods again, his attention flicking over my shoulder. That tea set still doesn’t rattle in his grip, but I don’t miss the flash of fear in his eyes. Can he tell who’s standing behind me? Malachi isn’t wearing his signature balaclava, but those eyes might be a giveaway.
I mentally shrug.
Won’t matter after tonight.
“Go.” I shift to the side and move in behind him, SIG pressed to his spine.
Malachi’s presence is a large protective wall at my back. I intended on carrying this out on my own. But in this moment, I’m… not mad that he’s here with me.
The server knocks on the door, and seconds later, Abena calls out.
“Come in, Marshall.”
Marshall glances over his shoulder at me, and I dip my head. His jaw flexes, and he releases a sigh as he twists the knob and opens the door. He doesn’t falter as he strides into the room, his gait easy, natural. Malachi and I hang back, letting him shield us until Marshall has made it halfway into the room. Abena, sitting up in her bed, her attention focused on the tablet on her lap rather than the man holding her tea, doesn’t notice when we slip in and close the door behind us.
“Evening, Abena,” I murmur.
Her head shoots up, her wide dark eyes slamming into mine. Shock loosens her lovely features, her lips slackening even as her body stiffens against the mountains of pillows at her back.
“What the fuck is this?” she rasps, her gaze swinging from meto Marshall, then back to me. I guess she hasn’t noticed Malachi yet. But then again, that’s his special talent.
I move forward, partially hiding Marshall behind me and keeping her attention centered on me and not the kid who did nothing but be in the wrong, shitty place at the wrong, shitty time. Still… I relieve him of his gun and toss it across the room.
“I believe they call it ‘chickens coming home to roost,’” I say. Abena dives for her bedside table and the alarm button that’s located right under the drawer, but I bury a bullet in the pillow not even an inch from her fingertips. The silencer compresses the blast of the gun, but she still flinches, cradling her hand as if I shot it instead of the bundle of down. “Aht, aht. We don’t need to involve any more people.”
