Page 32 of Huntsman

Or the bitter, jealous monarch that she is.

“I want you to keep that,” I say, backing down the steps, my hand pressed to my heart. “It’s a token and reminder that you’ll never have to worry about the bogeyman coming after you.”

No one but her and Ekon can see my smirk.

Oh, if looks could kill, I would be—shiiid. Who am I kidding? Abena couldn’t take me if Grandma went back in time and fucked T’Challa. Now, her Mirror…

Other than me and my Seven, he’s the only other real predator in the room. The kapteni, soldiers… they’re dangerous, absolutely. Hell, all Mwuaji are. It’s why we aren’t to be fucked with, not just because we run weapons and drugs. We defend ours—territory, product, reputation, family—with a viciousness that has instilled fear in the hearts of many mu’fuckas in these streets.

But still, they aren’t on the same level asus.

I don’t include Abena in our category.

She’s only dangerous because her stupidity and greed know no bounds.

What makes her truly lethal is the soulless and unfailingly faithful killer she has at her side.

When I was fourteen, he showed up at the obodo, a damn-near-emaciated sixteen-year-old with haunting blue eyes who didn’t speak for months. But he followed Abena around, never leaving her side. Ma told me Abena found him in a brothel, dirty, starved, and bleeding from being used in whatever way the clients wanted to get their shit off—beatings or fucking. The madam there made the mistake of thinking Abena fell into the category of desiring that kind of perversion. My aunt is many things, but a pedophile ain’t one of them. She tortured thefuck out of everyone there, then had the house torched to the ground.

To my knowledge, there isn’t a sexual relationship between Abena and Ekon. No, the bond connecting them goes much deeper than fucking. He would slit his own throat for her just after tearing out the heart of anyone who came for her.

Present company included.

That kind of devotion and the utter emptiness in his startlingly bright gaze makes him the second most dangerous person in the room.

I wink at him.

And he stares at me, unblinking.

I have no doubt he knows Abena sent the Huntsman after me. There’s no secret she has that he isn’t aware of. No order she’s issued that he hasn’t carried out. No body she’s laid out that he didn’t put there in the first place.

“Well.” I clap once. “This has been fun.” Not. “But I gotta get out of here. Fight night, y’know. Attempted murder and murder always get my blood pumping. I hope to see you there, Auntie.”

With a mock salute, I pivot sharply on my heel, but my name halts me.

“Eshe.” Abena waits until I turn back around to face her, and though fury still darkens her eyes, a smile curves the dark red slash of her mouth. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

I tilt my head, waiting. Nah. I didn’t forget shit. But obviously she thinks I did.

“You didn’t bow before your oba before you left. Bow, Niece.”

Hatred chokes me as we stare at each other, and just as she doesn’t hide the triumph gleaming in her eyes, I’m sure I telegraph the rage seething in mine.

I’d rather disembowel myself with a rusty spork than bow to this bitch, but to disobey a direct order would be outright disrespect at best, treason at worst. And the twitch at the corner of her mouth relays that she’s enjoying this. Enjoying knowing that it’s killing me a little to genuflect to a woman I despise.

But I don’t have a choice.

Not for now.

But even if it’ll mean both of our blood coats that fuckery of a chair, she’ll pay.

For this.

For my mother.

For everything.

Grasping a hold of that thought, I bow so fucking deep at the waist, the cast of fuckingBridgertoncould take notes.