He flipped around and was on her before she could recover. He punched her where he’d stabbed her, digging into the wound with his knuckles. She cried out. He grabbed her shoulders, bringing her forward, and slammed the back of her head against the floor.
The blinking motes swam in her vision, the pain threatening to split her head in two if it wasn’t already so from the impact. She swallowed the bile rising in her throat.
As the stars cleared, her reality was becoming frighteningly clear. There was no working through anything with Ofori, was there? Her survival was a constant reminder to him of his choice to become Paul’s son and give up his family. Nena was a reminder of his betrayal, of his weakness, of his failings. With her around, he couldn’t shut away the memories of what he’d done in a drawer and lock it. He couldn’t go through life pretending the first fifteen years of it had never existed. Finding Nena alive brought all that back. Keeping Nena alive would be a constant reminder. That could not happen.
“Ofori, wa—wait,” she croaked, his hands wrapping around her throat, bashing her head against the floor as he choked her.
“My name is not Ofori!” he screamed, spittle flying in her face.
He was deranged, and she was running out of air.
She summoned her ebbing strength, gathering all of it as her hand scrabbled at the floor for something she could use to get him off her. She bucked up from beneath him, aiming for his face with a shard of broken vase she’d found. She sliced right below his eye, opening a wide wound, loosening his grip around her neck. His hands flew to his face. She rose to a sitting position, rearing her elbow back and connecting it hard with his ear.
He tumbled off her, howling, his equilibrium thrown off balance. She scampered away from him to distance herself.
“Do you know what I have suffered?” he asked, shaking his head to clear it, to balance himself.
If Nena weren’t so exhausted and hurting, she would have laughed. “Shall we compare notes on who suffered worse? You could have had our village if it was power and prestige you wanted. No one would have fought you for it.”
“Our village of jungles, dust, toil, and timber? Merchants and farmers? Who wants a lifetime of that?”
He sounded so, so much like Paul it made her sick.
She said, “I would give anything to have back the life we lived, the family we had.”
“Then you’re an idiot.”
“Our father would have let you go if you wanted it so bad. He went off to university abroad. You could have done the same.”
“He came back to be a chieftain of a dying tribe. He would have wanted the same for all of his sons.” Ofori flexed his neck, looking coolly at her. “Paul didn’t ask me to be his son.”
She licked her bloody lips, fearful of what his response would be, although she believed she knew. “What did you do?”
“I asked Paul. I begged him to make me into his mold,” Ofori answered so simply, so proudly, that it was worse than any punch he could deliver. “And he made it so.”
76
AFTER
They rolled onto their hands and knees, each trying to gather their bearings. Nena grabbed the edge of a cherrybark oak side table to help her get shakily to her feet, her side dripping blood. On the opposite end of the foyer, Ofori did the same, using a bench. He grunted through his pain. In her mind ran a mantra: Yes, Ofori had betrayed their legacy, but Ofori was not the cause. Ofori was merely the puppet.
“It’s okay,” she wheezed, a reassurance more to herself than to him. “Tell me where Georgia is, and you can live your life as you want.”
He growled, “I’m going to send the little bitch off as I did you.”
He started laughing at her, and it was a trigger, reminding her of when Paul laughed, when Attah laughed, when Robach laughed.
She didn’t recognize the bloodcurdling scream coming from her. She forgot all her close-combat training. She no longer fought him for self-preservation. His disassociation from his actions, his hatred for their father, his threats against Georgia—there would be no salvation for Ofori because he did not want it. Ofori was gone, and in his place was this monster, Oliver.
He met her in a clash, grabbed her around her middle in a tackle. She used her elbow again, bringing it down hard and repeatedly at the back of his neck as he drove her into a table. She fought through the pain. He pushed her off, throwing a side kick to her hip. She stumbled, falling to her side, her wind gone and her strength right after it.
“Aninyeh, we are the last of our family. Is this what you want just when we’ve finally found one another?”