A trick. It was a trick, and he was taunting her. He didn’t want to be a family any more than she wanted them to be enemies.
She wanted her brother. But he was the past.
She had a new life. Had the Knights, who’d taken her in and put her back together again. And she had Georgia and Cort, new and unexplored. They were her future.
“You know what, little sister? Do you want to know what I purchased with some of Father’s profits from your sale to Robach? Sweets and a movie. It was glorious. You fetched quite a good price.” Oliver stood, wiping the blood from his eyes.
He grabbed her hair, yanking it back to expose her throat, readying to punch her. She parried his hit, then kneed him in the groin. Bitch move for bitch move, his going after her hair.
“When you drove away from the village, I played football with Papa’s head.”
She swallowed a scream, trying not to fall for his bait. Instead, she delivered a roundhouse kick and jab of her own. He grunted, staggering back, shaking his head as if dizzied. She ran at him, using the fact he was dizzy, catching him in the midsection. They landed with a hard smack on the wood floors, rolling one over the other, crashing against a cabinet. It wobbled precariously but stayed upright.
He was on top of her again, wrapping his massive hands around her throat. She beat at his head with one hand while the other searched for anything to get him off. In his eyes, she only saw death and contempt, nothing but a bottomless pit.
“Say my name,” he commanded, his hands once again wrapping around her throat.
She gagged.
“Say it.”
“O—O—” she sputtered, her windpipe closing.
“Say my name!” he bellowed, blood dripping down his face. His lips curled into an ugly snarl, his thumb finding her Adam’s apple. Her fingers stopped their searching.
If he pushed, he would end her right there, and that was his plan.
“Say it.” He lifted his thumb, allowing her the briefest respite. “Say it.”
77
AFTER
He was still yelling at Nena to say his name as she searched the floor, weakened and desperate, for any weapon that would make him stop. She couldn’t think about anything except the fact that her brother was going to kill her.
He was growling above her. “Say it.” Venom dripped from his voice.
Her fingers found purchase, clawed at it—the handle of Ofori’s knife.
“What. Is. My. Name?”
“OFORI KWAKU ASYM OF N’NKAKUWE!” She swung her arm upward, sinking his knife deeply into his neck. His hands loosened from around her, and she used that slack to release her own dagger from its sheath in her belt and then ram it into his side below the rib cage.
His eyes went wide, his mouth opening as blood spilled out. His hands felt along his neck to the knife protruding from it and then slid down his side to where her dagger was embedded in him. He looked down at her in astonishment.
His eyebrows puckered. He wheezed a phlegmy sound and began to list to the side, sliding off her. He fell on the floor, choking from his blood, wondering what had happened.
Nena sat up, painfully sucking in air. She turned to him. All the anger and rage seeped from her as her brother’s blood seeped from him, leaving nothing but a void and regret.
He writhed on the floor, his hands flittering over his knife, trying to remove it. She held up a hand to stop him, knowing when he removed it, his life would run out much faster than it was. His eyes searched, not seeing. His mouth opened. Closed.
She whispered, “Ofori,” hoping for a moment of clarity.
And finally, the cloud in his eyes cleared, and he looked at her.
Her remaining brother was the youngest son and looked the most like their mother but had so much of their father in him. His strong forehead with the same three deep wrinkles, deeper now than she remembered. Gazing at Ofori was like opening a time capsule.
Nena’s throat constricted, allowing her emotions to take over as she watched her brother dying. She grieved for Ofori as she never had for the others.
“Me nua barima,” she whispered. My brother.
His movement was beginning to slow. He was going to die, and acceptance was dawning on him. They looked at each other, tears streaming down their faces. He gave her a nod, his eyes telling her his death was okay. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat, pulled her hands away from his, allowing him to do what he must.
Slowly, he wrenched the first knife out, a sickening sucking sound accompanying it. The blood flowed. There were seconds remaining. His mouth moved, with only whispers coming from it. She leaned in closer.