She did want to leave. But she also didn’t want to hear Elin’s mouth about abandoning her familial obligations to cement relationships with potential business and political partners. Building wealth and power for the Tribe wasn’t Noble Knight’s only vision—building for his family, ensuring they remained powerful inside and outside the Tribe, no matter what happened, was equally important.
She gave in, allowing David to guide her to the middle of the throngs of guests dancing and laughing beneath a domed glass ceiling, from which they could see a black sky blanketed by innumerable twinkling stars.
“Do you mind having the bloke not whisper sweet nothings into your ear? He sounds loud as hell through the earrings,” her older sister’s voice suddenly cooed with syrupy sweetness through Nena’s earpiece. Nena didn’t buy the false sincerity for a minute. “You only have to bugger around with him a bit longer.”
She should have known Elin wouldn’t be gracious enough to leave her be the whole night. Now that the job was done, Elin wanted to crash in on a comms channel to toy with her, especially when she knew Nena couldn’t reply or turn her off just yet. She could rip the earrings off and toss them, but then she’d have no backup if something were to go down.
David twirled her slowly. He held her waist, pulling her closer. She could tell by the growing bulge in his pants as he held her close and the way he stared down at her with glazed eyes that he hoped to bed her tonight, but hopes were meant to be dashed. What would he do if I let the air out of his hard-on with my dagger?
“You are so beautiful,” David whispered, his eyes glassy and lustful.
His reaction was interesting to her. She wondered what he saw as he looked down at her, hovering over her full lips and the oval outline of her face.
“Thank you,” she said politely, remembering that her shift as Echo was over and she was Nena Knight right now. But even Nena wouldn’t kiss this guy, Tom Cruise looks or not.
Again, she questioned who she was. Nena had worked as her alias, Echo, for so long. Again, she wondered which role was the real her, the rich socialite gliding in the arms of this equally rich Adonis, or the athletic killer who’d ended lives just a few miles away. And what had happened to who she used to be before, when she was Aninyeh? What had happened to that fourteen-year-old girl? Oh yeah, she’d died.
“You could act like you’re actually into the bloody bastard,” Elin taunted, pulling her from her thoughts. “I pulled your vitals up on screen, and they’re dropping,” she cackled. “The wanker is lit-err-ally boring you to death. Like, as I speak, down they go!”
Nena’s mouth tightened, biting back a retort. She hoped Elin had remembered to switch them to a private channel. But she knew her sister, and Elin likely had all of Network listening. She enjoyed launching these small tortures against Nena. Enjoyed it far too much.
Elin snorted gleefully. “Well, we both know you aren’t going to fuck him. Maybe I should? Naturally, if it wasn’t for Oliver. Do you know who David favors? Tom Cruise. It’s why I picked him for you, because you go all doe eyed when Mission Impossible comes on.”
She didn’t. Elin was lying.
“I’d screw him two ways from Sunday, if I could.”
She tuned Elin’s voice out until it was just white noise in the background. Her mind slipped back to the girl in the Cuban’s bedroom. Had she escaped? Was she smart enough to steal the gaudy jewelry to sell and start a new life? Hopefully, the girl wouldn’t be recaptured. Nena knew about captivity too.
David murmured, “How did I get this lucky?” as he nuzzled her, no doubt putting a nose-shaped dent in her beautifully coarse, coily hair. Her hair was one of the few things she took pride in, one of the few things she kept cultivated, just as her mama had taught her before she’d passed.
These three parts of Nena, always at war with each other, always at war with one another for survival. She wasn’t sure which she wanted to be the victor. Nena or Echo. Echo or Aninyeh. Aninyeh or Nena. When the war finally came to an end, she didn’t know who she would be.
Nena willed herself to lay her head against David’s chest. She let the rhythm of his beating heart take her back to a place far away, beyond the Cuban’s torture chamber, across an ocean to a lifetime ago.
David said he was lucky to be with her. But would he still consider himself lucky if he knew the woman in his arms took lives for a living, and that her story began, back home, with the betrayal and decimation of her simple little world?