Her Name Is Knight(Nena Knight #1)(61)

He held up a finger. “One night. One night with you, and I’ll make your life brand new.”

He’d already done that, now, hadn’t he?

She let out a throaty laugh. “You think highly of yourself . . .”

He gave her his name.

“Kamil.” She let the name roll off her tongue, as if becoming accustomed to it.

She cocked her head to the side, looking coquettishly at him with a hint of hesitation. “One night?”

He held up his finger again. “Just one.”

“Where do we go for this ‘one night’?”

“I know the perfect place.”

She knew where he’d want to go. To a place not so public. And it was indeed perfect.

She looked beyond him, at the couple of guards weaving toward them through the crowd. “And your friends?”

He looked over his shoulder at his approaching men, then back to her. He really thought his boyish looks were disarming, and maybe to any other woman they would be. “I’ll take care of them.”



Nena let Kwabena drive her several blocks away in his latest-model Bentley. Ostentatious, but what more could she expect from a man like him? He pulled into the dimly lit back lot of a strip mall.

Pointing to a door with a blue flower painted on it, he said, “We can go in there. It’s very nice. I own it.”

She made a point of looking at the door, then him, in awe. “Perfect.” Her voice was husky with anticipation. She unbuckled her seat belt and left the car, beckoning him to join her.

The Lotus Flower was deserted at this time of night. All the girls who were forced to work the spa were likely at a shared house, recuperating from another day of being forced to give massages and prostitute themselves to earn their keep. One of the numerous ways traffickers used their merchandise: in their businesses, in their homes, moving the girls from one location to another . . . always moving. And when the merchandise was all used up, it was disposed of.

He unlocked the door and stepped aside to allow her in first. She swallowed her unease at the door shutting and locking behind them as they stood in the dark hall. The place smelled of flower fragrances and sea salts and opulence that contrasted with the burgeoning anxiety of being in a small, unknown space.

She didn’t lie to herself that this job was like the others. This job wasn’t for the Tribe. It was only for her. She took his hand and pulled him down the hall.



They entered a room Kwabena said was one of his favorites. She’d cased the spa a few days earlier, both as a wife looking to purchase a package for her husband, and after hours to get the layout of the back rooms. From the outside, the business appeared high end, but it was much more sinister when the patrons knew what to ask for.

He rambled about how this was unlike him, to bring a beautiful woman here alone.

“Then I’m honored.”

He chanced a quick glance at her. “There’s something beguiling about you, making me ditch my security detail and bring you here to my spa.”

She threw a sly smile over her shoulder as she walked the length of the room, ensuring there was nothing new since the last time she’d roamed the premises. He turned on the moon light, and the room was bathed in warm recessed lighting.

“Make yourself comfortable? I’ll get us some champagne.”

When he returned with an ice bucket holding a bottle of his finest, she was waiting for him. She gestured for him to join her. He set the bucket down and did as told, snuggling into her neck, inhaling the scent of her. He ran his arms over her body, exploring her curves and the heat of her skin. He went in to kiss her supple lips, and she tilted her head up so he trailed the tip of his tongue along the length of her jawline instead. She couldn’t bring herself to have his lips on hers.

“Me on top,” she breathed into his ear.

He gladly traded positions. She ran her hand up and down his leg. She traced it up and down his thigh, near his manhood, then teased it away.

She kicked her long leg over his lap, straddling him and easing her body onto him. He unzipped his pants. She quelled the urge to jump off him, the feeling of his penis flopping like a fish out of water beneath her making her think horribly of her brother Ofori. She breathed through the urge to vomit.

“Let me taste you,” he growled, gripping the hem of her skirt and hiking it up. His animalistic urges were overpowering his gentlemanliness. He was tired of seduction—and she was tired of seducing.

She said, “Tell me again what you want.”

He answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “To fuck you.”

“To fuck me?” Her hands slid down his arms, which were wrapped around her rear. “To know me?”

“Yes.” He strained against her. “Yes, baby, yes, to know you.”

She pulled back. “But Kwabena,” she breathed, “we already know each other.”

At the sound of his name, Paul’s third-in-command snapped his eyes open in muddled confusion. Beneath her, his body stiffened. He searched her eyes for understanding.

“What—what did you call me?”

Her hands were moving beyond his vision. “You know me. Intimately.”

She produced her push daggers from the belt of her skirt. In one swift move, she plunged the blades into his chest. She leaned her weight into the daggers as he thrashed beneath her. She dug them deep under the breastbone, the blades tearing through his left and right ventricles.