Her Name Is Knight(Nena Knight #1)(97)

“There can only be one of us, little sister.” The chill in his voice sent all her danger sensors into hyperdrive.

“Only one,” he repeated, his head bent as his eyes bored into her.

Nena let her shoulders slump, resigned to what was about to happen. She stared at Ofori, who was so much a blend of their parents. She refused to believe he could be anything but her brother.

“You are the only brother I have left,” she said, trying to lull him enough to get close. She decided she’d only incapacitate him until she took out Paul. Then Mum and Dad would know how to help Ofori. Despite all he’d done, shooting Cort and kidnapping Georgia, he was as much a victim as she.

Her brother was a leopard, muscles coiled, eyes black as night, pupils dilated.

She took a step toward him. Closer. Maybe some doctor could help him.

Softly, she said, “You are Ofori.”

She ducked when he hurled a nearby vase at her head. It sailed a hair above her before smashing against the wall.

“My. Name. Is. Fucking. Oliver!”

She put her hands up in appeasement.

“You were supposed to be dead, Aninyeh. All these years . . .” He choked back a sob, trailing off. “Why aren’t you dead?”

He looked at her with such malice and hatred. What had she ever really done to him but survive?

Could either of them ever be well after what they had suffered at the hands of Paul?

“Ofori—”

He leaped and was on her, taking her by such surprise her reaction was delayed. She took the full brunt of the jab he launched at her side. She stumbled backward as pain flared through her. She touched the area, her hand coming away red with her blood. She stared at her brother, his legs now splayed in a fighting stance. In his left hand was the knife he’d used to cut her.

We’re more alike than we realize. It was funny because she and her brother had both developed an affinity for knives. And shattering because just when the Asym children had reunited, one of them might have to die at the hands of the other.





75


AFTER


He charged her again, his blade pointed at her. She pushed the pain away, wiping her blood on her jeans. She crouched, deflecting the one-two, jab-swipe combination he came at her with. She parried a thrust with an upper push to his chin, driving his head and the rest of him away from her.

She used her arm to shove the hand with the knife out so she could grab it with her other and twist his hand back. He grunted, and the knife dropped, skittering across the floor well beyond either of their reach. They continued to face off, him launching attacks at various parts of her body and her matching with defensive blocks and kicks. She didn’t want him dead. She wanted him saved.

She landed a couple of punches to his abdomen. Her leg spun out, swiping his from beneath him. He fell hard, grabbing her ankle and bringing her down with him. Her knee took the impact, and she felt the crack of bone as pain ripped through her body.

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.”