Her Name Is Knight(Nena Knight #1)(99)

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.

“Say—it again,” he whispered.

“Ofori Kwaku Asym. Your name is Ofori. Our papa loved you,” she said. “I love you, nua barima.” She chanted the lines over and over, determined he would understand, remember, and believe he was her brother. She was determined he know he was loved, even when she had had to kill him.

His eyes filled with tears and sorrow, as well as a deep remorse that death brought. He looked so young, as if he were aging backward.

“And I forgive you,” she whispered, feeling his body release the guilt and self-loathing it had lived with for so long.

He nodded at that. They didn’t have to speak of its meaning.

“Elin . . . I did . . . did love her.”

The rock in her throat was so large. “I’ll tell her.”

His eyes swam. “Y-you smell. Like. Mama.” He shivered. His strength siphoning out of him as the guilt and self-loathing had.

He struggled to take a breath. “I want. To see. Them.”

She tightened her hold on him, fighting against the despair threatening to take over her. She would not turn from him, would stay with him to the end.

She nodded, saying, “You will.” She’d say whatever he needed her to say.

“Elin.” His voice wavered. And then, “Efie . . .” Home.

Ofori released Nena’s hand, then grasped the handle of the other knife. She didn’t stop him when he pulled it out of his neck, releasing the deluge of blood from the shorn artery.

She did not help him as his breath hitched and hitched, until there was no more breath in him.

Nena did not stop Ofori when he left her, the last of the Asyms.





78


AFTER


Georgia’s shout pierced the haze of Nena’s grief. She gave a final, longing look at Ofori. How she wished they had had more time to pick their way through Paul’s minefield of lies to be brother and sister again. It was all too late now. She summoned enough power to leave him and climb the stairs. Georgia was screaming, railing against Paul, who demanded she shut the hell up, fucking brat.

Nena followed their sound to the last room at the end of a dark hall, where a light shone beneath the door. She opened it.

Paul greeted her from the chair in which he sat. He was working through the realization that his Oliver was gone. Even with his gun trained on her, Nena thought she saw sadness, grief, even, in his expression. Propped up against his chair was a machete, one not dissimilar from her nightmares. Nena’s eyes could not move from it.

Georgia sat in a chair between them. When she saw Nena, she called out, attempting to get up.

“Stay where you are,” Paul commanded, moving his gun in Georgia’s direction.

“Let her go.” Nena started toward them, then stopped when Paul cocked the gun.

“You don’t make demands here.” He glared at her, eyes narrowed. “Is he dead?” When she didn’t answer, he said, unaffected, “Doesn’t matter. Oliver was weak and simpering.”

She looked at him with contemptuous silence, disgusted at his lack of loyalty toward a man he called his son.

“Not like you.” He cracked a wry smile, then cocked his head to the side. “You mourn him? He would have killed you.”

“Because of you.”

Annoyance sizzled through him. She could see the way it slid across his face. “He would have fucked you had I allowed it. Consider that as you mewl over him. Your brother would have raped you.”

“Also,” she said flatly, “because of you.”

He paused, looking thoughtful. “I wonder what you would do to save the skin of your new father and your—what is this girl to you anyway? Your wannabe daughter.”

He stood, using his free hand to straighten his suit, making his way around his desk to Georgia’s seat. She sat ramrod straight, hands in her lap, her eyes never leaving Nena’s face.