Page 74 of Deceive Me
“You’re staying here,” Deacon repeated. “I’m not arguing with you about it. Sydney feels safe with you. We don’t know what we’re walking into, and I’m not willing to risk the only man on your team with a child on an uncertain mission. We’ll have enough men to make your ass redundant.”
Thunder gathered in Dain’s expression. “You have a child too.”
“I know.” And it was tearing him apart to leave her behind, but Dain would take care of her as if she were his own. Deacon had spent a lot of years saying good-bye to his wife so he could do his duty, both in the military and with GFS, and now was no different. Besides… “I have to go to Elliot, Dain. I…”
“You love her.”
Surprise jolted up Deacon’s spine. He’d known it, had said it aloud to Elliot just a few hours ago, but how had Dain…?
Dain arched a brow in his direction. “You’re not going to try and deny it, are you?”
Deacon squirmed, unable to get past the feeling that he was a teenage boy facing some girl’s father and being asked his intentions. “No.”
The approval in Dain’s expression made the teen-boy feeling even stronger. “Good. She needs you. Elliot…she loves as fiercely as she fights, Deacon. If she chooses to let you in? You couldn’t ask for a better gift. And you couldn’t ask for anyone better to help you raise that little girl.”
He just had to make sure Elliot was around to do that, didn’t he?
“Mansa will know their location is blown,” Deacon said. “The element of surprise is gone.”
Dain’s shrug said maybe, maybe not. “You don’t need surprise.”
“We need everything we can use to our advantage.”
“That’s true of every fight, but we take our advantages where we can find them. Or make them.” He clapped Deacon on the shoulder, urging him toward the living room. “That’s what Elliot is doing right now. Don’t let it be a waste of effort.”
29
Kivuli divested her of the knife in her boot and the one on her thigh—hadn’t that been fun—but he didn’t tie her up before leading her inside. She’d read the man’s file, faced off with him in the alley, but being this close, feeling the menace that practically radiated off him, made her mouth go dry. She endeavored not to show it as he walked her ahead of him through the back patio doors, the chilled air kissing her skin where her pants leg had been torn open.
The lodge was a warren of rooms and passageways. The room Kivuli led her into was three stories high, open, lined with windows looking out onto the valley, like a sacrilegious church sanctuary in the middle of the Georgia woods. Especially with the men lining the walls, maybe twice the contingent she’d run into outside. And there, on a raised hearth in front of a massive fireplace, sat the devil himself, Martin Diako.
For a moment a sense of unreality made Elliot dizzy. All these years, all the things she’d imagined about this man, this monster, and here he was, in the flesh. Just a man. He was reclined on a tall, wide chair that could be called a throne without too far a stretch. His Afrikaner heritage showed—light brown hair swept back from a high forehead, and equally light brown eyes stared down at her, set in paler skin than she’d imagined. Not the gray of a security still, but the tan of a man who spent his time on indoor pleasures instead of out in the harsh African climate. No wonder he’d gambled that her mother’s unusual coloring would pass to her daughter.
He’d been right too.
Mansa had his long legs extended, utterly relaxed, smoking a cigar while wearing clothes of the finest silk and wool she’d ever seen—all he needed was a scepter and crown and he’d be set. A woman knelt to one side of his feet, a thin white shift barely covering her, a collar around her throat attached to a chain Mansa held in his fist.
The sight sent bile up the back of Elliot’s throat.
“Fuck me.” She shook her head. “I knew you were an egomaniac, but really, did you have to take ‘pirate king’ quite so literally?”
The flaring of Mansa’s nostrils was his only reaction, but it gave her a distinct kick of pleasure. She doubted anyone defied him, ever, although she had to wonder about Kivuli—he didn’t seem the type to follow blindly. But she might as well prove right off she wasn’t like anyone else; she’d never cower before this man, ever. She’d die first.
Which is totally possible, Ell.
She shrugged off her common sense and gave Mansa a smirk. The way he examined her, eyes lingering on the bare skin of her thigh, the roundness of her breasts, made that feeling of being dirty, the feeling Deacon had done his best to exorcise, surge up.
“Welcome, Daughter.”
“I am not your daughter.”
“No, you will always be number 57.” The words sent a jolt through her, one she couldn’t hide, and satisfaction sparked in his narrowed gaze. “I remembered. The minute I saw you, that hair… Nora was my favorite cherry.”
Elliot blinked, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction again. Her mother was one of the reasons she was here, and the reminder only served to strengthen her, but Mansa wouldn’t get that. He saw her as a number, a commodity, something to own and use and torture, like a helpless animal. He didn’t see her as a person—and that would be his downfall. If there was one thing Deacon had taught her, it was that emotion could make you stronger, could push you farther than any detached resolve to win, any sense of duty. Without emotion, she’d be just like Kivuli. That wasn’t how she wanted to live, not anymore. “Can we get this over with?”
Mansa shifted, his free hand settling on the head of the slave at his side. The way he stroked her hair, as if he gave a shit about the poor woman, made Elliot’s skin crawl. “Kivuli tells me you are a true warrior, a gifted fighter. I find myself intrigued by his claims, wanting to see them for myself.”
You’ll see it—up close, I promise. Her heartbeat ticked up. “You want to see me fight?”
