Page 76 of Deceive Me
Elliot’s weight landed on his throat. Cartilage disintegrated beneath her palm.
As he choked, Kivuli gripped her hand, turned it, and dumped the contents of the pouch through the small hole in the top. White dust fell onto his face.
She didn’t know what it was—some kind of drug, maybe?—but the stuff had an immediate effect. Kivuli’s eyes rolled back in his head, his body jerking with convulsions. Elliot threw herself to the side, desperate to get away from whatever could cause such a reaction. The room fell silent at the sight, only the sound of slowly dwindling wheezes filling the vast space.
Kivuli, struggling for every last breath he could get. Elliot held her own, counting the seconds until the final rasp left his lips.
The rattle of a chain and scraping of boots came from near the throne. Mansa stood, his body quivering with rage. “Bring the bitch to me.”
Elliot cringed away from the burly guard who came for her, keeping up appearances, but his grip on her biceps was impossible to resist. He dragged her most of the way across the room as she scrambled to get her feet under her. When he deposited her on the stairs of the dais, in front of her father, she sank to her knees, one arm wrapped around her screaming ribs.
“And that is exactly where you belong, cunt,” Mansa taunted. “On your knees.”
Elliot kept her head down, refusing to give him what he craved: a response. Instead she focused on breathing, on replaying every one of the coming seconds over and over in her head to be sure she had it right.
“Have you nothing to say to me, Daughter?”
Not in this lifetime, asshole.
Mansa nudged her with the tip of his boot. “Perhaps, now that you’ve deprived me of my soldier, you will take his place.”
A harder nudge threw her off balance. She slapped a hand down to keep herself upright.
“Or perhaps breeding more warriors like you is the best use of my prize.” Mansa bent closer. “Are you untried, like your virgin mother was, Number 57? Do not worry; when I am finished with you, you will suck cock like a haker.”
She didn’t know what haker was, but she could guess—and she had no intention of sucking anything. She took a deep breath, holding in her response as she tightened her grip on the knife she’d slipped from Kivuli’s belt, the knife concealed against her stomach.
“Are you sure you want her that close to anything important? After that fight?” a voice asked from the back of the room.
Shock quivered through Elliot’s body. Damn it, Deacon, why did you come? He was supposed to be back at the compound, safe with his daughter, not here in a roomful of men armed and ready to kill him.
Mansa straightened above her. “Well. Deacon Walsh. Welcome.”
Footsteps traveled toward the dais from behind Elliot. “Fuck you.”
Men rushed to take him down—Elliot could hear it, but she didn’t turn to see. Her moment would arrive; it had to.
“Stop!” Mansa shouted. “Let him come.”
Deacon chuckled. “You’re not rolling out the welcome mat, are you, Mansa? ’Cause you’ve got to know I’m here to kill you.”
“Of course I am not.” Mansa shifted, and Elliot dared to glance up. A flash of light glanced off the gun in his rising hand. “I simply want a clear shot.”
It all happened at once: Mansa’s aim. Elliot surging to her feet. Deacon running behind her. The burly guard lunged, but the slave next to the throne was there first, tripping him up. Elliot watched in slow motion as her fist came up, connecting with the underside of Mansa’s arm as a shot went off. The blast reverberated in her ear, her heart, but there wasn’t time to worry about Deacon because she was tackling the pirate king to the ground, listening to the smack of skull hitting stone. Mansa looked up at her with dazed eyes.
She crouched above him, and something in her soul settled into place, as if this moment had been preordained from her birth. “I finally get it, you know.”
A frown pulled at Mansa’s lips, and Elliot realized with a shock that his mouth was shaped just like hers. “What do you finally get?”
“You. I get you.” Nausea churned in her belly. “You murdered your family, destroyed lives, used people as product…because they were weak.”
Pleasure sparked in his dark eyes. How had she not gotten those eyes? How had the darkness in him not been dominant in her genes? “And I am strong,” he said. “Only the strongest survive.”
“True.” Maybe his genes were dominant, just not on the outside. “I guess you passed on one trait after all.”
“And what is that, Daughter?”
“I’m definitely not weak.”
