by Kiru Taye
Did she expect him to buy the innocent act? “Yes. I drank tea without your permission.
I’m sure there are probably other rules I’ve broken this morning.”
She stared down at her hands for a couple of heartbeats. Then she lifted her head, giving him an empty stare as she spoke in a monotone voice.
“There are no rules here. You won’t get punished for drinking tea. You are welcome to use anything you find for your pleasure.”
There it was. The trap.
Ebuka could’ve sworn she meant more than just the food and drink. It sounded like she was offering herself for his pleasure. He wasn’t falling for that one.
“Okay,” he said in a nonchalant tone.
Nodding, she dumped the empty bottle in the sink. “I’m going to have a shower. Would you like to join me?”
Was she flirting?
She stood close enough to touch. Too close. Those eyes seemed to lack any reflection.
The heat from her body surrounded him. She smelled of musk and sweat and woman.
Very tempting.
Heart thundering, his breath caught. She had to be baiting him.
He still ached to touch her. To be touched by her.
After months of being starved for TLC, he craved pleasurable human contact. Stepping back, he raised the mug to his lips. “I’d rather finish my tea.”
She shrugged and walked off. “I’ll make breakfast when I come out.”
Puffing out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, he sat on the chair. Was she going to leave him alone while she showered?
He could run away. From the looks of it, they were close to the sea. There would be a boat, surely. And although he hadn’t seen any other houses earlier, she would have neighbours and a means of escape.
But his rumbling stomach indicated he needed to refuel and regain some energy before planning any getaway. After last night, she’d be a fool not to put in measures to keep him restricted.
Ebuka doubted he would get far, especially in such an unfamiliar location.
Ten minutes later, Xandra was out, dressed in a blue long-sleeved linen shirt, navy jeans slacks, and bare feet.
NINETEEN
“I’M GOING to sit outside,” Xandra said as she put the last dried plate away. They just had dinner—grilled peppered fish with steamed plantain—which she had cooked. “Would you like to join me?”
Ebuka looked up from the magazine he was flipping through. He’d been reading it as a show, so he could watch her discreetly while she washed up.
Her skin had prickled with awareness throughout.
“Sure,” he said, closing the magazine on the table. “I’ll take the bottle of wine and glasses out to the veranda.”
Flipping the kitchen towel over her shoulder, she watched him grab the items and head out through the door.
He had changed from the man she met months ago. The effect of his confinement was visible not just physically in his weight loss, but mentally in his attitude. He’d become an angry, mistrustful man.
And she was to blame for it.
All her plans had gone wrong. First, she hadn’t seen the ambush by Norbert coming. Thankfully, Osagie’s team had rescued her. Then, the months she’d spent in hospital and healing meant she hadn’t gone to pick Ebuka from the safe house, and the agreement had expired because she hadn’t kept up the payment. This meant he ended up in Madaki’s auction house.
A week had passed since she brought Ebuka to Laroca. They had settled into a kind of routine. She went for a run every morning before breakfast. On the second day, he joined her, and they followed the same route every day, running in a circular path around the island.
Laroca was part of an isolated cluster of small islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The nearest inhabited land was hundreds of miles away—Nigeria to the north, Cameroon to the east and Equatorial Guinea to the south.
She had noticed Ebuka checking out the area, trying to figure out how to escape. With no boat in sight, if he managed to climb down the sheer rock face of the high cliffs, he’d have to swim through violent waves and razor-edged rocks.
After their exercises, he would make the tea while she showered. Then she would make breakfast while he washed. Every morning, she invited him into the bathroom. Each time, he refused.
And every morning, she died a little inside when he rejected her.
She hadn’t realized it would be this tough being close to him again. To have him look at her with anger and hatred. She never thought she would care this much. But after everything they had shared, her gut hardened with nausea when he looked at her like a total stranger.
As Xandra, she was a stranger to him.
But his memory loss meant he didn’t even remember Allie, his obele.
The back of her throat hurt, and she gripped the sink tight. Why did it hurt so fucking much?
It was partly why she refused to bring up Allie or the short time they had spent on the ranch.
It was easier to be Xandra, cold and aloof.
Anyway, she didn’t want to pretend any longer. She needed him to know Xandra and accept her the way she was.
Sighing, she hung the towel on the rail and headed outside to join him. He sat on the lounger, legs stretched out, a glass of red wine in hand.
She took the drink he’d already poured and settled in the seat on the other side of the table.
A flock of migrating birds flew across the setting sun and orange sky. A gentle breeze fluttered the leaves in the trees.
“Do you ever get any visitors?” he asked in a softened voice.
The first time she heard him speak gently, all week, reminding her of the man she had known. She glanced at him, hiding the surprise with the raised glass.
Leaning forward, his head was tilted to the side, his focus on her.
Awareness of him increased. He looked at her as if he was trying to figure her out.
He raised his eyebrows when she took long to respond, giving a glimpse of the old Ebuka, a man who was ready to step up and take charge.
She wanted to push this Ebuka into being that man again. She needed the old Ebuka.
“No.” She shrugged as if it didn’t matter, masking her thoughts with a faraway expression.
“Surely you must have friends that want to visit once in a while,” he probed.
“I have no real friends. Not in the way that normal people have them,” she replied.
There was Osagie, and although he’d appointed himself her guardian angel, she wasn’t clueless enough to call him a friend.
“Family?”
“None.”
The Himbas were the closest thing she had to a family, and they’d proven that family couldn’t be trusted.
In contrast, Ebuka had his sister, mother and a host of extended family members. She expected to see his mouth twisted with scorn at her revelations.
Instead, his facial features turned down as he placed his glass on the table. And his hands dropped limply to his sides.
He reflected the sense of loss, of loneliness, that twisted inside her sometimes. He must miss his family. They had been such a crucial part of who he was.
Exhaling a deep breath, he picked his drink again. “What exactly do you do for a living?”
This was an important question. For him. For her.
She met his gaze, his dark eyes unwavering. “I’m an assassin.”
His breath hitched. Beads of sweat broke across his forehead.
She knew the effect those words had on people, and it was no different on Ebuka. She saw the fear ripple through him almost as if she had told him she was an evil spirit.
As a hit-woman, she was an adult’s worse nightmare. Questions flashed across his eyes.
Did he wonder how she had become a hired killer?
“How old are you?” he asked with the boldness that was pure Ebuka. There was no hint of the person she had bought last week.
“Twenty-four.”
His eyes widened,
and he shook his head as if he struggled to believe her. “How did you become a contract killer at such a young age?”
“It was what I was trained to do.” She never discussed this with anyone else. But she wanted him to know. To know Xandra. So, she told him.
“I grew up in an orphanage run by nuns. I didn’t fit in and didn’t get along with the other kids. One day the reverend mother told me I was going to new parents. A car showed up and took me to Tiye Himba’s house. But Don Himba didn’t want a child. He already had a daughter. It wasn’t until I was older that I found out the nuns sold me to the Don. Instead of living there, I was put on a private jet and sent to a place in Europe. It was a mix of academic school and military camp where I was trained to fight, learned to code and hack computers as well as other survival skills. When I turned eighteen, I returned to work for my sponsor.”
He swung his feet down and faced her. “What kind of school was that?”
Her gut tightened as she remembered the time there. “It’s a cross between an academic school and a military camp. We learned all the usual subjects, but we were also taught martial arts skills. They were training an advanced army of children. I can write a computer program to take down a financial system as well as I can fire a weapon at a human target.”
“Why would the nuns sell you?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. It doesn’t change anything. They did what they did, and I’m who I am.” She gulped down the rest of the wine and poured some more into the glass.
He shook his head when she tried to fill his glass and kept watching silently.
She felt awkward, so continued talking. “A few months ago, my life changed. I had to go off-the-grid. I’d bought and built this place a while back as a safe house. It made sense for me to come out here.”
Feeling his gaze warming her skin, she turned attention to the turquoise ocean, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore filling the silence.
“Why would you lock yourself away from the world? It must be lonely living out here on your own.”
Turning to him, a sad smile curling the corner of her lips. She couldn’t tell him the whole reason she was living here alone. Not yet. “I’m not alone anymore. I have you."
Something flickered in his gaze too close to pity, and she hated it. She didn’t want pity.
“Buying a slave just so you can have company isn’t right,” he said in a disdainful voice.
The muscles on her neck tensed, and she stood abruptly. “I may have paid for you. But I’ve never treated you like a slave.”
She was self-sufficient on the island, growing fruits, vegetables and herbs. Occasionally, she had to go to the mainland to buy items, but she made the most of what was in her environment.
She did all the cooking and cleaning. She provided everything he needed. Treated him like a king. Like he was the master.
And he was still complaining?
She paced a few steps away and turned, glaring at him with fury, hands clenched by her sides. “Who exactly is the slave here? I do everything for you. I’ve even offered my body to you, and you rejected me. I—”
“Hang on a minute.” He cut her off and stood, chin high, tightness around his eyes. “When exactly did you offer yourself to me?”
“Every morning, after our run, I invite you to the shower.”
“But… you were inviting me to fuck you?”
“Yes.”
His mouth opened and closed a few times before he finally spoke. “What?”
His clenched hands loosened, and he widened his legs.
She saw it then, the tenting of his fly.
“Hang on. Why?”
“Remember the first morning when I met you drinking tea, I told you that you were free to use anything in this place for your pleasure.”
Jerking his head back, he stared at her as if he didn’t believe what she was offering him. “That offer included you?”
“Yes, and it still stands.”
TWENTY
THE NEXT morning as Ebuka pulled on his running shoes and joined Xandra for the jog around the island, regret wound tight and knotted like vines in his gut.
He’d thought his life was messed up. But Xandra’s was on a different level.
Her story about her lost childhood had affected him in ways he hadn’t thought he would feel again. She was an enigma and yet all too human.
The adoration on her face had weakened him.
He’d nearly allowed her to fulfil the promise in her eyes.
But there were too many unanswered questions, and he couldn’t indulge in pleasures when he hadn’t resolved them.
Sometimes he had flashes of images, memories. But like a scrambled jigsaw puzzle, he hadn’t been able to put them all together. He needed to get off this island soon.
“You better keep up, boss,” Xandra called out as she ran ahead.
A chill travelled down his spine, and he stumbled.
“Are you okay?” Xandra marked time beside him and eyeing him curiously. He leaned a hand against a tree trunk and caught his breath.
“Fine,” he said in a gruff voice. “Did you call me, ‘boss’?”
The word was intimate, familiar, and he heard a soft voice whispering it to him, but the image wouldn’t come. But the reference also had other connotations he didn’t need reminding.
“Yes. You like it when I call you ‘boss’.”
“No, I don’t. My name is Ebuka,” he snapped, turned and sprinted to the house. He did quick stretches, took his shoes off and headed inside just as she arrived.
The fresh shower helped to wash away some of his tension and jumbled thoughts. The smell of fresh tea had him dressing quickly and going back to the kitchen.
Breakfast was laid out on the table, and Xandra was wiping down the counter as he strode across to the teapot and poured a cup.
Pulling out a chair, he sat and bit into the warm croissant before taking a sip of tea.
He could get used to this luxurious isolation—morning runs, breakfast served, a beautiful woman at his beck and call, the lack of expectation.
He wasn’t the same man who’d run a ranch a few months ago. His life had been consumed with providing and taking care of his family. Now he was overtaken by anger and the need for revenge. Even when he got off this island, he wouldn’t go back to farming. Not until he had covered his hands with the blood of his enemies.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked, watching her standing stiffly by the counter. He should’ve picked up the clue that something was wrong, but he was too engrossed in his thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” she said, avoiding his gaze and shaking her head.
“What’s… wrong?” His words came out slurred, and his body became heavy. He slumped against the chair before the world went dark.
The whizzing of an engine made him peel groggy eyes open. The sun was high in the sky. He tried to sit up but couldn’t. His legs and arms felt weighted with lead. He tried to remember what had happened. Breakfast and then nothing.
“Xan,” he called out before drifting off to sleep again.
Next time he woke, the sun was low in the sky. He dragged himself off the sofa and went in search of Xandra. The woozy feeling was the after-effect of being drugged. Xandra had tranquillized him. Again.
Pounding rose in his ears, and he felt like punching a hole in the wall. He heard a sound and rushed into the kitchen to find her dumping a box of groceries on the counter.
Before she could do anything, he ran full pelt at her and slammed his body into hers. “Bloody bitch!”
Her back rammed against the counter as she tried to fight him off. “Ebuka, wait.”
Despite her plea, he didn’t let up, smashing his elbow into her side.
She doubled over, emitting an oomph sound.
He opened open a kitchen drawer and pulled out a knife and the roll of duct tape.
“This shit ends today. On your knees,” he demanded, pointing the sharp edge
of the blade at her throat.
Without protest she obeyed, eyes fixed in an even, soulless stare that would’ve unnerved someone else.
Not Ebuka. Not with the adrenaline coursing in his veins. “Stretch out your hands.”
She did, and he bound her wrists with the tape. He pushed the placemats off the table.
“Spread yourself on it, face down,” he said, using the knife to point at the empty table.
With her hands tied, she was still dangerous. She was an assassin. A deadly, cold-blooded killer.
He couldn’t kill her anyway. He needed Xandra alive to get off this island.
As if to emphasize his dilemma, she stared at the knife in his hand. It would not stop her if she wanted him dead. The determination in her eyes matched the steel of the blade.
Yet, she submitted, reached for the table edge and stretched across, lying flat on it, her movement deliberate and sinuous and silent.
He kicked her legs apart and taped each to the table posts.
He recognized what she had done, capitulating to him. It said, “I’m as strong as you and deadlier. But I want you to have the power.”
His anger abated, replaced by arousal.
In this posture, she was a sight to behold. Beautiful. Sexy. Tempting. What would it feel like to slide his dick inside her pussy from this angle?
He moved, circling the table.
“You’re going to tell me what the hell is going on.” He pulled the collar of her t-shirt, pressed the flat knife surface against her neck for emphasis, so she would know he meant business.
There was tension in her shoulders for a moment as she froze. Her grip on the table became tight.
The need to uncover the truth about her rippled through him. She was always fully dressed and tight-lipped. She would be after he was done.
He dug the sharp tip of the knife into her top and tugged.
She relaxed as the shirt ripped from top to bottom.
He continued slicing and cutting until the tattered shirt hung like confetti on her body. Then he turned attention to the silk trousers, giving it the same treatment. He swept the fabric aside and revealed her bare body to his gaze for the first time.
