Jomiloju's POV
Power feels different when you finally claim it.
It's not a crown or a throne.
It's breath.
It's clarity.
It's waking up and realizing that fear no longer rules your bloodstream.
But that clarity shattered the moment the first explosion ripped through the side of our safehouse.
I had less than two seconds to react.
Steve yanked me to the floor just as a second blast shook the ground beneath us.
Korede was already reaching for his gun, eyes scanning the windows.
Smoke choked the room.
"They found us."
And then I heard the gunfire.
Sharp.
Relentless.
And far too close.
Steve's POV
They didn't come to negotiate.
They came to end us.
Mercs—eight, maybe ten—dressed in black with crimson scarves. Abeni's signature.
I saw one through the shattered window, already raising his rifle.
Two shots.
Head. Neck.
He dropped like a ghost.
Korede took one to the shoulder again, but stayed on his feet.
The kitchen was burning. Walls buckling.
We had minutes. Maybe.
"Take Jomi and go," I told him.
"I'm not leaving you," she snapped.
"This isn't about loyalty. It's survival."
But she didn't budge.
She looked me in the eye—and I saw it.
The fire. The fury.
The queen.
"If we die," she whispered, "we die fighting."
Jomiloju's POV
The hallway was filled with smoke and bullets.
I grabbed a weapon. My palms shook.
Not from fear—but from adrenaline.
Every scream, every gunshot—it sharpened me.
I didn't wait for Steve to shield me anymore.
I moved with him.
Covered his flank.
Watched his back.
We fought like we had nothing to lose.
And maybe that was the truth.
Abeni's POV
I watched the safehouse collapse from the drone feed.
Smoke bloomed like a black flower.
But when the camera zoomed in… I saw them.
Alive.
Fighting together.
No fear.
No hesitation.
She wasn't just a stolen rose anymore.
She was blooming into something... terrifying.
I clenched my jaw.
"Send the sleeper agent," I told my handler.
"But they'll—"
"I said send them."
It was time for betrayal.
The kind that tears hearts in half.
Steve's POV
We took down seven of them.
The last one ran.
But not before dropping a phone.
I picked it up, screen already lit.
A text:
"SHE ISN'T WHO YOU THINK."
Seconds later, the phone buzzed again—this time with a photo.
Rachel.
Dead.
Throat slit.
The timestamp: twenty minutes ago.
My stomach turned to ice.
And then another image loaded.
My own face.
But not now—then. Bloodied. Young. Standing over a body.
Her body.
Jomi's biological mother.
Not the woman she called "Mom." The one she never knew existed.
The one I never told her about.
Because I was there the night she died.
Jomiloju's POV
Steve didn't speak for hours after the attack.
He sat on the edge of the bathtub, covered in soot and blood, phone in hand, jaw clenched tight.
I walked in, slowly.
Touched his shoulder.
"What is it?"
He didn't look at me.
Didn't lie either.
"I have to tell you something."
I waited.
And then… he broke.
In low, hoarse words, he told me about a woman.
Beautiful. Brave. Caught in the crossfire between two rival factions when he was seventeen.
He hadn't known her identity until months later.
And when he did?
It broke him.
Because that woman?
Was my mother.
Not the one who raised me.
The one who birthed me.
And he had been there when she died.
Jomiloju's POV (continued)
I didn't move.
Didn't cry.
The world slowed.
I felt… nothing.
Then everything.
All at once.
My hands trembled.
My chest ached.
He'd never meant to lie.
But the truth was worse.
He had killed for me.
He had bled for me.
And he had once stood over the body of the woman who gave me life.
I stepped back.
"Jomi…"
I shook my head.
"I need air."
But what I really needed was space.
To breathe.
To decide if the man I loved was still someone I could trust.
Steve's POV
I didn't follow her.
I couldn't.
I had no right to chase what I might've already lost.
Abeni had struck where it hurt most—not with guns or blades, but with truth.
And damn her…
She'd drawn blood.
Abeni's POV
They say queens don't bleed.
But they do.
They just don't let anyone see it.
And now?
She was bleeding.
Not from war.
From Steve.
From love.
My plan was working.
One more push… and the entire empire would collapse.
Because heartbreak doesn't kill.
It corrupts.
And she would never look at him the same again.
Jomiloju's POV
I walked through the city in a hoodie and scarf, invisible.
Anonymous.
But every corner whispered with memories.
Shadows of who I was.
Who I might've been.
And who I was becoming.
Steve had made mistakes.
So had I.
But there was one truth I couldn't escape.
I loved him.
Not for what he'd done.
But for what he chose every time I gave him a reason to run.
He always stayed.
And I wasn't ready to let that go.
Not yet.
Steve's POV
When she returned, it was past midnight.
She didn't speak at first.
Just sat beside me on the bed.
Then she looked at me—eyes red, but dry.
"I hate what happened."
I nodded.
"I hate what it means."
I nodded again.
"But I don't hate you."
That shattered me.
"I should've told you," I whispered.
"Yes."
"I was afraid it would break us."
She took my hand.
"It didn't."
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
And in the stillness of that moment, something healed.
Not everything.
But enough.
Enough to keep fighting.
Together.