Jomiloju's POV
I should've known safety was a lie.
We barely made it back to the Ijegun safehouse before the sense of wrongness wrapped itself around my throat.
Too still.
Too quiet.
Too perfect.
The kind of silence that didn't belong to peace—but to predators.
Steve swept the perimeter, lips tight, footsteps deliberate. He hadn't said more than ten words since we fled Ojodu. Not that I blamed him. Betrayal sat heavy in the air like smoke that hadn't cleared.
I was in the lower room with Ada, trying to clean Ajike's wounds. Her head lolled to one side, lips dry, breath shallow. The girl was strong—brilliant, unflinching, sarcastic to the bone.
But now?
Now she was a ghost in her own body.
"She hasn't spoken since Ojodu," Ada whispered, her hands steady as she changed the bandage on Ajike's ribcage. "Not a sound. Not a twitch."
"She was tortured," I murmured. "Some wounds don't speak. They scream in silence."
I reached for a clean towel when I heard it.
Thump.
Footsteps.
Upstairs.
Loud. Too loud.
Too many.
My eyes locked with Ada's.
Then—
Boom.
The northern wall exploded.
The floor lurched under my feet.
Dust. Smoke. Screams.
And then—
Gunfire.
Automatic. Brutal. Merciless.
Steve's POV
They came in hard.
Three SUVs. Blacked out. No plates. No headlights. The tires didn't even crunch gravel—Bako's signature silence.
Cowards with precision.
The blast threw me into a wall, my shoulder slamming into drywall. I rolled, spat dust, drew my gun.
Then I heard it—
"Jomi!"
Her name was a bullet in my chest.
I charged forward, slicing through the smoke, boots crunching shattered glass, dodging gunfire that raked the hallway like steel rain.
A figure loomed ahead.
Wrong height. Wrong gait.
I didn't hesitate—fired twice, dropped him. Kept moving.
Then I saw her.
Crouched over Ajike. Shielding her. Smoke curling around her figure like fire had chosen to worship her.
There was blood on her shoulder.
Not hers.
Not yet.
But I saw red.
And it wasn't from the flames.
Jomiloju's POV
Steve became something else.
A storm. A reckoning. A ghost with a loaded gun and an old grudge.
Each shot—measured, merciless.
Each step—closer to someone I used to know.
The man I'd met in shadows and steel.
The one who never left survivors.
He wasn't breathing heavy. Wasn't shouting.
Just cold.
Efficient.
Deadly.
I called out.
"Steve!"
No answer.
Not even a flicker.
"Steve, stop!"
Still nothing.
It was like the kill had consumed the man, leaving behind the machine.
And I knew—if I didn't reach him, I'd lose him.
Not to death.
But to memory.
Tunde's POV
It was seven of them.
Seven heavily armed mercs. Body armor. Trained eyes. Trigger fingers loose and greedy.
Us?
Four.
And one unconscious.
But we had something else: fire.
Rage.
And Steve Holt.
He didn't fight like a man who wanted to win.
He fought like a man who didn't care if he made it out alive—so long as he took every bastard with him.
He snapped a man's neck against the counter.
Tore another's rifle free and drove it through his throat.
Ada, beside me, flanked two from the rear, precision like poetry.
But Steve?
Steve was a god of war.
And then he reached Bako.
Steve's POV
Bako tried to run.
Too late.
I caught him near the east hallway—dragged him to the tile floor, gun pressed to his temple, my boot on his chest.
"Thought you could sneak in quiet?" I growled. "Thought you'd clean up Koleosho's mess?"
He bled from the mouth. Nose broken. Breathing shallow.
But he smiled.
"Do it," he rasped. "Prove you're still the monster they whisper about."
I pressed harder.
His ribs groaned.
Cracked.
One.
Two.
My finger tightened on the trigger.
Then—
A hand.
On my shoulder.
Warm. Gentle.
Real.
"Don't," Jomi said.
Her voice was shaking—but clear.
"If you kill him like this... you'll lose the man you've become."
Jomiloju's POV
Steve froze.
Not out of fear.
But out of something far more terrifying.
Choice.
I felt it ripple through him like a quake beneath steel.
I'd never seen his hand tremble. Not once.
But here, in this smoke and fire, as Bako choked on his own teeth...
Steve's grip loosened.
Because deep down, he wasn't afraid of becoming the monster.
He was afraid he already was.
I knelt beside him, the weight of everything hanging between us.
"You said I was your fire," I whispered. "Then let me burn this for you."
I looked Bako dead in the eye.
"Give him to the fire," I said. "Not your hands."
Steve looked at me—
Then dropped the gun.
Tunde's POV
The moment the gun hit the tile, I exhaled.
Not because Bako was spared.
But because Steve was.
We tied the bastard up, left him bleeding in the ashes with a timed incendiary charge ticking behind his head.
He wouldn't die yet.
But when the flames caught him—
Well.
That was mercy by comparison.
We dragged Ajike into the van just as the backup alarms began to scream.
Ada hotwired the engine.
And we fled.
Final Scene — Roadside: Jomiloju's POV
We watched from the top of the road.
The safehouse burned like a funeral pyre behind us.
Walls blackened. Roof gone. The Ijegun symbol etched in steel melted into nothing.
Steve stood beside me, jaw clenched, eyes hard.
Tunde leaned against the van, bloodied rag pressed to his shoulder.
Ada sat in the passenger seat, silent.
Ajike still hadn't woken.
But something had shifted.
Not just the sky. Not just the battlefield.
The walls inside us—especially Steve—had begun to burn too.
And maybe that was the beginning of something new.
Or the end of what we were.
I turned to him.
"Where do we go now?"
He didn't answer at first.
Then he met my eyes.
"To war," he said softly. "But this time—we write the rules."