Chapter 204

"Tell me this isn’t happening."

My voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried through the thick, suffocating air of my mother’s living room. Malik’s grip on the gun didn’t waver. His eyes—once filled with arrogance and misplaced affection—were now cold, calculating.

"Put it down, Malik," I said, my hands raised slightly, not wanting to provoke him.

He let out a bitter laugh. "You think this is just about me getting answers? You think I haven’t been living in hell since I found out?" His gaze flickered toward my mother. "She stole our lives from us, Dee. She kept us in the dark while we were played like puppets."

My mother—stoic, silent—finally let out a slow breath. "I did what I had to do to protect you both."

"Protect us?" Malik spat, his knuckles white around the gun. "You let me marry my own sister! You let me love her thinking—" His voice broke for the first time, and for a split second, I saw the devastation underneath his fury.

My stomach twisted, but I forced myself to stay steady. I could feel Yemi just behind me, his presence an anchor, but this was my battle. My past.

"We can fix this," I said carefully. "But not like this."

"How, Dee?" Malik’s voice cracked. "How do we fix something that was broken before we even knew it existed?"

I didn’t have an answer.

The weight of my own pain threatened to pull me under. But the moment Malik’s grip on the gun shifted, I moved.

I lunged forward, grabbing his wrist. The gun fired—a deafening blast that shattered the tense silence.

For a moment, everything blurred. My ears rang. My mother gasped. Yemi’s voice shouted my name.

And then, just like that, the gun was gone. Yemi had tackled Malik, pinning him to the floor. The weapon skidded across the tiles, out of reach.

Malik struggled for a moment before he finally went still, his chest heaving. Yemi’s grip on him was firm, his face unreadable.

I stumbled backward, my hands shaking. "No more secrets," I said, my voice hoarse. "No more lies."

My mother nodded slowly, tears in her eyes. "It’s time you knew everything."

Back at our apartment, silence hung between Yemi and me like a fragile thread, ready to snap.

I sat on the edge of our bed, staring at my hands. "I don’t even know who I am anymore."

Yemi crouched in front of me, his warm hands covering mine. "You’re Dee. The woman I love. The woman who’s been through hell and is still standing."

I let out a breath that felt too heavy to carry. "What if knowing the truth changes everything?"

He tilted my chin up, forcing me to meet his gaze. "Then we face it together."

His words settled something deep inside me. No matter how dark this got, Yemi wasn’t going anywhere.

"I need to know the rest," I admitted. "Who my father really was. What he did. Why my mother was so afraid of him."

Yemi nodded. "Then we find out."

The next day, we drove back to my mother’s house. She was waiting for us, a box of old papers sitting on the coffee table.

"Your father was not a good man," she began, her voice hollow. "I met him when I was young, naive. He had power, money, and I fell for it."

I leaned forward. "Khalid. That was his name, right?"

She hesitated before nodding. "Yes. But he was known by many names. He was a ghost in the underworld—connected to things you can’t even imagine."

A chill ran down my spine. "What do you mean?"

She exhaled. "He was dangerous, Dee. He trafficked more than just money. He had enemies,people who wanted him dead. If he knew about you—" She swallowed hard. "He would have taken you, raised you in his world. And I couldn’t let that happen."

I gripped the arms of the chair. My mind spun with the weight of her words. "So you hid me?"

"Yes. I changed my name, severed all ties, and when I found out I was pregnant with Malik, I did the same for him."

Everything inside me twisted. "And you never thought to tell us?"

"Would it have made your life better to know that your father was a monster?" she shot back.

I had no answer.

Yemi’s fingers brushed against mine, grounding me. I looked at my mother, at the regret carved into every line of her face. She had been afraid. And fear had shaped every decision she made.

But now, the truth was out. And there was no running from it.

A knock at the door startled us.

My mother’s face paled.

I turned toward Yemi, my heart hammering. He stood, muscles tense.

Another knock. Harder this time.

Then, a deep, unfamiliar voice cut through the silence.

"Dee? I believe we need to talk."

My blood ran cold.

Whoever was on the other side of that door… knew my name.

And they weren’t going anywhere.