Yuki
The moment we got home, I went straight upstairs, locked myself inside the bathroom, turned on the shower, and sat down on the closed toilet lid while steam slowly filled the room around me.
So much anger, regret, and disappointment swirled through me that I could barely separate one emotion from the next.
That family meeting had gone exactly the way I feared it would.
I had laid my truths bare. Every ugly decision.
Every selfish choice. Every mistake I had spent years trying to outrun.
I finally gave them answers, only for it to do no good in the end.
Maybe that was my punishment. Maybe there wasn’t enough truth in the world to undo the damage I’d caused.
At this point, I honestly felt like I would’ve been better off staying where I was rather than disrupting their lives all over again.
For years I convinced myself that distance was protection.
That if I stayed away long enough, they could build lives untouched by the destruction that seemed to follow me everywhere I went.
Looking back now, all I had really done was create a different kind of wound. One that never stopped bleeding.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees as the sound of running water echoed throughout the room.
The crazy part was that I wasn’t used to feeling powerless.
I had worked too damn hard to become the woman people looked to for answers, the woman who walked into rooms and commanded respect, the woman people feared crossing.
Somewhere along the way, I became a queen—not just in title, but in presence, influence, and power.
Majeston still saw the girl who made mistakes.
The one who got scared and ran. And Lord, I hated that he could still do that to me.
Closing my eyes, I rubbed at my temples as another familiar memory surfaced.
My father. Ever since all of this started, he had been visiting me in my dreams. At first, I convinced myself it was grief, or stress, or guilt—anything that sounded more reasonable than the truth.
But after the fourth time, even I couldn't lie to myself anymore.
Every dream felt real, too real. He never yelled, raised his voice, or chased me. That would've been easier. Instead, he just looked at me, disappointed, until I woke myself up before he could speak. I couldn't stomach hearing what I already knew he wanted to say.
In my bloodline, we carried the gift of sight.
I know how crazy that sounds. Trust me, I do.
If somebody else had explained it to me, I probably would’ve looked at them like they escaped from a psychiatric ward.
But it was real. Sometimes we’d dream things before they happened.
Other times we’d feel them. A pull. A warning.
A knowing that settled into your bones long before reality caught up to it.
Then when it happened, it felt familiar. Like déjà vu wrapped in certainty.
My mother had it. Her grandmother had it.
I had it. Which meant seeing him in my dreams only meant one thing.
He was trying to tell me something. Yes, he'd crossed over.
Yes, he was with my mother now. But he was still reaching for me, still trying to get through, still trying to make me listen.
And I couldn't. Not yet. Because listening would mean stopping. And stopping meant feeling. And feeling meant facing everything I’d spent years running from.
The agitation crawling beneath my skin intensified as I glanced toward the bathroom counter.
Lord, I wanted a Newport so bad my body physically ached for one.
My fingers twitched just thinking about it.
While I still smoked a joint every now and then when I needed to take the edge off, cigarettes and weed had always gone hand in hand for me.
Add a little liquor and I could usually silence whatever demons decided to show up that day.
Not anymore. Majeston wasn’t playing with me.
Matter of fact, the man had become downright disrespectful about it.
Every pack disappeared, every excuse got shut down, and every attempt at sneaking one ended with him looking at me like I’d personally offended his ancestors.
My eyes drifted down to the diamond ring resting on my finger.
The sight of it instantly softened something inside me.
Because despite all my complaining, despite how much he got under my skin, despite the fact that he was currently making my life infinitely harder than it needed to be, that ring reminded me of a different time. A simpler time. A time before empires, wars, betrayals, and impossible choices.
A time when I was just a girl—a stupid, hopelessly in-love girl who looked at Majeston and genuinely believed he could do no wrong.
And just like that, I was right back there.
You would’ve thought we were still in our early twenties with the way Majeston was acting, trying to convince me to give him another child.
The nigga had to be smoking whatever dope he was selling because what the hell did I look like popping out another baby?
Yes, I looked good for my age. Matter of fact, I looked better than some women ten years younger than me.
But beauty and biology were two completely different conversations.
Did he know the statistics? The risks? The complications that came with having children after forty?
I wasn’t some spring chicken anymore no matter how much he insisted on looking at me like I was.
None of that seemed to matter to him though.
All Majeston saw was his wife—a woman he wanted home, beside him, back to being the mother she’d vowed to be all those years ago, and he was willing to stand on business behind it. As much as I hated him, I couldn’t keep my hands off him.
That was the problem.
Majeston had always possessed this pull over me that made me feel completely powerless.
Around everybody else, I was decisive, strategic, in control.
Men listened when I spoke. Armies moved when I commanded them to.
Entire organizations adjusted course based on my decisions.
Yet somehow, one look from him had the ability to make all of that feel insignificant.
There were moments when I wanted to surrender completely and give him exactly what he’d been asking for all these years.
To stop fighting, to stop running, to stop carrying the weight of everything by myself.
Then the reality of my upbringing would settle back in.
My training, my men, my birthright, all of it calling to me louder.
Majeston had given me his version of orders and demanded I send my Mafia home, but they didn’t answer to him.
They answered to me. While Majeston thought we were about to find some beautiful house together and play husband and wife while he kept me tucked safely beneath his thumb, Chen and my men were currently camped out inside the estate I’d purchased behind his back.
Every room was staffed. Every security system was active.
Every contingency plan was already in place.
All they were waiting on was my word. One command, one order, one reason, and they would make hell rain from the sky.
I told Majeston I wasn’t that young girl he married anymore. Life, power, and pain had changed me. I was going to do what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted, and there would be nothing he could do to stop me. When I said I was willing to wage war, I meant every word of it.
Tilting my head back under the spray, I let the hot water run through my hair while tears burned behind my eyes.
God, I was tired—tired of fighting, tired of hurting, tired of carrying responsibilities nobody else seemed capable of understanding.
More than anything I just wanted a normal life: a man who loved me, my children, my empire.
That was it. I didn't want children who hated me, men carrying decades of resentment toward me, or ghosts from the past constantly showing up demanding answers. I just wanted peace.
“Ahhh!” I jumped so hard I nearly slipped when I felt lips brush against the side of my neck.
“Damn,” I snapped, placing a hand against my chest. “Now I can’t even shower by myself. You wanna watch me do that too?”Rolling my eyes, I turned my back toward him.
I hated him so much, but I loved him too, and that was the part that made everything so complicated.
I wanted to be his wife, wanted to pick up where we left off.
I wanted to believe there was still enough love between us to overcome everything that had happened.
At the same time, I wanted to walk my own path.
But Majeston was making it very clear he had no intention of letting me walk it without him.
“Don’t turn your back on me.” His voice came low and firm as he turned me back around to face him.
Water rolled down the broad planes of his shoulders while his large frame seemed to consume all the remaining space around me.
Even after all these years, he still had a way of making me feel small without saying much at all.
Before I could protest, he lifted me effortlessly and backed us both under the water, pressing me safely against the tiled wall.
“Fuck you, Majeston. I hate cho’ ass.” I put every ounce of venom I could muster into the words.
“Do you?” he asked calmly.
“Yes.”
“Liar.” That only irritated me more.
“You think you can just come back into my life and start telling me what I can and can’t do? Got me laying my secrets out in front of bitches who already can’t stand me. Why couldn’t you just leave me alone and let me be?”
I shoved at his chest, trying to slide down and out of his grasp, but he only adjusted his hold and kept me where I was. Every escape route I attempted seemed to end with him putting me right back where he wanted me.