3. Chapter 3
Princess Adanna ‘Danni’ Okoye
The bass from the stadium three blocks over hit the asphalt in rhythmic thuds, vibrating right through the thin soles of my heels.
Downtown Atlanta was a choked-out mess of flashing police cruisers, bleeding red brake lights, and hordes of sweating, ordinary people screaming over each other in the humid night air.
Everybody else ran on raw, uncontrolled emotion, and frankly, it got on my damn nerves.
To feel like myself, I needed stillness.
Not the quiet of an empty house, but the dead silence you carved out with your own hands.
An hour prior, I had slipped through the unlocked kitchen window of a two-story brick suburban home forty minutes outside the city perimeter.
I didn't touch their silver, nor did I disturb the mail neatly stacked on the counter; petty theft was a vice for people who lack imagination.
Instead, I simply sat on their plush, cream-colored sofa in the pitch black.
I tilted my head back, tracking the steady breathing of the husband and wife sleeping right above me.
I passed the time counting the rhythm of their lungs, just thinking about how paper-thin the wall was between their happy little life and pure terror.
For twenty minutes, sitting up in their private space without them ever knowing brought a sense of calmness to my body. It was beautiful, honestly. I liked knowing I could walk up those stairs, end their whole world before they even opened their eyes, and be gone before the blood cooled.
Nonetheless, choosing not to was the real high. It was like another form of self-pleasure. I was a ghost in their living room, holding complete control over a catastrophe that never came. That kind of leverage was the only thing capable of shutting down the noise in my head.
Problem was, the quiet never lasted. The void in my chest was a hungry ass beast, always demanding more, always needing higher stakes just to keep boredom from rotting me alive.
By midnight, I’d flushed that quiet suburban house out of my system.
I was gliding through the VIP section of a packed rooftop club, and my emerald silk dress cut through the sweaty crowd, resembling hot oil through water.
I didn’t see people in that room—I saw chess pieces, targets, and quick entertainment.
Some tech executive in a wrinkled blazer was slumped against the bar, eyes half-glazed from expensive bourbon as he slurred at the bartender.
“Hey—hey, look at me,” the man droned, waving a sloppy hand before giving up and grabbing his glass. “Thanks maaaan. You’re a... you’re a good bro.”
Total walking vulnerability. Completely oblivious, practically begging to be taken apart.
I brushed past him, executing a soft, perfectly timed stumble that planted my hip right against his pocket.
While I threw him a flashing smile that made his drunk ass widen his eyes with hope, my fingers dipped inside his jacket.
Fast, clean, and so effortless. I lifted the heavy leather key fob before his slow-ass brain could even process my skin touching his.
A man that careless didn’t deserve a machine that pretty anyway.
Five minutes later, I was down in the underground garage, cranking the twin-turbo engine of his matte-yellow Porsche to life.
“Nice choice, Danni,” I told myself.
I tore onto the interstate, watching the speed needle sweep past one-ten. The rush of the wind and asphalt was a quick high to drown out the ugly, looping thoughts clawing at my head
Two years. Two whole years we built something, and he just threw it away like trash. He actually moved on.
After I sucked his dick with ice? I was so dumb for even putting my lips on him.
The second I told him I never wanted to see his face again, he didn't beg. He didn't crawl back. He went and found some basic, nobody bitch with barely a thousand dollars to her name in the bank, choosing her over me.
Over a princess destined to be a Queen?
People would call it heartbreak, but I don't do grief. I didn’t love him the way poets write about it; I loved him the way an apex predator loves its territory.
He was mine. I spent two years putting myself under his skin, fixing his flaws, owning every single corner of his mind until his breathing belonged to me.
He was the only person allowed inside my head, the only thing I actually kept for myself.
When I told him to leave, he was supposed to crawl.
He was supposed to starve without me. But he just...
left. He took my property—his life, his body, his choices—and walked away like it was nothing.
The fact that he’s out there right now, breathing air I didn't give him permission to breathe, makes my skull feel like it's going to crack open.
And for her?
A nobody?
A little girl with a grand in her pocket?
It’s sickening. It’s an error that needs to be corrected. When I told him to leave, it wasn't a farewell—it was a test of my leverage. It was an invitation for him to drop to his knees, to break, to prove that my grip on him was true.
Jade told me these men weren’t loyal to anybody, but I didn’t believe her. I should’ve.
He walked away completely intact, and the realization that he could exist outside of my control was a violation of my order.
The insult made my blood boil. Blue and red lights exploded in my rearview mirror as the siren gave a short yelp that shattered the cabin's dark cocoon.
“So predictable,” I mumbled to myself.
I pulled over, gliding the car onto the shoulder, and killed the engine.
Then, I rolled the window down as the officer got out of his car and approached.
Through the side mirror, I tracked the movement of his boots crunching against the loose gravel before his flashlight pinned me in the driver's seat.
His right hand remained glued to his holster, paranoid as hell.
He should be, I could end his life before he called for back up.
"Step out of the vehicle, ma'am," he demanded, his voice was authoritative.
In a fraction of a second, my rage vanished, entirely replaced by a flawless, meticulously calibrated mask of terror. I forced the capillaries in my face to open, letting my eyes well up with instant, trembling moisture.
Couldn’t no bitch but on a better show than me.
I looked up and locked my gaze directly into his eyes.
I held his stare. I let the tears spill over right as he hit me with the light, offering him this desperate look that practically forced him to feel like a hero.
I made my shoulders tremble before I let my chin drop just enough to look small.
I fed him the vision of a woman who needed saving.
"Officer, please, I am so sorry," I breathed, letting my voice crack as I trembled against the seat.
"My boss... he was completely out of his mind drunk at the party.
He insisted on driving us back to the hotel, and I knew he'd kill us both.
I had to snatch his keys from his jacket and just...
I just needed to get the car back to the job safely.
Or else the company would fine us. I was so terrified if I didn't comply. "
The cop absorbed the optics: the expensive silk dress, the shimmer of tears, and a look of helpless fright directed at him. His posture softened, and the hand dropped from his weapon as the suspicion vanished from his eyes.
"Where's your boss now?" he asked, his tone shifting from authoritative to paternal.
"Still at the bar, passed out with his friends," I whimpered, using the pad of my index finger to brush away a phantom tear while maintaining unbroken eye contact. "I just wanted everyone to get home alive."
He sighed, shaking his head with a patronizing pity that made me want to laugh out loud. "Look, you did the right thing getting him off the road, but you can't be flying down the highway like that. Drive straight there and slow down. You’re free to go, but be safe."
"Thank you so much, officer. Seriously. You have no idea."
The second he turned his back to walk to his cruiser, the tears dried instantly. My face went completely dead, and the blankness of my true self returned before he even opened his car door. As I shifted the Porsche back into drive, a low chime cut through the engine hum.
It wasn't my regular iPhone. It was the satellite phone buried deep inside the lining of my clutch.
I pulled it out and looked at the blinking international sequence on the screen.
It was my Aunt Idris. She was the chief over the military of Okoye Island, and one of the very few human beings I actually respected enough to be real with.
She was a woman who dealt in blood and strategy, someone who saw the world exactly the way I did; as a map to be conquered.
I closed my eyes for a fraction of a second as the weight of my actual life crashed back down. I cleared my throat, stripping the fake innocence from my voice, and pressed the receiver to my ear.
"Yes," I murmured.
"Adanna," Idris's voice crackled through the secure line, the distance doing nothing to dull the natural authority in her tone. "Why didn't you return with the rest of the team?"
I leaned back against the headrest, steering the stolen Porsche with one hand. "I needed to blow off some steam."
A dry chuckle came through the static. "So the mission of taking down a wealthy philanthropist wasn't enough for you?"
A small smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth. "I'll be home by tomorrow."
"Good," Idris said. "The Chairman is expecting you."
I paused, my foot hovering over the accelerator.
The word lingered in the air, but it wasn't the mention of the Chairman that caught my attention. It was the cadence of her breath. Idris was the chief of the island’s military.
She was a woman who ordered executions without blinking, who commanded legions of men with fearless certainty.
But right now, her voice carried an imperceptible hesitation. It sounded timid.