3. Chapter 3 #5
"Just because you're a sociopath doesn't mean you're exempt from the lineage law," he spat, his stubbornness matching my rage.
"I will not change it, and no one else will either.
You aren't special, girl. You're just damaged goods with a title.
Now fall in line, or get buried beneath it—I don't give a damn which one you choose. "
I tried to focus on my breathing as I eyed him. His head was completely bald now, his long, proud locs were long gone. His once-rich chocolate skin had turned a pasty, graying ash as the color steadily drained from his face. He looked like a corpse playing king.
"We have a meeting with them soon, so get ready," he murmured, adjusting his silk blankets.
"Who am I supposed to throw my life away to?"
The hierarchy on Okoye Island was built on a different kind of bloodline math.
The Queen ran the entire rock—military, money, and the law.
The King was just decor, a political accessory hanging off her arm to give her crown weight.
Six tribal kings held down their respective territories, but there was only ever one reigning Queen at the top.
The High King shared overarching authority across the island, while the rest of those regional kings walked around with women who meant nothing on paper.
They weren't partners; they were just background noise labeled "the king's wife. "
I wasn't blind to the game. I knew this entire marriage was a transaction designed to merge bloodlines and multiply the island's wealth.
Logically, the play was bulletproof. I knew he had a strategic reason for setting it up, but I hated every fucking second of my placement on the board.
I hated the math, I hated the optics, and I hated being written into an equation I didn't dictate.
"Are you going to answer me or not?" I demanded, the silence stretching long enough to grate on my nerves.
"Prince Eze," he said smoothly.
The air in my chest went cold, as if this entire nightmare couldn't get any fucking worse. "You must really hate me, Unc."
The Chairman actually smirked, shaking his head. "You know how fond of you I am."
That wasn't a lie. Over the years, he’d paraded me through court like a trophy, openly admitting to the council that he favored me over his own weak-blooded offspring.
"Are you still harboring a grudge over a childhood spat?" he asked.
He was talking about the faint, pale line running near my cheekbone and the precise reason Prince Damini Eze almost walked away from his teenage years without his dick attached to his body The bitch was lucky they broke us up when they did.
The second he played dirty during a training match, I had every intention of slicing it off and feeding it to him. Fuck playing fair, I played to win.
I rolled my eyes, thoroughly irritated by the memory.
The Chairman slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed. He ambled toward me, but his steps were thick and uneven. He covered up a cough when his hand latched onto my shoulder.
I slapped it off instantly.
"This kingdom is yours, Danni," he confessed. "It's time you take it. Don't worry about him."
"Didn't y'all try this same shit with my mother?" I shot back. "And what happened?”
“... She killed her king.”
I repeated him. “She killed her king." I stepped right up into his space, forcing him to look down at me. "Exactly. So what the fuck makes you think I won't put a bullet through his head the second he steps out of line?"
The Chairman let out a deep rooted sigh.
Instead of pulling back, he reached out and clamped both of his hands onto my shoulders.
I went rigid, ready to strip his hands off again, but the faint tremor running through his palms made me freeze.
It was the physical strain of an old man fighting his own failing body just to stand upright and hold my weight.
"Because you were born for this, Danni," he rasped, his grip digging into my shirt.
"My sister... she didn't have the guidance you have.
It was a different time back then. We were ignorant.
We didn't understand mental health—we didn't even want to admit it was real.
But you? You have your meds. You have us.
You have every single tool needed to succeed.
You will not end up like my big sister."
I stared into his face, my eyes narrowing into cold slits. "Or what? You'll kill me too?"
The sharpness in his expression instantly melted, replaced by a hollow sadness.
"I miss my sister every damn day of my life, Adanna," he said softly. The truth hung in the air between us. "Every single day. But her episode was burning the kingdom down from the inside out. Our entire lineage was on the line."
He was telling the truth. I could hear it in the rough scrape of his voice, but it didn't change a damn thing. I knew why he did it, he had to kill her before she destroyed everyone else. But a part of me would never fully trust the man who put my mother in the dirt.
He cleared his throat, pushing the grief back under the rug where it belonged, and tightened his grip on my shoulders before letting go. "Don't worry about Him."
"Don't worry about him?" I mocked, the sarcasm dripping off my tongue. "You mean the man I'm legally promised to hand my virginity to?"
The Chairman kept a straight face. "Well... at least you don't have to fuck a woman who didn’t like bathing."
His gaze turned serious, stripping away the humor. "Look. You told me you would be better than all of us. So prove it. Lead this island as their Queen and take your birthright... or else I'll have no choice but to give it to my kids. You can kiss your privileges goodbye."
I walked backwards, forcing my breathing to stay slow. Every nerve in my body was screaming at me to shatter his jaw. Apparently, everyone wanted to test my patience today, and I was fighting like hell to keep my hands off my trigger.
"Good job on the mission," the Chairman called out to my retreating back as I turned toward the door. "I’ve got another one lined up for you soon. And stop breaking my shit, do it in your own corridor."
“Goodbye Chairman!”
“Love you too, niece!”
I stormed back out into the hallway and left his home.
Then, I sped back to our private bunker, parked the car sideways, and descended down the steps. Deep beneath the concrete foundations lay my personal sanctuary: the rage room.
As I walked down the hallway, I pointed a finger at the two house servants standing guard near the armory.
"Get the fuck out," I snarled. My voice was stripped of its human mask. "Both of you. Right fucking now. Three seconds before I start putting holes in you."
They practically tripped over their own shoes scrambling up the stairs, leaving the heavy steel door to hiss shut and lock me in airtight isolation.
I stripped off my jacket, yanked my hair into a brutal knot, and shoved my hands into my leather gloves. I walked over to the sound system, and cranked up until the subwoofers rattled the bulletproof observation window. It was time to let my alter ego take the wheel.
“All of you got me fucked up!”I stepped up to a teak dining table and drove my boot straight into the center with enough force to split the grain.
I grabbed a forty-pound iron sledgehammer off the wall rack, and brought it down on the center until the table snapped in half with a sound like a gun going off.
An unhinged laugh tore out of my chest, completely drowned out by the grinding bass.
I turned the sledgehammer on the wall of electronics.
The first swing pulverized a flat-screen television, sending a shower of liquid crystal, black plastic, and live sparks exploding into my face.
I swung again, shattering a heavy marble bust into fine, white dust, then spun around and drove the iron head straight into a display cabinet.
Glass exploded in every direction, slicing through my shirt and cutting across my forearms. I didn't give a fuck. I wiped a streak of my own blood across my jaw. I grinned at the stain on my glove, and kept swinging.
I dropped the hammer, grabbed a solid steel crowbar, and started tearing through the heavy inventory racks.
I whipped the iron bar against the metal framing until the shelves buckled and collapsed under an avalanche of hard-shell cases.
When the metal wasn't enough, I went after the room with my hands.
I plunged my gloved fingers straight into the leather upholstery of a heavy armchair, digging through the hide, ripping the wooden frame apart from the inside out, and hurling chunks of foam into the air.
I stomped a glass table into powder, grinding my boots into the shards until there was nothing left to break.
For twenty minutes straight, I was a moving hurricane. I smashed, ripped, kicked, and obliterated every object in my line of sight. If it had structure, it had to die. If it was whole, it had to be broken.
When my body finally ran out of adrenaline, I stood in the center of the total destruction. I wiped my nose with the back of my bloody glove, looked at the utter ruin around me, and finally felt at peace.
Finally, I stopped and let out a wild scream.
Let them try to marry me off. I will burn the whole island down first.