Zayden couldn't sleep.
He sat on the rooftop of a three-story building in Ajara, the Lagos night flickering with danfo lights and generator hums. His crew, Phantom, had just completed a drop — nothing major, just a warning to a rival set — but his mind was elsewhere.
Her.
Mariella Oreka.
The name played on repeat like a broken track in his head.
The girl who smiled like she'd never seen pain.
The girl whose father ordered his brother's death.
---
> "Get close. Get info. When the signal comes... finish her."
That was the order.
Simple. Clean. Cruel.
But something about her didn't add up.
She wasn't guarded. No bodyguards. No tinted car.
Just a regular girl in a government school uniform… with pretty eyes and hidden scars.
---
The Next Day — Eleganza High
Zayden walked through the school gate like he belonged there. His old ID still worked. Nobody questioned him — not when your name carries fear.
He spotted her behind the school library, sketching in her notebook.
He leaned on the wall, arms crossed.
> "You draw?"
She looked up, surprised.
"I didn't know you talked."
"I don't. But you're interesting."
---
She laughed. Light. Pure.
Zayden hated how that sound made his walls shake.
She showed him her sketch — a burning rose.
> "Why a rose?" he asked.
"Because beauty fades in fire… but it still fights to bloom."
He swallowed hard. This girl had depth.
Was she a threat? Or a victim of her father's crimes?
---
That Evening — Phantom Crew Base
Zayden sat in a dim room, face lit by a laptop screen. Files open. Pictures. Maps.
The truth hit like a punch to the throat.
Mariella's file was clean.
No criminal record. No ties to her father's dirty money.
Her real mom? Died in childbirth. She was raised mostly by her aunt in Badagry — far from Oreka's dark empire.
She wasn't involved. She wasn't even protected.
She was just a pawn in a bigger game.
And now… she was his target.
---
> "Time to act," his crew leader, Drex, growled.
"You got three days, Zay. Then we light this whole family up."
---
Zayden stared at the phone screen, Mariella's smiling face from earlier still fresh in his mind.
He had 72 hours to decide.
> Betray the girl who trusted him…
Or abandon the crew that raised him.
Either way, someone bleeds.
---
End of Chapter 2
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Zayden digs into Oreka's empire… and learns a secret that changes everything.