Jomiloju's POV
The safehouse was quiet—too quiet. After the chaos of the last few days, the silence pressed against me like a second skin, too heavy to ignore. I sat cross-legged on the mattress, Steve's jacket draped around my shoulders, the scent of him lingering faintly on the fabric: clean soap, faint tobacco, and something darker.
He was in the other room again, brooding in shadows, pacing like a caged animal.
Since the poisoning, something in him had shifted—his eyes sharper, his shoulders tenser, like he was bracing for a hit only he could see coming.
I turned toward the rickety table in the corner, where Steve had dropped a folder hours ago. Some of the papers had spilled out—maps, hand-scribbled notes, even a few phone numbers I couldn't recognize.
And then I saw it.
A photograph.
Tucked between loose papers, nearly hidden, the edges curled and weathered like something kept for too long in a wallet.
I hesitated. I shouldn't touch it. But curiosity had become my coping mechanism.
I picked it up.
She looked like me.
Not exactly, but close enough—a softness in the cheeks, high cheekbones, the same arch to the brows. A quiet, knowing sadness in her eyes.
She wore a white dress. Not glamorous—simple, like it mattered more to her than to the world.
And beside her—Steve. Younger, smiling, whole.
The photo trembled in my hands just as Steve re-entered the room.
He saw it instantly.
His footsteps halted. The air shifted, like a chord pulled tight between us.
"Where did you get that?"
His voice wasn't angry—just hollow.
I lifted the photo slowly. "It was just sitting there."
He walked over, took it gently from my hand like it was glass. For a moment, he just stared at it.
Then his shoulders dropped, and something in his eyes softened.
"Her name was Tola," he said finally. "My sister."
Steve's POV
I hadn't said her name aloud in over five years.
Tola.
She'd been everything to me.
She was the reason I hadn't turned into a monster overnight when the streets first chewed me up.
I was sixteen when the deal went bad.
Tola was only twelve.
We were waiting in the car—her sketching in her notebook, me watching the rearview mirror.
One second we were laughing.
The next, the windshield shattered and the world went red.
Wrong place, wrong time. That's what they called it later.
But I knew better.
She was a message—to me, to my father, to everyone watching.
In the world I grew up in, revenge was currency, and innocence was just another casualty.
I still remembered the way her blood soaked into the seat. The way her tiny hand curled around mine, even as the light left her eyes.
"You stopped smiling in this one," Jomi whispered, pointing to the photo.
I blinked.
I hadn't realized I was crying.
"Because that was the last day I remembered who I was," I said hoarsely.
Jomiloju's POV
I felt like I'd just stepped into a room that wasn't mine. A place sacred, locked up, hidden.
But Steve had opened the door.
Not with grand gestures or pretty words—but with pain.
The raw kind. The real kind.
"I'm sorry," I said. "For everything you lost."
He looked at me, and for the first time since I met him, he didn't look like a villain.
He looked like a boy who never got to grow up right.
"She looks like you," he said.
I blinked. "Me?"
"Not your face," he said, voice low. "But your eyes. She had that same way of looking at the world like it hadn't yet broken her."
The weight of the photo burned between us.
And still… I couldn't look away.
Steve's POV
She was quiet for a long time after that. I expected her to recoil—most people did when I let them see the rot beneath the skin.
But not her.
Jomiloju wasn't like the world she came from.
She didn't flinch at pain.
She leaned toward it.
"I think…" she said finally, "I understand you more now. At least a little."
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.
"Don't try to understand me too much," I said. "It's safer if you don't."
She didn't reply right away.
Then she asked the one question I hadn't prepared for.
"Do you regret it?"
I stiffened. "Regret what?"
"All of this," she said. "The life. The choices. Becoming… this."
Jomiloju's POV
I thought he wouldn't answer.
I thought he'd walk away, shut me out, maybe even throw me back in the room and lock the door like he used to.
But instead, he sat down beside me.
So close I could feel the heat of him.
He looked at the floor like it was speaking to him.
"I regret every choice that made me someone Tola wouldn't recognize."
The answer hit me harder than I expected.
Not because it was tragic.
But because it was honest.
"I don't know who I'm becoming anymore," I admitted. "Being here. With you."
Steve turned to me.
"You're becoming strong," he said. "And a little dangerous."
There was a faint smile on his lips. I didn't know if I wanted to slap him or kiss him.
Maybe both.
"Dangerous how?" I asked, almost teasing.
He leaned closer.
"Because you're making me want things I shouldn't."
Steve's POV
The way she looked at me—God.
It wasn't lust.
It wasn't fear.
It was something worse.
Hope.
She still hoped I could be someone better.
Even after everything.
I reached out, slowly, and brushed her hair behind her ear.
Her breath caught.
My hand lingered too long.
If I kissed her right then, she wouldn't have stopped me.
But I did.
Because what I wanted wasn't fair.
And what I felt…
Was dangerous.
Jomiloju's POV
We were interrupted by a sharp knock.
Once.
Then silence.
Steve was on his feet in an instant, gun drawn, all softness gone.
He looked out the peephole, cursed under his breath, and turned to me.
"Stay here. No matter what happens."
My stomach twisted. "Steve—"
But he was already at the door.
The moment he opened it, everything changed.
There stood a woman.
Red lips. Leather gloves. Holding a manila envelope soaked through with blood.
She smiled.
"Miss me, Steve?"