They arrived in Abuja under the cover of night. Darion wore a cap low over his face, while Maliya looked like nothing more than a tired traveler in oversized clothes. But beneath her hoodie, she carried a hard drive containing everything Darion had risked his life to compile—secret phone recordings, voice notes, and documents signed by his father and other powerful men in politics. Names. Dates. Victims. Proof.

Their destination was a discreet hotel run by a retired journalist Darion had trusted during his university days. The man, Pa Rufus, was now blind in one eye and half-paralyzed, but his mind was still sharp. “So the ghost returns,” he said as he touched Darion’s face. “And with a woman whose soul smells like rebellion.” Maliya smirked. “I get that a lot.”

 

For two days, they stayed in the shadows, organizing files, contacting hidden allies, preparing to go public. Darion planned to leak everything to an international media house and then seek protection from human rights organizations. “If I die,” he said, “the world will still burn with truth.” Maliya stayed close to him—she’d never felt more alive, more seen.

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But shadows were moving.

 

Anita had arrived too. Her obsession with Maliya had festered into something monstrous. In her mind, Maliya had stolen the fame that was supposed to be hers, had humiliated her by choosing “mad men” over everything they once built together. And now? Now she would take everything from her—beginning with her life.

She booked a room at the same hotel under a fake name and waited. Watching. Studying.

 

On the third night, while Maliya and Darion slept, Anita broke into their room with a gun. Her hands trembled, her eyes wild with hatred. “WAKE UP!” she screamed. Maliya jumped. Darion instinctively shielded her. “Anita? What the hell—” “Shut up!” she spat. “You ruined me! You ruined everything!”

Maliya sat up slowly. “Put the gun down. We can talk.” “Talk?” Anita laughed, eyes glistening with madness. “You were supposed to build empires with me, not roll in the dirt with lunatics! I begged you, Maliya! I begged you to stop. And now? You’ll beg me to let you live.”

She aimed the gun at Maliya’s head.

 

But just as her finger tensed on the trigger—BANG! The door burst open. Pa Rufus, despite his limp and cane, had heard everything through the old surveillance system wired into his walls. Behind him were two journalists and a security officer with his gun drawn.

“Drop the weapon!” the officer yelled.

Anita panicked. She fired—but the bullet missed and shattered a mirror. The officer tackled her to the ground and the gun slid away.

 

Maliya stood in shock. Darion held her tight. “It’s over,” he whispered.

But it wasn’t. Not yet.

The next day, the files went public. The scandal shook the nation. Senator Ifeanyi Obaye was arrested after damning evidence linked him to political murders, kidnappings, and a shadowy cult that exploited the mentally ill for ritual purposes.

 

Maliya was called a devil by some. A hero by others. Darion was hailed as a whistleblower. The Free Mind shelter gained international recognition. Donations poured in. Volunteers arrived from every corner of the world.

And Anita? She was declared mentally unstable and committed to a psychiatric facility. Ironically, the same kind of place Maliya had once built to protect others like her.

 

In the months that followed, Maliya and Darion rebuilt their lives. Quietly. Far from the spotlight. She still wore makeup sometimes, still looked like a goddess on the outside—but inside, she was no longer hiding. She wasn’t the slay queen with a strange obsession. She was a woman who had faced her darkness and chosen to love the madness anyway.

One afternoon, Darion brought her to a plot of land near a river. “What’s this?” she asked. “Our future,” he said. “Let’s build a home. Not a palace. Not a shelter. Just a place where mad love can breathe.”

She nodded. Tears in her eyes.

They kissed as the sun set.

 

And for the first time, the girl who only slept with mad men finally slept in peace—with a man who had once pretended to be mad to survive… and who now loved her for exactly who she is.

The end.