PRINCESS THUGRELLA

SURVIVAL INSTINCTS

CHAPTER TWO

SURVIVAL INSTINCTS.

The neighborhood was quiet in that intimate way mornings could be—birds arguing softly in the trees, a distant radio humming somewhere behind closed windows, the scent of fresh bread drifting from a corner bakery down the road. Isabella breathed it all in. This was her small world. Familiar. Safe.

She started walking.

Her sandals kissed the pavement with a steady rhythm as she headed toward the main road, nodding politely at an elderly woman watering her plants, offering a smile to a child wobbling on a bicycle too big for his legs. Isabella smiled easily—warm, unguarded. There was light in her today, the kind that made people look twice without knowing why.

What she didn’t notice was the black sedan parked a little too far down the street.

The engine was off. The windows are tinted. It had been there before she stepped outside, patient as a held breath.

Inside the car, a man sat with his hands resting loosely on the steering wheel, eyes fixed on her through the windshield. He wasn’t dressed like a threat—plain shirt, cap pulled low, nothing memorable. The kind of man you’d forget the moment you passed him. That was the point.

His phone vibrated once.

She’s out.

Isabella turned a corner, unaware that the sedan eased to life moments later, rolling forward at a careful distance. Not close enough to alarm her. Not far enough to lose her.

She stopped briefly at a street vendor, laughing softly as she handed over a few bills for a bottle of water. The sound of her laughter carried—light, unforced. The man in the car slowed to a stop again, watching the way she tipped her head back to drink, the sun catching on the curve of her throat.

“She has no idea,” he muttered under his breath.

And she didn’t.

Isabella continued on, humming under her breath now, lost in her thoughts. Maybe she was thinking about the errands ahead. Maybe about the strange restlessness she’d woken up with that morning, the feeling that something was shifting just out of sight. She brushed it off the way she always did. Life was full of feelings that didn’t need names.

Behind her, the sedan followed, silent and steady.

Somewhere far away, Maverick watched the same street through a screen, his expression unreadable. He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. He simply observed—the way she moved, the way the world seemed to part for her without effort.

“Don’t lose her,” he said calmly.

The man in the car adjusted his grip on the wheel.

Isabella Valdore walked on, modest and radiant, unaware that every step she took was being measured, recorded, claimed—

and that this quiet morning was already slipping out of her control.

It was already 10 a.m. when I got to the pastry shop where I work as a cashier. Madam Doris was already there. Good morning ma, I greeted.

Good morning, Isa, I trust you are doing well.

She asked with a warm smile.

Yes ma'am, I replied, tying her apron, getting ready for the day.

Madam Doris, a God-sent helper I met the very first day I left the child support welfare, she became not just my boss, but also a mother figure to me, she had always been the only one who had ever shown me genuine care and likeness.

Outside, not far from the pastry shop, the black sedan was parked.

Sir, she's in now, do I drive around or wait?

The man asked, pressing his hand to his ear.

You will stay there and watch every movement she makes, follow her when necessary, send me a report of everything she does, and leave no information out.

Am I understood?

Maverick asked from the other end.

Yes, sir.

Today was Monday, I won't be going to the club till Thursday, for me every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday was owned by Isabella, THUGRELLA (rogue queen) takes over from Thursday night to Sunday night, that's how it has always been, I smiled faintly though the smile didn't reach my eyes, I did everything I was supposed to do knowingly.

I got off from work by 9. p.m, when I got home, I sat at the edge of my the balcony of my small apartment, allowing the cold night breeze to caress my skin, I looked up to the sky watching the beautiful view of the night thinking about my Mother, I felt a hollowing pain echoing inside me, the kind of pain I was already familiar with, the scene of how my father was shot dead before my eyes kept on replaying in my head, that night, 17th May 2018, it's been nine years yet everything still feels fresh like it happened yesterday, my father's last words piercing my innocent heart.

Isa, he called out under his fading breath

You must survive no matter what, you must live and you must find a way to get through life all by yourself, remember you are all you’ve got left, he stuttered trying to catch his breath.

In the future, I may no longer be with you, but I will watch you from above, get away from here, never forget to take good care of yourself and your mother. Forgive me child for I failed you.

I could still remember how my body was trembling with fear, I watched my father take his last breath, and I watched how life slowly left his body, while death took over.

I was too broken to even cry, I couldn't make a single sound, I struggled with my demons for days, even till this very night I can still feel myself struggling with the pain that my childhood traumatized me with.

Nobody was there for me, my mother was already mentally unstable before my father's death, her condition worsened after my father's death, till date she hasn't recovered from the shock of everything.

They couldn't even give my father a proper burial, I was taken away from my mother by the child support welfare at the age of 14. I could still remember how much I hated the cold food they fed us every time, the amount of time they tortured me each time I disobeyed the elders, days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and months turned to years. It's been nine years since I last saw my mother.

I can still remember vividly how much I cried when I came to visit her at the rehab center for the very first and last time, but she couldn't remember me, she chased me out and asked the nurses there, never to let me back in, the doctor said she had shut down her brain from remembering anything that had cost her pain due to her mental illness, I watched how I became a stranger to my own mother.

For the first time since my father's death, that day was the first time I cried, I cried bitterly for days, I didn't step out of my room at the child support welfare, I didn't eat or speak to anybody. I felt like dying, but the faces of my father's murderers were the only reason I encouraged myself to live. I had to survive to get my revenge.