⚠️ Warning ⚠️ this chapter contains graphic detail of a true story I have witnessed. Death, violence and a brief mention of drugs is in this story. Please do not read if you are squeamish or easily triggered.

This is my story and it's true. You can dispute all you want but that will never change it. This is real and it happened to me.

You have been warned.

I am technically a Princess. Well, sorta.

My father was a very notorious King Pin and still is to this day. So notorious, that he's in hiding. As am I.

Unfortunately, I got all of his looks, so even now as I hide from the area he ruled, I still find strange people whom I've never met asking me if I'm so-and-so's daughter.

When I was around three or four, there was an altercation with a drug deal. My father got mad and called for 'war' and it almost cost me my life.

The story goes like this:

I was sitting in the window of my grandma Bettys house, waiting for my father to get home. An argument started among my aunties and mother about her abusing me. Soon knifes we're pulled and police were called. My mother snatched me from my perch and dragged me outside, her grip merciless and angry.

The alleyways were dank in the dull fall air as we marched on towards the metro station on Kidzee boulevard.

After around five minutes, we began to hear footsteps. Heavy footsteps, light footsteps, authoritative footsteps. In Chicago, when you know you are being followed, it's best to ignore the pursuer in case they are scouting you and take your careful watch as a challenge.

A man grabbed me and yanked me from my mothers grasp, causing a cry to escape from my lips.

They said nothing as the held a knife to my throat and stared down my mother, who made no movement.

My aunt, Jessica or Aunty Boobie as we called her, surrounded the group with my fathers gang and aimed guns at the men's heads.

A bark of a different language was heard and I was roughly pushed to the ground as they scattered off at the sound of a gun cocking.

My mother rushed to me and picked my calm body up. This was normal for me.

Same story, different day.

My father was alerted of the jumping and immediately dropped what he was doing and grabbed his own glock.

We were asked questions by him and explained the men's descriptions. Soon, everything went back to normal. I went back to daycare and things were chill.

Normally, my mother would come and pick me up, or I'd walk home with my cousins. Instead, a large man with a stone cold face escorted me outside to my fathers bulletproof van.

I was then brought to a line up of men in a secluded area and asked to point to the man who grabbed and pushed me.

I looked confidently at the man on the far left and pointed. I knew what was going on, this was a lifestyle. We did this every other month or so, with me just recently being able to speak for myself.

One gunshot ran out as I winced and when I looked again, he was dead. The wall behind his head splattered with grey matter and blood. The man made eye contact with me and I will never forget the look in his eye.

Anger and fear drilled into my soul. I still see his eyes when I close my own. They are still there.

Luckily, trauma therapy and EMDR has really helped with me being able to deal with these horrible memories.

Whoo! That was extremely difficult to recount. I have very few memories from that age but this story is one of my first traumatic stories.