Chapter 34
It was the hardest thing I had to do since Beatrice died.
I’d never spoken to anyone about her death in detail, not even the therapist my mother had tried so hard to have me open up to.
But Malik has a way of bringing things to the surface for me.
The security he gives me is like my own personal space to be whoever I want to be.
His soft breaths fan over my hair as the beat of his heart thumps beneath my hand on his chest, and it’s like I’ve been here before…like something is waiting for me tomorrow as a heaviness swirls in the air around us.
I tilt my head back ever so slightly, careful not to wake him as I memorise every ridge of his sculpted face.
Thick brows, complemented by his luscious eyelashes.
If we ever had children, I’d want them to look like him.
Bold, beautiful, and sinfully striking. But more so, I’d want them to hold themselves to the standards Malik holds himself to.
I want them to be stronger than me.
More disciplined than me.
And a determination so fierce that anytime someone told them no, they’d fight tooth and nail to get what they want…no matter the consequence.
Malik didn’t care. He did what he did so I wouldn’t step foot in prison.
He did it for me.
It hits me that I haven’t thought about the ghost from his past. Does this mean he’s mine? That he’s convinced me that he is?
A vibration echoes through the room, coming from Malik’s phone. He groans, lifting his arm to reach over and pick it up. He holds it in front of both of us, Ezra’s name flashing on the screen. Electric adrenaline fires through me when he answers and places it on speaker.
“Ezra.”
“Malik, I trust you were able to get some rest.”
Malik turns to me and smiles. “Something of the sort.”
“Great, because tomorrow night, there is the Founders Gala, and Benedict and Gordon will be there. Judge Gordon Knight will be in his chambers all night. It’s time for that visit we spoke about. I’m ready to wrap this up.”
“You expect me to go into the fucking courthouse without weapons?” Malik asks.
“You’ll find all you need in the shed beside the barn. My men will be there too, waiting to take him, so whatever you do, make sure he still has his fingers. He needs to sign some very important documents.”
There’s a pause before Ezra speaks again.
“One car, Malik, eleven-thirty. Don’t be late.”
He hangs up, and I feel a buzzing in my ears. We turn simultaneously, our gazes clashing.
“I’m coming too.”
He nods. “Even if I said no, you’d slash my tyres and leave without me.”
I laugh, a real fucking laugh that vibrates my entire chest. “What do you think Ezra has in the shed?”
Before I can make a move to get out of bed, Malik clasps my wrist in his hand.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks.
“Am I sure I want to get the answers I’ve been searching for all my life?”
He lowers his eyes to our hands, now intertwined, something flashing across his vision. “I just don’t want to see you disappointed.”
“I’ve been living with disappointment all my life. One more night won’t matter.”
I can’t take my eyes off him. The black and white tux with the neatly placed bow tie, the way he slides the silver gun into his belt, the material of his blazer slipping comfortably over his taut muscles beneath his white shirt.
Everything about it brings back memories from a night not long ago, when I spent a few heated minutes in a cupboard with a stranger.
I never knew his name, and honestly, that night, I didn’t really care too much.
I’d just been shown a photo of Adrian cheating, so I wanted to do something to take my mind off it.
Maybe even to have some sort of revenge.
“You look great in a tux,” I say, watching him take a step toward me. “But how are we going to get past the guards at the door? I’m sure your face is all over the country right now.”
He smiles, reaching behind him to reveal an elk mask.
He catches my surprised look. “What? Didn’t imagine it to be a masked party?”
“No, I…”
It was him.
That night, it was Malik behind that mask. I hadn’t taken note of his tattoos either because I wasn’t in the best headspace, nor did I want any memory of that evening.
“Malik,” I huff a laugh, not believing how close we were to each other this entire time. “Ezra’s charity gala…”
He narrows his eyes, then I watch as the chips fall into place and he realises what I do.
“Fuck.” He laughs, shaking his head. “That was you?” And within a second, his demeanour changes to something insidious. “Do you usually get into tight spaces with men you don’t know?”
I smirk, wanting to make him work for it. “It was technically before us, so…”
The muscles in his jaw twitch, and his hands clench so hard at his sides, I can see the skin over his knuckles going white.
“Are you seriously jealous of yourself right now?”
He straightens, rolling his shoulders back as he closes the space between us, his breath fanning my face when he leans over me.
“Even when I’m beside you, I will always envy the space between us because being close to you is not enough, Isla.
I could be holding your hand and burn with jealousy.
Nothing will ever silence the constant need for more of you. ”
I stop myself from jumping into his arms, even though that’s what every cell in my body wants, because we have an important task ahead of us tonight.
It took hours for us to get to the event, and although I insisted on driving half the way here, he wouldn’t allow it.
So now, as we stand in a spare room, waiting for further instruction, my palms grow clammy in anticipation. I don’t know what Ezra has planned for my father, but the recording device on Malik will ensure that whatever he confesses to is caught, so he has his leverage.
“Are you ready?” Malik asks, and I nod.
The corridor has been emptied by Ezra’s men, making it easier for us to find my father’s chambers. Ezra must have asked Malik to come alone, but he knew I wouldn’t allow him to leave me behind because this is my fight.
As we approach his door, I hold my breath and watch him through it.
He pushes the glasses up higher on his nose as he sifts through the papers on his desk, ignorant of how the rest of his night is about to unfold.
I wait by his door, peeking through the crack, the little girl inside me yelling to be heard, to be seen.
Malik’s hand is on my hip, a soft guiding support as I press the door open with one hand and walk in with him behind me.
It’s like he knew we were going to make an appearance because my father doesn’t look up, mindlessly tracing the pad of his index finger over the paper on his desk.
He sighs, bringing his fingers to the white stubble on his chin. “After all these years, Isla, I thought I did something wrong with the way I raised you.”
My fingers curl over the gun in my hand as I raise it, aiming it at his chest. Every damn cell within me wants to shoot, to take his life and just be done with it. But how can you simply move on from someone you’ve called a father your whole life?
How can you take his life?
I can’t, and as I stare at him, his eyes penetrating my soul, I fucking know it.
“I used to think I taught you all I could, prepared you for the darkest parts of the world, and gave you all of the tools to fight the demons you’ve carried with you ever since we took you home.”
“T-took me home?” I lower my gun a touch.
The glasses come off, and he places them on the table beside his gavel. “Your mother thought it would be best to hide it from you. God rest her soul.”
Malik takes a step closer to me, the gun in his hand pointed to the floor.
“Hide what?” I ask.
His fingers touch, and he presses them together above the papers on his desk, his gaze boring into mine. “You were adopted,” he says, switching his gaze to Malik. “From Ophidian.”
The pulse drumming through my neck is dizzying, the nausea tart on my tongue.
“We adopted you right after the incident.”
I think I’m going to be sick. The ringing in my ears pierces through every muddled word as I gulp down the sour taste of vomit.
What incident?
“Isla,” Malik steps in front of me, blocking my vision.
“No, I want to hear!” I push him out of the way, watching the smile spread across my father’s face. He’s been hiding something from me my entire life, aiming to weaponise it with cruelty.
“You were abused by a high society member who was sent to Ophidian to pick two children for the Purileen experiment, and I felt responsible for you, so I chose to adopt you.”
The vomit rises into the back of my throat, the pieces of my missing memories now jamming into place, tipping my reality off its axis.
“Beatrice was young enough that it was almost too easy to manipulate what she believed. Even when we lied to her that you were her half sister, she never questioned it.”
I hold my breath as the truth spills from his lips, my lungs screaming for air.
“What about my memories before Ophidian?” I finally ask with the little air I have left.
“It’s almost magical what the combination of trauma repression and manipulation can do.
Add in Purileen to the mix and, well…” He gestures to me as if I’m the perfect example.
“You were too broken from your past. You never spoke of it to anyone, but none of that matters now because you have no memory of it.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t told you yet,” my father says, still staring at Malik.
I can’t breathe.
“When you and Beatrice saw me with Tony Albani, discussing the way we planned to use Purileen against the criminals of London, I couldn’t chance it. I had to do everything in my power to erase that from your memories, and it was the only thing that I don’t regret because it erased him too.”
My head snaps to Malik, and the regret that burns in his gaze is akin to a knife in the chest.
“I knew he spent years trying to find you, which is why I did everything in my power to keep him away, and when your memories were erased, it’s like I was given a second chance to do things my way.”
“You had no fucking right!” My hands shake as I gently guide my finger to the trigger and raise the gun to his head. “Do you know what they did to me!? What they did to B!?”
His face falls, his gaze on his hands, ashamed to look at me. “It was the price I had to pay.”
“How long have you known?” I direct my words to Malik, and he shakes his head, raising his hands.
“Isla, please,”
“How fucking long!?”
“I didn’t know about any of this! I found out who you were the night before I came to you at Benedict’s, and I’ve been trying to find the right moment to tell you.”
I swallow the razor blades in my throat, fighting the urge to pull the trigger as the lies tumble out in front of me, decorating my vision with images of my father’s dead body.
“You came for her, not for me,” I whisper, the betrayal smothering me with its thick leather gloves. “You wanted her and not me.”
“Isla, no,” he says, taking a step toward me.
“I should’ve died that night with her,” I whisper, the black tendrils of grief weaving their way through the floor and around my neck.
The door bursts open as my father stands, Emmett now in the room with a gun pointed at him. “What the fuck is going on? We have orders to take him out of here, let’s go!”
“Wait! Just fucking wait!” Malik yells at Emmett and inches closer to me.
I take a step back, aiming the gun at him.
“Isla, it’s not what it looks like. Please just put the gun down and let me explain,” he pleads.
Warm tears roll down my cheeks, my entire world thrown upside down in one evening.
I round the table slowly, moving toward the exit as they all stare at me, trying to decipher my next move.
White clouds flash across my vision, the pounding in my head starting to amplify the longer I agonise over the years I’ve lost.
“You used me to get to him, didn’t you? That was Ezra’s plan this whole time.”
Malik doesn’t answer, just stares at me with what can only be described as pain.
“Don’t follow me,” I say, taking a step back out the door.
Malik takes a step toward me, and I shift the gun to the side, pressing the trigger, making him flinch.
“Isla!”
I don’t wait for him to say anything else, because everything anyone says seems like a fucking lie.
The gun clatters to the floor as my thighs work to carry me out into the hallway, through the crowd downstairs and out into the night.
I don’t look back to see if anyone is following me, my breaths swallowing up every other sound around me.
I barely see the hatchback when I round the bend in the street.
The car door slams shut as I sit in the driver’s seat and lock it behind me.
A shadow emerges, the cloud of his hot breath disappearing in the sky as he stands a few feet in front of my car.
I start the engine and grip the wheel, ready to do whatever it takes.
It doesn’t change anything.
No amount of apologies could make it okay.
“Don’t do this,” Malik pleads, his voice barely audible. He takes a step toward the car, his face now illuminated by the streetlight above him. “I’ll do anything, Isla, please.”
I don’t listen. My foot is on the pedal, launching me back into the seat, and when he doesn’t move, I hesitate, taking my foot off.
His body thumps onto the bonnet as he curls his hands into fists.
My screams tear through my chest, my arms coiling to cover my face as his fists come down hard on the windshield.
“Stop the fucking car!” he yells, his fist slamming into the glass again, harder, the slight cracks forming larger ones.
My foot slams onto the brake, and the car skids to a stop, my chest heaving as I uncover myself, and our eyes meet through the shattered glass.
My breath hitches, caught entirely in my throat at the way he looks at me, the blood pouring out from his knuckles and onto the windshield.
His chest rises slowly, then again with a sharpness, controlled but strained like he’s holding something back.
He takes in a breath through his nose and exhales through his parted lips, his heavy pants scraping through the silence of the night like a threat.
I think my lungs forget what their job is. The gulp of air burns as I take it in quickly, like I’d been drowning, and now my breath matches his.
Ragged and uneven.
He doesn’t blink.
Not even once.
“You run knowing I will chase you, Isla, knowing that I have been chasing you for thirteen years.”