Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
INDIGO
The drive to the warehouse feels endless, the night stretching out in front of us like an open wound. The roads are empty, bathed in the sickly glow of flickering streetlights. I don’t say much. Malik doesn’t either.
We’re in Malik’s truck, the cab thick with silence, but I feel his presence like a weight pressing into me. I watch him out of the corner of my eye. His jaw is tight, fingers gripping the wheel a little too hard. His knuckles are white, and his posture is stiff. He’s here. He’s still here. I don’t know why, but part of me wonders if he’s just waiting for the right moment to run. To leave.
The warehouse on 5th looms ahead, a forgotten skeleton of rust and broken windows. It looks exactly like the kind of place you’d expect something like this to go down—secluded, dimly lit, and reeking of something old and rotting.
Malik parks the truck, then gets out first. I pull my jacket tighter around me before stepping out, feeling Malik’s gaze on me like a hot brand against my skin. He doesn’t move right away. Just stands next to the truck, hands jammed deep in his pockets. I can feel him watching me, his eyes searching, trying to make sense of everything. Trying to understand what the hell he’s gotten himself into.
I feel the weight of that look. But I don’t have the words for him. Not now.
“You don’t have to be here,” I say, the words coming out softer than I expect, almost... too soft. It catches me off guard.
Malik exhales, sharp, and I see the way his chest rises and falls. He’s struggling with this, I can tell. “I do. If I leave now, I won’t ever understand you. And I need to understand, Indigo.”
His voice is tight, but there’s something raw underneath it. Something I can’t quite place. I nod, stiff, my throat tight. But I don’t say anything more. What else could I say?
The door to the warehouse groans when I push it open. The smell hits me immediately—bleach and ammonia, sharp and chemical, thick in the air. It’s not the first time I’ve walked into a place like this, and it won’t be the last. But the familiarity doesn’t make it any easier. I glance at my phone. 10 PM, exactly.
The figure standing there, half-hidden in the shadows, makes my blood run cold. I know that shape, that stance, the way the light catches the edges of his silhouette.
And my mind slams into overdrive.
No. No, not him.
Malik tenses beside me. I can feel it. His muscles coil like steel, his energy shifting.
The man smirks, tilting his head. “Well, well. You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Little Snake.”
The nickname Little Snake hits me harder than I expect. I never really batted an eye when he started calling me that, just thinking it was because he could tell my victims were drugged when he cleaned up. Rookie move. But now, it makes so much more sense. He’s watched me drug them, watched as I followed them from the bar, and knew exactly what I was doing. I had no idea.
Emil. The bouncer. The one who’s been there, lurking in the background all this time. The one who knew, always knew. He was the cleaner.
He’s been cleaning up after me all these years.
I force the word out. “Emil.”
His grin widens, like a snake tasting the air. “It’s about time we know each other’s secrets.”
I want to scream. I want to claw his face off. But my body doesn’t move. I can’t make it move. My mind’s too busy trying to catch up, to make sense of the fact that the man standing in front of me—the one who’s worked beside me for so many nights, the one who’s flirted with me over whiskey—has been hiding in plain sight, cleaning up messes. My messes.
How the hell did I not see this?
“How did I not recognize your voice?” I manage, my throat dry, the words thick in my mouth.
He chuckles, low and dark, and steps closer. The smell of him—a little too much cologne, a little too much sweat—fills my nostrils. “I use a voice changer for work calls. It’s a precaution. Guess I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets, huh?”
I can feel Malik’s gaze burning through the side of my face, but I can’t look at him. Not now. Not when everything I thought I knew about this world is collapsing around me.
“You set this up,” I say, my voice sharp, cutting through the tension between us like a knife. “All those nights at the bar—you knew who I was. You’ve been playing me.”
Emil raises a brow, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I had to be sure about you before I made my offer. And what better way than seeing you in action?”
I take a step forward, closing the distance between us, but I’m not sure what I’m even trying to do. My head is spinning. “You’ve been cleaning up after me for years,” I say, but even the words feel hollow.
Emil’s eyes flicker with something—recognition, maybe. Or amusement. “And now I know exactly who you are and what you do.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut, but I force myself to hold his gaze. I won’t let him see me falter. I won’t.
There’s a pause, a long beat, and then he steps closer, his voice dropping to something low and dangerous. “My real name’s Jake.”
Jake. Of course. It makes sense now. Emil was just a mask. Jake is who he really is. He’s the one who’s been cleaning up my messes, the one who’s been in the shadows, watching, doing the things I didn’t want to. The one I trusted.
I don’t know how to breathe.
“You should’ve told me the truth,” I snap, my voice breaking the air between us.
Jake laughs darkly. “You think I want this? I didn’t ask for this job, Indigo. But when you’re good at something, people take notice. And when you get careless, it’s my ass on the line.” His eyes narrow, and his lips curl into something almost predatory. “You’ve been getting sloppy.”
The sting of his words hits harder than I expect. Sloppy? Me? I’m never sloppy.
But what if he’s right?
“What are you even doing here?” I demand, my voice rising. “Is this your little setup, too? Did you bring me here to show me how deep I’m in?”
Jake’s smile widens, a glint of victory in his eyes. “My man’s here. He’s ready to offer you a way out. A way to keep doing what you do, but smarter. Cleaner. And with a paycheck.”
I should refuse. I should turn around and walk away, get out of here, and pretend this conversation never happened. But something about his words, the promise of a cleaner life, tempts me. And when I glance at Malik beside me, his silence heavy and unreadable, I know he’s waiting for me to make a choice.
“Fine,” I say, my voice icy. “I’ll listen.”
Jake’s grin is smug, like he knows he’s already won. “Good. Let’s go have a chat. Is your…. What is this exactly? You’ve never been one to have a long-term lover.”
"This is my boyfriend," I say, my voice rougher than before, pushing past the hesitation. "He knows everything. And he's in."
Jake's eyebrow raises, amused. He sizes Malik up, his gaze lingering on him before he tilts his head, the amusement flickering out of his eyes. "And if you break up, or if he can't handle this? You've exposed us all."
Malik doesn’t hesitate, stepping closer to me with quiet resolve. "I won’t say a word," he replies, his voice low but firm. "I’m in love with her. As fucked up as this all is, I can’t walk away."
I should feel something other than the sharp, cold spike of disbelief in my chest. I should feel… something. Fear, maybe. Or panic. Instead, there's this strange swelling in my gut, like I’ve just been wound too tight for too long, and now he’s broken the tension. He said it—he loves me. Malik. The man who walked into my world without asking, without hesitation. The man who, against all logic, says he can’t walk away from the wreckage we’ve made of each other.
As if that’s not enough to send my mind spiraling, my pulse quickens at the realization. He's still here. He just confessed that, in the middle of all this madness, he loves me. And he’s not even backing down. His words hang in the air between us, and I can feel the weight of them, pressing on me in ways I can't quite process.
A dark laugh escapes Jake's lips, his eyes locking onto Malik with a certain coldness. "A real fucking modern-day love story," he mutters, shaking his head. "If you hurt her, I’ll kill you myself."
It takes a moment for the weight of those words to land. My stomach twists, but I don’t flinch. I don’t show anything. I can’t.
But the elastic snap of Malik’s declaration—of love—keeps bouncing around in my head, making it harder to breathe. How is this my life? How is this my fucking love story?