Chapter Ten
Jayla
Malachi’s underground passage smelled like dirt, old stone, and generations of rich people escaping the consequences of their decisions.
My mother crawled ahead of us. Dorian remained behind, covering the entrance while gunfire shook the walls.
Malachi held my hand.
I told myself I allowed it because the passage was dark.
That explanation became less convincing after we reached the light and I continued holding on.
The tunnel ended inside the basement of the neighboring brownstone. Two guards waited with weapons drawn.
Malachi released me first.
“This way.”
We moved through the back garden and entered an armored SUV waiting in the alley.
My mother climbed inside beside Dorian.
I sat opposite her.
Malachi took the space next to me without allowing our bodies to touch.
“You brought armed men to Grandma’s house,” I said.
Rochelle stared through the window.
“I didn’t know I was followed.”
“That appears to be a family trait. You never know anything until it hurts somebody else.”
“Jayla—”
“You hired Kenzie.”
“To keep you safe.”
“She became my friend because you paid her?”
“It may have started that way, but she cared about you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I saw her reports.”
The word reports turned my stomach.
“How often did she report on me?”
“Every week.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That you were struggling with the house. That you worked too much. That you went on bad dates and pretended they didn’t bother you.”
My private life had been reduced to updates between two women lying to me.
“Did she tell you what happened with Malik?”
My mother’s silence answered.
I turned toward the window.
Malachi’s hand tightened into a fist against his leg.
“Who is Malik?” he asked.
“Nobody.”
“He hurt you.”
“I said he’s nobody.”
Malachi didn’t push.
My mother leaned toward me.
“I wanted to call after I learned what happened.”
“You should have called before it happened. Maybe if I’d had a mother, I would’ve known what being protected felt like.”
Rochelle sat back.
For once, she had no excuse.
We returned to the estate before sunrise.
Asha took my mother into a separate room to record everything she knew. Dorian doubled security while Micah worked on combining the two keys.
I showered, changed, and sat on the floor beside Zo?’s bed.
She slept with one hand beneath her cheek, completely unaware that armed men had attacked her great-grandmother’s house.
Imani entered quietly.
“Your mother is downstairs.”
“You heard?”
“Simone told me.”
“I don’t know whether I want to hug her or throw her through a window.”
“Both feelings can exist.”
“She hired Kenzie.”
Imani sat beside me.
“Damn.”
“My entire friendship was arranged.”
“That doesn’t mean every part was fake.”
“It doesn’t mean any part was real.”
Imani rested her head against mine.
“What happens now?”
“We find the memory box.”
“And after that?”
I didn’t know.
My studio needed rebuilding. My accounts remained frozen, and the public believed I was engaged to a man whose family had buried mine beneath secrets.
I wanted my old life back.
The problem was that I no longer knew if it had ever been real.
A soft knock came against the open door.
Malachi stood in the hallway.
He had changed his bloody shirt, but exhaustion shadowed his eyes.
“Micah found something.”
I followed him downstairs.
The second key fit against the first so perfectly that the seam disappeared. Together, they formed a small black cross marked with a gold constellation.
Micah inserted them into a portable reader.
“Two encryption layers opened,” he explained. “The final one requires a phrase.”
“What phrase?”
“We don’t know.”
He projected the sneaker design onto the wall.
The incomplete message remained visible:
EVELYN KEPT THE—
“The last symbols were supposed to complete it,” Malachi said.
“But the shoes burned before I painted them.”
“You still have the original instructions.”
“No. Kenzie sent the symbols in a disappearing message.”
Micah leaned back.
“Then Kenzie is the only person who knows the rest.”
My mother entered with Asha.
“She doesn’t.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Evelyn never gave Kenzie the phrase,” Rochelle said. “She left it somewhere Jayla would understand.”
I removed Grandma’s photograph from my pocket.
Remember where you first learned to make broken things beautiful.
“The community art center,” I said.
Malachi looked at Dorian.
“Prepare the vehicles.”
“No army this time,” I said. “You attract attention.”
“We were attacked twice in twenty-four hours.”
“Three vehicles.”
“Five.”
“Four.”
“Fine.”
The Art Garden occupied the ground floor of an old school building in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Grandma enrolled me there after I drew flowers across our hallway wall in permanent marker.
Instead of punishing me, she bought me better paint.
The center had closed two years earlier, but the director allowed us inside after I explained I wanted to retrieve something Grandma left behind.
I didn’t mention encrypted criminal archives.
The mural from my childhood still covered the back classroom.
Children had painted a night sky filled with uneven stars and crooked planets. My section occupied the lower corner—a Black girl wearing a crown while standing beneath a silver moon.
Malachi stopped beside it.
“You painted this?”
“I was eight.”
“You signed it.”
I had written Jayla B. makes broken things pretty in purple paint.
Grandma’s photograph used almost the same words.
I touched the wooden crown attached to the mural.
It moved.
Behind it was a recessed space containing the memory box.
My knees weakened.
Malachi reached toward me, stopping before making contact.
“Can I?”
I nodded.
He steadied my arm while I removed the box.
The two keys opened the lock.
Inside were photographs, letters, medical records, and a silver necklace bearing the reversed Devereaux crest.
There was also a video cassette labeled:
For Jayla and Malachi. Together.
“How did she know you would find me?” I asked.
“She may not have.”
“My name is beside yours.”
Malachi stared at the label.
A television with a cassette player remained in the director’s office. Micah connected it while the rest of us gathered around.
Grandma Evelyn appeared on-screen.
She sat in her favorite chair wearing her blue church hat.
“Hello, my babies,” she began. “If you are watching this together, then I failed to keep the past buried.”
My eyes filled immediately.
Malachi stood beside me, completely still.
“Sebastian Devereaux came to me because his brother Victor was hurting people,” Grandma continued. “He believed exposing the truth would protect his children. I believed him because I wanted to believe powerful men could choose what was right over what was easy.”
She removed her glasses.
“I was wrong.”
Malachi looked down.
“Sebastian used my access to copy Victor’s records. When Victor discovered the breach, Sebastian allowed him to believe I acted alone. He protected his children by placing mine in danger.”
My mother began crying behind us.
“I hated him for that,” Grandma said. “But before his death, Sebastian returned. He apologized and gave me evidence that could destroy Victor’s entire network. He asked me to protect Malachi if anything happened to him.”
Malachi’s breathing changed.
The noise in the room, the people, and Grandma’s accusation seemed to close around him.
His fingers began tapping against his thigh.
I remembered what Simone said about his routines and sensory issues.
I moved closer without touching.
“Do you want me here?” I whispered.
His eyes found mine.
“Yes.”
I placed my hand beside his on the table.
He covered it with his own.
Grandma continued.
“The archive contains names, payments, and proof of murder. But understand this: evidence is power, and power reveals the worst in people. Rochelle knows where the original documents were moved. Kenzie knows how to reach the broker. And Jayla—my sweet girl—you carry the final password.”
I leaned toward the screen.
“The first thing you ever painted for me,” Grandma said. “The thing you promised would keep us safe.”
The video ended.
I remembered.
When I was six, I painted Grandma a bright-red door surrounded by stars. I told her monsters couldn’t enter if the stars knew our names.
Beneath it, I had written:
EVELYN AND JAYLA ARE SAFE HERE.
Micah entered the phrase.
The archive opened.
Thousands of files appeared.
Photographs. Bank records. Police reports. Shipping documents.
Then a live video window filled the screen.
Kenzie sat inside the maritime terminal.
This time, the ropes around her wrists were tight.
A masked figure stepped behind her.
“Hello, Jayla,” a distorted voice said. “You finally opened Evelyn’s grave.”
The figure placed a gun against Kenzie’s head.
“If you want your friend alive, bring both keys to Saint Lucia.”
Kenzie began crying.
“Don’t do it, Jay! He’ll kill you!”
The masked figure struck her.
I moved toward the screen.
Malachi caught my hand before I could touch it.
The figure leaned toward the camera.
“Come alone, Jayla. If Crown follows you, Kenzie dies.”
The screen went black.
Nobody spoke.
I looked at Malachi.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“And I wasn’t negotiating.”
“Kenzie is there because of me.”
“She is there because she betrayed you.”
“That doesn’t mean I let her die.”
“Bishop expects you to think that way.”
“He expects me to be human.”
“He expects you to be easy to control.”
I pulled my hand from his.
“You don’t get to stop me.”
“You’re right.”
His answer surprised me.
Malachi stepped closer, leaving enough space between us to breathe.
“I won’t stop you from going,” he said. “But you will not go alone.”
“He’ll kill her if he sees you.”
“Then he won’t see me.”
A dangerous calm settled over his face.
Crown had disappeared.
The man standing before me was the one powerful families whispered about.
“We’re going to Saint Lucia,” Malachi said. “You’re going to make the exchange.”
“And what will you do?”
His gaze shifted toward the black screen.
“I’m going to teach Bishop the difference between threatening my fiancée and surviving it.”