Chapter Thirteen
Jayla
Kenzie confessed from a hospital bed overlooking the Caribbean Sea.
The bullet had passed cleanly through her arm. Malachi’s private doctor assured us she would recover.
Our friendship wouldn’t.
I sat beside her while two guards waited outside.
“You have ten minutes,” I said.
Kenzie’s eyes filled.
“Jay—”
“Don’t call me that like nothing happened.”
She looked down at the bandage.
“Your mother hired me eighteen months ago.”
“I know.”
“She wanted me to watch you. Make sure nobody connected you to Evelyn.”
“You accepted money to become my friend.”
“At first.”
Every happy memory shifted beneath me.
Drinks after work. Late-night calls. The first anniversary of Grandma’s death, when Kenzie climbed into bed beside me because I couldn’t stop crying.
“How much?”
“Two thousand a month.”
My stomach turned.
“Was anything real?”
“Yes.”
“Which part?”
“All of it after I got to know you.”
“You filed weekly reports.”
“I stopped giving Rochelle details.”
“You told her about my dates.”
“She wanted to know whether anybody suspicious approached you.”
“You told her about Malik.”
Kenzie cried harder.
“I shouldn’t have.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.”
“I cared about you.”
“You used the worst thing that ever happened to me as material for a report.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“That excuse seems popular in my family.”
She wiped her face.
“Rochelle told me to commission the sneakers when Evelyn’s archive became active. I was supposed to deliver the keys to Berkeley James.”
“But you contacted Bishop.”
Kenzie looked away.
“Darius contacted me.”
“There is no Darius.”
“I didn’t know that. He made me believe he loved me. He sent money, took me places, and promised we could disappear together.”
“So you sold him the archive?”
“I agreed to deliver it.”
“With me carrying it.”
“He said nobody would hurt you.”
“And you believed the faceless man paying you to steal murder evidence?”
“I wanted the money.”
There it was.
Not protection. Not love.
Greed.
“I staged the first photograph,” she admitted. “I thought if you believed I had been kidnapped, you would bring the keys.”
“Then he actually took you.”
“When I refused to tell him the password.”
I stood.
Kenzie reached toward me.
“Please don’t leave.”
“I came to hear the truth. I heard it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
Hope entered her face.
“Being sorry doesn’t mean I forgive you.”
It disappeared.
“I loved you like a sister,” I said. “You knew how badly I wanted a friendship that belonged to me. You used that.”
“My feelings became real.”
“Maybe. But your choices were real too.”
“What happens to me now?”
“Asha will arrange protective custody. You’ll tell investigators everything.”
“And Crown?”
“He agreed not to hurt you.”
“He agreed?”
“I asked him.”
Kenzie stared at me as if I had performed a miracle.
Perhaps I had.
Malachi didn’t strike me as a man who spared betrayal easily.
“I hope you meant some of it,” I said.
Then I left.
Malachi stood alone on the villa balcony.
The ocean spread beneath him, black and endless. Every chair had been arranged evenly around the table, but he continued adjusting one by less than an inch.
I leaned against the doorway.
“Kenzie confessed.”
He moved the chair again.
“How do you feel?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s acceptable.”
“You sound like a therapist.”
“I’ve had several.”
I crossed the balcony but didn’t approach too closely.
“What was your mother’s name?”
His hand stopped.
“Nia.”
“What was she like?”
“Organized. Patient. Too interested in everybody’s business.”
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe she’s Bishop?”
“No.”
“You answered quickly.”
“I know what my mother was.”
“That’s what I said about Grandma.”
He looked at me.
I didn’t intend the reminder to hurt him.
Perhaps it needed to.
“Nia would never threaten children,” he said.
“People change.”
“Not that much.”
“Then somebody is using her identity.”
“Or forcing her.”
He aligned a glass with the edge of the table.
I watched his fingers.
“May I touch you?”
His eyes lifted.
“Yes.”
I took his hand before he could adjust the glass again.
His body went rigid, then slowly relaxed.
“You don’t have to solve everything tonight.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because people get hurt when I stop paying attention.”
“You were a child when your parents disappeared.”
“I was old enough.”
“To do what? Raise three children, build an empire, solve a murder, and rescue your mother?”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t a reasonable answer.”
“It’s mine.”
I stepped closer.
“We found Kenzie because of you.”
“Because of us.”
The correction warmed me.
“Thank you for choosing me instead of chasing Peter.”
“There was no choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
He searched my face.
“You were frightened,” he said.
“I was being shot at. It seemed appropriate.”
“You still protected Kenzie.”
“I’m beginning to think my heart has a manufacturing defect.”
“No.”
His thumb moved once across my hand.
“You care after people prove they don’t deserve it.”
“That sounds defective.”
“It sounds rare.”
The space between us changed.
Malachi looked at my mouth.
My breath caught.
He noticed.
Of course he did.
“May I kiss you?” he asked.
Every bad memory tried to answer first.
Locked doors. Unwanted hands. Men who treated no like an invitation to negotiate.
But Malachi had asked.
And he was waiting.
“No,” I whispered.
He stepped back immediately.
No anger. No wounded pride.
“All right.”
Relief arrived so quickly that tears burned my eyes.
“You’re not upset?”
“I asked a question. You answered it.”
“That’s it?”
“What else should happen?”
Nothing.
That was exactly what should happen.
I squeezed his hand before releasing it.
“Thank you.”
“For accepting no?”
“Yes.”
“That shouldn’t require gratitude.”
“No,” I said. “But sometimes it does.”
His phone rang before either of us could speak again.
Micah appeared on the video screen.
“I decrypted the hidden partition.”
Malachi placed the phone on the table.
“What did you find?”
“Rochelle took the original keys, but I copied the archive before she left. The hidden files include security footage from Devereaux Maritime.”
“How recent?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Micah sent us an image.
A woman entered a private terminal wearing a dark coat. She was older than the woman from Malachi’s family photographs, but the resemblance was unmistakable.
She had his eyes.
The original Devereaux crest rested against her throat.
Malachi gripped the table.
“Nia,” he whispered.
His mother was alive.
Another woman walked beside her, but the camera showed only part of her face.
Kenzie entered the balcony with a nurse supporting her.
She saw the image and stopped.
“That’s her.”
“Who?” I asked.
“The woman beside Crown’s mother.”
Kenzie’s fear returned.
“She recruited Darius. She gave Peter his instructions.”
Malachi enlarged the image.
The woman turned enough for a scar along her jaw to become visible.
A message appeared across the archive.
COME HOME, SON. brING EVELYN’S HEIR.
Malachi stepped in front of me as if the message itself posed a physical threat.
Micah spoke through the phone.
“There’s another problem. Julian called an emergency board meeting. He’s petitioning to have Crown removed from Devereaux Holdings because of the shootings and kidnapping allegations.”
“When?” Malachi asked.
“Seventy-two hours.”
Kenzie stared at the woman on-screen.
“You don’t understand. Julian isn’t in charge.”
“Then who is she?” I asked.
Kenzie swallowed.
“Her name is Lenora Devereaux.”
Malachi became completely still.
“My father’s sister died when I was five.”
Kenzie shook her head.
“No. She disappeared.”
The woman beside Nia faced the camera as if she knew we were watching.
“The family calls her Bishop,” Kenzie whispered.
Malachi’s dead aunt had returned with his missing mother.
My mother had stolen the only keys capable of exposing them.
And in seventy-two hours, Julian planned to take Malachi’s empire.
The engagement may have been fake.
The war surrounding us was becoming very real.