Chapter 8
Indigo
My head felt like it had been used for target practice. My thoughts were heavy, foggy, like trying to move through syrup.
I swallowed. My throat was raw.
The last thing I remembered was the sharp pinch of the syringe.
My eyes snapped open.
I was lying on a massive bed covered in cool silk sheets. The room was thick with the scent of sandalwood.
I tried to sit up.
“Don’t.” His voice came from the corner, low and calm.
I didn’t need light to know it was him. I could feel his gaze studying me, heavy as a blade against my skin.
“You drugged me.” My voice came out rough, still tight from where his fingers had been wrapped around my throat earlier.
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows, the room slowly stabilizing around me. “Why did you drug me, Malachai?”
My heart hammered against my ribs. I needed him to say it out loud—that this wasn’t him finally locking me away for good.
A long silence stretched between us. Then I heard the faint click of a lighter. The orange glow lit the sharp, hollowed-out planes of his face for a split second as he lit his cigar. The flame died, plunging the room back into shadow.
“I’m sorry, Indigo.”
I froze. He actually sounded sorry. In all the years I’d known him, “sorry” had always come out in the same flat tone he used for “thank you”—something he said because he thought he should, not because he meant it.
“I was negligent,” he continued, voice quiet. “I let Sasha think she was more than she was. I let her breathe the same air as you. I wasn’t watching the snake in the grass because I was too busy looking at the horizon. Because of that… the baby is gone.”
He paused.
“Sasha is gone too.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Suddenly I could hear the nurse’s voice again, clinical and cold: There’s no heartbeat.
“I killed her slowly,” he whispered. “Made her feel every second of it. But I know it doesn’t give you back what you lost. It doesn’t give us back what we lost.”
For a heartbeat, something in me cracked. I wanted to crawl across the silk and let him pull me into his chest. Let him hold what was left of me.
But he didn’t let the moment last.
“But let’s be clear about the rest, Little Bird.” He stood. The floorboards didn’t even creak under his weight. He moved toward the edge of the bed like a god of wrath wrapped in a bespoke suit, looming over me. “You shouldn’t have run.”
“I had to—”
“You should have stayed,” he cut me off, his voice dropping into something darker. My skin prickled. “You should have punished me. Talked to me. Let me make it right. Instead, you went to New York. You danced for strangers. You let other men look at what belongs to me.”
He leaned down until his face was inches from mine. I could smell the smoke on his breath.
“And now you’re back because you’re cornered. You didn’t come home because you wanted to, Indigo. Not because you forgive me. You came back because you need me to save you… and you want to hate me while I do it.”
His eyes burned into mine.
“You were free before you ran. You won’t be anymore.”
The words landed like chains.
“I will save you. But I’m clipping your wings.”
They hung in the dark like smoke.
I could have fought him. Should have screamed. I wanted to launch myself off the bed and sink my teeth into his throat.
Three years ago, I would have.
Three years ago, I had—and I’d left the knife in his chest.
But three years ago, there hadn’t been a million-dollar hit on my head.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Took a slow, deep breath.
He was watching me, waiting for the old Indigo to explode. Probably hoping for it. He’d always gotten a sick thrill from my tantrums.
I didn’t give it to him.
“Okay.”
The word came out flat. Tired.
Something flickered in his eyes—surprise? Suspicion? It was too dark to tell.
“Okay?” he repeated.
I tried to shrug, but my body still felt like it belonged to someone else. “You’re right. I’m cornered. I need you to save me.” I met his gaze without flinching. “So save me.”
He studied me for a long moment, trying to read the angle.
“I’m not going to fight you, Malachai. I don’t have the energy.” I let my head fall back against the pillow. “Do what you want. Clip my wings. Lock me in a tower. I don’t care. Just keep the Volkovs off my back. I won’t even say you owe me this.”
Silence.
I could feel him not believing a word of it. He shouldn’t. The second he wiped out the Russians, I was gone again.
I just needed to survive first. Figure out the rest later.
His hand reached out slowly, like he expected me to bite. His fingers brushed my jaw, tilting my face toward the thin sliver of moonlight coming through the window. His thumb traced my cheekbone with a gentleness that felt dangerous.
“You’re not fighting,” he murmured.
I didn’t answer.
He leaned down, lips hovering near my ear. “I don’t trust this.”
“You don’t have to trust me,” I whispered back. “I trust you to kill. So go kill.”
His eyes narrowed. He straightened and stood there for a long moment, staring down at me like he was memorizing every inch of my face.
Then he turned and walked out.
The door clicked shut behind him.
The lock turned.
I stared at the ceiling, heart still racing.
Clip my wings.
Fine.
Birds could still run, bitch.