Chapter 18
Malachai
Her spine was pressed to my chest, my arm draped over her waist, holding her exactly where she belonged. Even in the warm water, I could feel her thinking again—the slight hitch in her breathing, the way her body tensed against mine.
I waited.
“Would you have let me go?” she asked quietly. “If I never came back… if I stayed gone forever… would you have eventually let me go?”
The question was pointless. She already knew the answer.
This was the part of Indigo I could live without—she needed feelings. She needed soft words and long explanations. She needed me to be human and say something gentle like, “No, I love you enough to let you go.”
I didn’t have that in me.
I tried for a second to understand the logic other people lived by. Why did they think releasing something proved love? If you truly valued something—a weapon, a car, a woman—you kept it close. You protected it. You made sure no one else could ever touch it. Letting go wasn’t love. It was weakness.
“No.”
I dragged my thumb slowly across her bottom lip.
“No. I would’ve kept looking for you,” I said, voice even. “I would’ve dragged you back by your throat if I had to. And I would’ve killed anyone who helped you disappear.”
My hand slid to the back of her neck, holding her there—not tight, just enough to remind her I could.
“You don’t get to leave me again, Indigo. Not permanently. Not temporarily.”
The water shifted as she tried to pull away. I tightened my grip.
“You can run. You can fight. You can hate me,” I continued. “But you will always be mine. Even if I have to keep you locked away to make sure of it. I know you have your issues with me, but I love you the only way I know how—completely. Violently. Without exit.”
She swallowed against my palm.
“When I woke up in that hospital, I didn’t feel the hole in my chest where you’d buried that knife. I felt the void where you were supposed to be. I was so goddamn angry that the world kept turning while you were gone.”
“Malachai, let me go.”
“Shh. Let me finish.” I brushed my lips against her neck.
“I read a story once about a man who trapped a bird in a cage so small it couldn’t even spread its wings.
When the bird stopped singing and tried to peck its own heart out, the man didn’t open the door.
He reached in, squeezed until its bones snapped, and kept the body in a glass box on his desk.
He’d rather have a dead thing that belonged to him than a living thing that belonged to the wind. ”
My fingers flexed lightly around her throat.
“That’s your choice. You stay here with me—breathing, dancing, living—or I put you in the ground so no one else can ever have you.
I’m not spending another three years chasing you.
If you try to slip away again, I won’t reach for your wrist. I’ll reach for your heart.
I’d rather mourn you than wonder who’s looking at you.
I’d rather bury you in the backyard than let you be another man’s fantasy while I rot alone. ”
I felt her swallow hard.
“Do you understand? There is no ‘away’ for you. There is only me… or there is nothing.”
I pressed a kiss to her temple.
“Jesus Christ, Malachai,” she whispered. “That’s your version of ‘I missed you’? The threats are necessary? You make my life in New York sound worse than it ever was.”
“Get dressed.”
“What?”
“Get dressed, Indigo.”
“It’s late. Where are we going?”
I stood, water sliding off my body as I stepped out of the tub. The conversation was over.
“We’re going to your studio.”