Chapter 25
Malachai
Indigo appeared in the doorway of the kitchen in one of my old shirts. She had slept in the guest room. Her hair was a tangled mess of platinum, and her eyes were exhausted. She looked like she hadn’t slept at all. Good. I wanted her mind as tired as mine.
I slid the plate across the marble island. She stared at it like it was a trap before digging in. Indigo may be mad, but she was a breakfast eater.
I watched her eat until the plate was almost empty before she paused.
“You want me bad enough to get people killed just to keep me,” she said. Her voice didn’t rise; it was just a cold, flat fact. “Bad enough to lie for weeks while I lived in fear. I get it. You’re sick like that.”
I leaned against the counter, half-listening, my mind on Cooly.
The name was a bitter taste in the back of my throat. I could still see that smug bastard smiling while he dismantled my leverage.
The Russians are dead. Malachai’s been lying to you.
I should have painted that rooftop with his brains the second he called her Midnight.
Caine’s “diplomacy” was the only reason Balogun was still breathing, and I already regretted the restraint.
It was his fault that now, every time she looked at me, I saw a new layer of distrust. It was worse than before, when she just thought I was unfeeling.
I regretted that party. I should have kept her in the dark until the outside world felt like a dream she couldn’t quite remember.
“I want it to be like before,” she said. “We move back to the old house. I get some of my freedom back. I go where I want, when I want—within reason. I’m not asking for an exit anymore. I’ve accepted I won’t get away from you.”
I should have felt something at her words—the resignation, the way she spoke about staying like it was a life sentence instead of an inevitability.
But I didn’t. As long as she was still saying she would stay, the rest was irrelevant.
She could hate me. She could resent me. She could build walls so fucking high I could barely see her anymore. None of it mattered.
She was still here.
And that was enough.
“Fine,” I said.
She continued like I hadn’t spoken. “And no, I didn’t fuck Cooly. I’m not answering a thousand questions about it. Believe me or don’t. I’m past caring.”
She wasn’t negotiating. She was telling me exactly what would keep the peace.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, my voice dropping into that low, mechanical vibration. “About Balogun. I believe you fucked him. Why else would he be in Florida right now?”
I waited. I braced myself for the explosion—the shattered plate, the scream, the predictable fire of her temper. I wanted it. I needed her to fight me so I could feel the friction of her soul again.
Indigo didn’t even stop chewing. She just swallowed, took a slow sip of her coffee, and looked at me with eyes that were as flat as mine.
“Okay,” she said.
That was it.
Something clicked in my head as I stared at her. The Indigo I knew was a creature of heat and motion. She was a storm that broke things. I realized then that I had been pushing her into a corner for weeks, trying to crush the rebellion out of her, but I hadn’t expected this.
Numbness was worse than hatred. This wasn’t useful.
I needed to recalibrate.
I cleared my throat. “I’ll have the cleaners go to the old house today,” I said. “Everything will be ready by tonight. I’ll get your car out of storage and buy you a new phone.”
She just nodded, staring at the empty plate.
“Do you want me to invite Maya for dinner?” I asked. “To… apologize for how her party ended?”
The words felt foreign, sticking in my throat. I had nothing to apologize for. I knew Maya was the reason he was there, even if she wouldn’t admit it. She should have been apologizing to me, but this was better than handing Indigo a knife again.
Indigo finally looked at me. She stared at me like I was glitching.
“You want to apologize?” she asked, her voice skeptical. “To Maya? You don’t apologize.”
“I’m trying something.”
“Trying what?”
“I don’t know yet.” I crossed my arms. “But what I’ve been doing isn’t working, so I’m trying something else.
” I paused, then added, “I’m not going to pretend I’ll give you full freedom.
That’s not who I am. But I can give you this much if it stops you from looking at me like you’re already gone.
I’ll adjust until I get the outcome I want. ”
She stared at me for a long moment. “You think a dinner with Maya makes up for lying and trapping and drugging me?” she asked.
“It’s not an even trade, Indigo. I’m not a fool. It’s a reset.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied my face. “Only you would tell me to my face that you’re trying to manipulate me. But fine. Invite her.”
She didn’t wait for me to respond. She walked out of the kitchen, her feet silent on the floor, leaving her empty plate between us.
I reached for my phone to call the cleaners. I’d give her the house. I’d give her the car. I’d even give her the apology. I’d give her anything, as long as it brought the fire back into her eyes.
Because this cold, compliant version of Indigo was something I hadn’t prepared for.