Chapter 26
Malachai
The living room of the old house smelled like a mixture of dust and expensive cleaners.
By ten o’clock the night she told me she wanted to move back, we were back, and Maya had eaten dinner and gotten my apology. Now, the bottle of tequila she had brought was half-empty. Indigo was curled into the corner of the new oversized velvet sectional, her head lolling against the cushion.
Maya, however, was wide awake. I didn’t know if I liked her or disliked her. She was honest in a way I didn’t find useful. So was Indigo, but in a different way.
Maya had a history of losing control of herself.
Drugs. Bad decisions. Instability. She’d already proven she could be reduced to something lesser.
But I could also respect someone who'd crawled out of the gutter and stayed out.
That took a kind of discipline I understood.
She was also loyal to Indigo in a way that didn't require calculation.
That was rare in our circle. That was worth tolerating the mess.
She shifted, leaning forward now with her elbows on her knees, her eyes bright with liquid courage as she stared at me. I sat in my usual wingback chair, sipping a club soda, watching them both.
“You know,” Maya started, pointing a finger. “You ever thought about just… not lying to her? Like, as a lifestyle choice?”
I tilted my head, my expression as flat as a sheet of glass. “No. I use any means necessary to keep what is mine.”
Maya let out a loud laugh that made Indigo stir in her sleep. “Jesus, you sound like a damn robot all the time. You’re like a mixture of Raziel and Priest. You’re basically their son.”
“I am nothing like them.” It wasn't an insult, just a fact.
“Please,” Maya scoffed. “You’re all cut from the same twisted cloth. You think you can control the world by squeezing it. You ever think she might actually want to stay if you stopped playing God with her life?”
“She already is staying,” I said.
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is,” I replied. “The outcome is identical.”
Maya stared at me for a long beat, looking as if she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or throw her glass at my head.
“And you?” I asked, my voice dropping into that low, dangerous hum.
“Didn’t you manipulate Raziel for months?
You played the damsel, you used the doctor to make him jealous, you cried, you were his side piece until you had him exactly where you wanted him.
Don't talk to me about ethics, Maya. You know how to pull strings just as well as I do.”
“I did it for love and survival,” she snapped back. “Can you even love?”
“Explain that to me. Love. What is it, exactly? Beyond a chemical imbalance designed to ensure the survival of the species.”
“It’s a feeling, Malachai. It’s when someone’s soul matters more than your own. It’s... it’s wanting them to be happy even if it doesn't involve you.”
“Sentiment,” I refuted. “If someone matters to me, their happiness is my responsibility to manage. How does love work on my part if I let her go? If I can see her with someone else, how is that love? You say you love Raziel. Let’s test the weight of that. Would you kill for him?”
Maya didn’t blink. “In a heartbeat.”
“Would you do anything to keep him? Lie? Manipulate? Burn down the world he lives in just to ensure he’s standing in the center of the ashes with you?”
“Yes,” she whispered, her voice fierce.
“Then we aren't so different, Maya. You wrap your love in poetry because you want to feel like a protagonist. I skip the metaphors. But we both reach for the same weapons. If you’d do anything to keep him, then you understand that love isn't about letting go. It’s about the strength of the grip.”
Maya just laughed. “There are more differences between us. I want Raziel to stay. You just want Indigo to be unable to leave. You don’t want a wife, Malachai. You want a monument. Something beautiful and stationary that you can look at.”
I shook my head. “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t mind her being free; I like watching her dance too much to want her stationary. I want her to have everything she desires in life, provided I am the one handing it to her... I want her world to be me.”
“That’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard,” she whispered. “You basically just said you’re trying to be her oxygen.”
I said nothing. She was right.
She looked over at Indigo’s sleeping form and her face softened.
“Since you're feeling talkative, explain Sasha to me,” she said. “And don’t give me that bullshit about owing her father a favor. Favors don’t make a man like you ignore what she was doing. You saw her. You knew she was a snake. Why did you let her stay close enough to bite?”
I went still.
“Sasha was a constant, useful and familiar,” I said. “She was part of my life before Indigo. I thought she could be integrated in. I didn't disregard what she was doing. I simply believed she had the common sense to know not to cross the line I drew for her. Some sense of self-preservation.”
Maya shook her head, looking at me with a mix of pity and disgust. “You were so busy trying to own her that you forgot to actually protect her. Your ass deserved to be stabbed.”
I didn't respond. I just watched the rise and fall of Indigo’s chest.
“She’s going to leave you again,” Maya whispered. “Maybe not tonight. Maybe not next week. But as long as you treat her like a bird in a glass box, she’s going to keep looking for a way to break the glass.”
“Then I’ll buy stronger glass,” I said, standing. “Goodnight, Maya. I’d appreciate it if you don’t speak to Indigo about this. I’ll have my driver take you home.”
Maya blinked. I could tell she was caught off guard by the sudden dismissal. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say more, but I was already turning toward the hallway.
I scooped Indigo from the sofa into my arms. “My driver will take you home,” I repeated without looking back.