Chapter 41
Malachai
I sat upright in the hospital bed with a plastic chest tube still draining fluid from my side and Indigo fast asleep beside me in the uncomfortable vinyl chair.
I’d been awake for three days. During the quiet hours of the night, she had told me everything that had gone down—with her father, with Cooly, and with her brother.
She had chosen to stay with me instead of returning to Miami with Zaire.
Part of me never expected Big Gao to be the one who finally came for me. But I had forgotten the first rule I learned a long time ago: scared men are the most dangerous. They do stupid things. Desperate things.
I flexed my fingers around hers. Big Gao was dead.
Zaire had finally grown a spine. But Cooly was still breathing.
That last part didn’t sit right with me.
The way he simply walked away after everything he’d said.
.. after wanting Indigo so badly. It was entirely too easy.
Men like him don’t just give up. They regroup.
They wait. They come back when you think the war is over.
I would always have to be on guard until he was in the ground, which meant he needed to be put there very soon.
I stared at the acoustic tiles of the ceiling, letting the heart monitors beep rhythmically around me. Indigo shifted slightly in her chair, a soft sigh escaping her lips.
A sharp, distinct knock sounded against the partially open door.
I reached automatically toward the suppressed Glock hidden beneath my heavy hospital blanket, my eyes tracking my guests as they stepped inside.
Raffaele Mercier. Tall, silver-haired, and wearing a tailored black suit that cost more than most men’s houses. He had eyes like cold, unyielding steel. Even half-drugged and stitched together with surgical thread, my spine straightened instinctively at his presence.
Indigo’s head snatched in his direction, then darted back to me, her eyes wide.
A second man stepped in directly behind him.
Sal "The Iceman" Gravano. Tall, expressionless, clad in a sharp gray suit and black leather gloves. I’d heard horrific stories about him since I was a child sitting beside my father during smoke-filled meetings I wasn’t supposed to hear.
Bodies found strangled with their own ties.
Politicians disappearing into thin air. He’d been killing people before I was even born, and somehow, he still looked civilized enough to teach a class at a university.
Indigo stirred awake slowly beside me. The exact second she recognized Raffaele, she sat upright in her chair. Sal closed the heavy hospital door quietly behind him and remained posted there, his gloved hands folded in front of him like an undertaker waiting for permission to bury a body.
“Mr. Mercier,” she said carefully, her voice tight.
Raffaele smiled, though the warmth didn't reach his eyes. “Indigo. It’s nice to see you despite the current circumstances.” Mr. Mercier could be very cordial when you hadn’t crossed his lines. His cold eyes shifted toward me, and the pleasantness instantly vanished. “Malachai.”
I nodded once, keeping my hand steady beneath the blanket.
Raffaele sighed heavily, adjusting his heavy gold signet ring. “I have met you both before,” he said finally. “At weddings. Parties. Birthdays.” His gaze lingered on Indigo for a beat. “I like you both. Good kids.”
I waited for the blow.
“However,” he continued calmly, “for six years, all you have brought this family is trouble. We had Russians rampaging through Florida because she killed one of them—and though he thoroughly deserved to die, it caused an immense amount of trouble. Then the Black Axe situation.” His eyes cut toward me sharply, pinning me to the pillows.
“Now her father is dead in my city, and half of Miami believes someone connected to us pulled the trigger.”
Nobody spoke. Because he wasn’t wrong.
“There have been whispers of war,” he said flatly.
“Emergency meetings. Negotiations. Favors called in internationally.” His jaw tightened slightly, a brutal muscle flexing in his cheek.
“I am seventy-one years old. I should be gardening at my villa in Italy, not flying across the Atlantic Ocean because two emotionally unstable people refuse to decide whether they love each other or want each other dead.”
He paused, smoothing the front of his jacket. “My sons—Caine and Raziel. My nephew, Kael.” He counted them slowly with one gloved hand. “They have used extraordinary family resources cleaning up the disasters surrounding your relationship.”
Indigo snorted softly before covering it with a wet, forced cough.
Raffaele pointed a finger at her immediately, his eyes narrowing. “See? That. You think this is funny because both of you are still breathing.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Raffaele,” Indigo said, leaning forward in her chair.
“I know who you are and the terrifying power you wield, but the last time I saw you, you were dressed like Santa Claus with your granddaughter blowing raspberries on your cheek. It’s hard to separate the grandpa from the gangster. ”
“Don’t be cute, Indigo. There are threats of wars being whispered in ports from Miami to Lagos.”
I glared at Indigo from the bed. She shook her head quickly and wiped the remaining remnants of the smile from her face.
He turned his focus back to me. “This cannot continue. I did not spend decades building an empire so that my heirs could spend their lives cleaning up the wreckage of a toxic marriage. You have become a liability, Malachai.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but he held up a single hand, cutting off the apology before it could form.
“So here is my advice before I am forced to intervene. Fix it. Or end it completely. Go your separate ways. Or, if you want to be together, then be together like adults. Not like two children playing with matches in a powder keg.”
Sal looked completely bored with us at this point, his eyes tracking the hallway outside.
I leaned back carefully against the pillows, the movement pulling the chest tube tight through my ribs. “I understand,” I said finally.
Raffaele studied my face for a long, quiet moment, as if he were deciding whether or not I actually comprehended the weight of his words.
Suddenly, the hospital door slammed open hard enough to rattle the drywall. Every single person in the room turned instantly.
Maya burst inside, breathing hard as if she had sprinted up the stairs. Her curls were wild, and an oversized hoodie was half-falling off one shoulder like she’d gotten dressed while running down the corridor.
“Maya, what the fuck are you doing here?” I grunted, my voice tight and strained from the sudden shock.
“Daddy Raf, please don’t kill my friend!” she gasped out, ignoring me entirely as she rushed toward Raffaele. “Caine said you were coming to the hospital. She won’t fuck up anymore, I promise!”
An absolute silence slammed into the room.
Indigo covered her mouth instantly with both hands, her shoulders shaking violently as she tried not to burst out laughing. Sal blinked once, his expressionless mask cracking slightly. Raffaele stared at Maya for a long, agonizing second before sighing so deeply he sounded spiritually exhausted.
“Nobody is killing anybody, Maya,” he muttered, rubbing his temples.
Maya looked relieved for exactly half a second before narrowing her eyes suspiciously at the old king. “Promise?”
Raffaele looked up at the fluorescent ceiling lights briefly, as if he regretted every single life choice that had led him to this specific hospital room.
“This,” he said slowly, pointing a finger at all of us, “is exactly why I retired.”
Then he turned on his heel and walked out, Sal following silently behind him like a shadow.