Epilogue
Indigo
I laughed in the moment, but we took Mr. Raffaele’s threats seriously.
For months after that hospital room warning, Malachai and I actually worked on our relationship.
We let go of the old animosity, the sharp edges of resentment, and the constant push-pull that had nearly destroyed us both.
We had hard conversations at two in the morning, ugly crying in the kitchen—well, me crying and him just staring—and long stretches of silence where we learned how to just exist together without trying to control or escape one another.
It was uncomfortable.
Painfully uncomfortable.
Healing sounded soft when people talked about it online, like lighting candles and journaling feelings and shit. In reality, it was looking at somebody who hurt you deeply and deciding not to weaponize that pain anymore.
We also had to admit something ugly.
We hadn’t just been destroying each other.
We had dragged everybody else into our relationship too.
Maya. Raziel. Kael. Caine. Diamond. Zaire. Even Cooly.
Everybody had been forced to pick sides, clean up messes, hide bodies, talk us down, or survive the fallout every time me and Malachai had a problem.
Some days we did good.
Some days we argued over stupid shit and ended up on opposite sides of the house for hours.
Some days he looked at me too long when my phone buzzed and I felt myself getting defensive automatically.
Some nights I woke up from nightmares about Sasha, the baby, New York, blood, all of it, and he’d just pull me against his chest without saying a word.
We stopped trying to become normal people.
That helped the most.
We weren’t normal.
We were two violent, emotionally damaged people.
And somehow… it worked.
Now I was standing on the beach. The sand was warm beneath my bare feet. The Caribbean stretched out in front of me, impossibly blue, impossibly calm, like the whole ocean was holding its breath just for our day.
I never thought I’d go back to Jamaica. I hadn’t been here since I was a child. Zaire had finally told me the truth about this place. My momma had run away from Gao when I was little and taken me with her, hiding out on the coast. This estate had belonged to her parents before they died.
The house my momma left me sat on the rugged cliffs behind me.
Some estate lawyers had called me out of the blue three weeks ago to tell me my momma had left it to me in her will.
Zaire didn’t even fight it. He signed the legal papers giving me outright ownership of the property without a single word of protest.
Once a week, he called my phone. They were short calls. Him asking if I was okay. Maybe one day he’d feel like my brother for real again, like when we were little.
I rested my hand over my stomach. My baby bump was impossible to ignore now. I was twenty-eight weeks.
We found out three weeks ago that it’s a girl.
Malachai had stared at the ultrasound screen for so long the technician actually got nervous.
His facial expression hadn’t changed a fraction from hard, but he had squeezed my hand hard enough that I thought he’d break the bone.
He didn’t say a word the whole drive home, but he hadn’t let go of my hand either.
I turned around.
Malachai stood a few feet behind me, barefoot in loose black linen pants and a crisp white button-down, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. We were minutes away from standing in front of a Jamaican justice of the peace and starting our life all over again.
“Malachai.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of doing this again,” I whispered, the wind catching the hem of my dress. “Of messing it up. Of waking up one day and realizing I hate you all over again.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
He stepped closer, closing the distance between us until his shadow completely covered mine. His hand slid to the back of my neck, his warm fingers pressing firmly against my pulse.
“Because I’m not the same man I was,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, even vibration. “And you’re not the same woman.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “What does that even mean?”
“It means that if I don’t think you’ll like the outcome, I won’t do it,” he said, looking down at me. “I’ve reformed.”
“Maya says sociopaths don’t reform.”
“Maya talks too fucking much.”
Before I could fire back a response, my phone buzzed.
I pulled it out. The screen lit up with a name I hadn’t seen in months.
Cooly.
We had kept in touch despite the chaos. I still talked to Diamond too.
When I really sat down and thought about it, neither one of them had truly betrayed me in New York.
They just hadn’t been completely truthful.
And even now, after everything we’d been through, some small, stubborn part of me couldn’t let them go completely.
Malachai’s eyes dropped to the glowing screen. His jaw flexed once before he forced his features back to calm.
“Go ahead and answer it,” he said quietly.
This was the new, slightly less possessive Malachai Kael had beaten into his head.
I looked up into his gray eyes. “It’s not important.”
“Answer it, Indigo. You want to.”
I hesitated, then swiped the green bar and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Hey.”
“Midnight.”
Cooly’s deep, gritty New York accent rolled through the line, sending a strange wave of nostalgia through my chest.
“Congratulations,” he said softly. “I heard you’re doing it again.”
“How did you—”
“Diamond.” He paused, a low chuckle vibrating through the receiver. “Don’t worry. I’m not there in Jamaica. I’m not coming to disrupt your day. I just… wanted to hear your voice. You sound happy.”
“Thank you,” I murmured, looking out at the turquoise water.
“For not coming?” he laughed.
“That too.”
The line went quiet for a beat.
“Hand Malachai the phone.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You heard me, Midnight. Put the Hand of God on the line.”
I let out a heavy sigh and held the phone out toward Malachai’s chest.
“He wants to talk to you.”
Malachai stared at the screen for a long second before taking it.
“What?” Malachai said flatly.
I stepped back, crossing my arms over my chest as he walked a few feet away into the sand, talking quietly. I couldn’t hear a single syllable of Cooly’s voice, only the cold, clipped finality of Malachai’s responses.
“No,” Malachai said.
A long pause stretched between them. Malachai’s jaw flexed once.
“I know.”
Another heavy pause. Malachai slowly turned his head, his gray eyes locking onto me.
Then—
“…I said I know.”
He listened for a few more seconds to whatever threat or promise Cooly was delivering from across the ocean.
“Goodbye, Cooly.”
Malachai lowered the phone, ended the call, and handed the device back to me.
“What did he say?” I asked immediately, demanding the truth.
“Nothing important.”
“Malachai.”
He looked down at me, his fingers reaching out to trace the line of my jaw with a gentleness he was still learning how to master.
“He said congratulations.”
“That’s not all he said.”
“No,” Malachai admitted, but left it at that.