I fold my arms, bracing against something I can’t name. “What did he say?”
His gaze drops for a second. Long enough. “He said your mother is alive.”
The words land without weight. Like they belong to someone else. I blink as air catches in my throat.
“What?”
“Candace…” His voice is lower now, gentler, but it doesn’t help. “He said she’s back. And she’s working with Donovan.”
The air in the room curdles. I feel it. The way my blood stops moving, the static between my ears, the scream rising too fast to catch.
I let out a laugh. Harsh. Cracked. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
“No.” I shake my head. “My mom’s dead. That’s what he told me. What everyone told me.”
Malachi doesn’t argue. His silence is confirmation. Something inside me snaps, a string pulled too tight. I feel it go.
My hands tremble. “You’re saying she’s alive… and running auctions now? Selling girls?”
“She’s the one behind it,” he says. “Funding. Planning. Donovan’s just the enforcer.”
My knees buckle. I sit down hard at the foot of the bed, heart thundering, trying to claw its way out.
“She left me. And now she’s…” My voice cracks. “She was going to sell me?”
His silence speaks volumes. It’s the silence that makes it real. Not the words. The absence of denial.
I stare at him, barely breathing. “And my dad?”
“He helped her.”
The words scrape down my spine, rusted nails on bare bone. My chest constricts—tight, tight, too tight.
For a second, it isn’t even pain. It’s white static. My body can’t find the right response. Can’t decide whether to scream, or break, or run. Something deep in me fractures; sharp and silent. Malachi steps closer now, slowly and carefully, approaching the way someone would with something fragile and on the verge of breaking. I can feel his heat. His gravity. It steadies me, even though nothing else makes sense.
“Candace… we’re not touching him until you say so. Whatever happens—it’s yours to decide.”
That breaks something else. The part that forgot what it felt like to have a choice. My hands curl into fists. My nails bite into my palms, grounding me. I can’t cry. Not yet. I stare at the wall, voice barely more than a breath.
“I want to look him in the eye when I say goodbye.”
Malachi gives a short nod. No hesitation. “Then let’s go.” But his jaw ticks. His knuckles flex at his sides. I know what it cost him—to wait. To hand the knife over to me and stand still while I chose how deep it went.
We don’t speak as he leads the way down the stairs. My body follows, but my mind lags somewhere behind, caught in the echo of everything that had just been torn wide open. Each step feels steeped in a new life. One built on rubble and reckoning.
The common room is quiet when we enter. Too quiet. Everyone is already there.
Ruby leans against the bar, arms crossed, jaw tight. Frankie sits beside her, tattoos stark against her pale skin with an expression carved from stone. Sloane’s pacing, hoodie sleeves pushed up, a small bruise blooming near her knuckle I hadn’t noticed earlier. Nash stands near the door, unreadable as always, but I can feel his tension from across the room. East iswith Darla on the couch, a blanket over her lap, her cheek resting on his shoulder. Her eyes meet mine, glassy but fierce. She gives me the smallest nod.
“I wanted to be here for you,” she says, quiet but certain.
The words hit me square in the chest. An ache I didn’t know I’d been carrying. Proof someone saw me, really saw me, and still came anyway.
Even James and Maggie are here. James has a look on his face I’ve never seen before. Something ancient and still, worn by someone who’s already lived through this moment a hundred times.
The air is dense with unsaid words. With vengeance held on leashes. With love disguised as stillness.
