One I don’t recognize. One that might become a song. One I hope I’ll never have to finish.
Chapter 52
Malachi
Smokeclingstotheair, thick with regret. Coating my tongue and lungs in something too close to memory. The taste reminds me of burnt flesh and old failure. It carries the weight of the night Cornelius died; the air choking with everything I couldn’t stop. Donovan.
My boots crunch over broken glass as we sweep through the lower garage of the Holloway building, every breath ragged with urgency. The blast site is chaos. It’s twisted steel, scorched concrete, and flickering overhead lights that buzz the way dying insects do.
The lights stutter above us, casting everything in pulses; bodies, blood, broken metal. The scene can’t decide if it’s over or still unraveling. We were too late to stop the explosion. But not too late to catch the bastard behind it.
Victor’s still crouched where Olivia had been, blood on his hands and in his eyes. Lincoln is helping move the injured,dragging bodies to safety. Some ours, some not. Arden moved like a damn shadow, faster than anything human, grabbing Leo when he went down with a shot to the neck and vanishing into the smoke with him.
The way Arden moved—silent, deliberate, otherworldly—sent a cold ripple down my spine, even in the firelight. Death in motion. I still hear Olivia’s scream echoing through the haze, but she’s gone. Arden got her out.
And Donovan, Donovan fucking Castiel, is bleeding out on the cracked concrete, courtesy of Victor’s bullet. I watched it hit. Center mass. The kind of shot you don’t come back from. My heart should be steady. But it isn’t. The air buzzes, my hands itch. I’ve waited years for this. So why does it feel wrong?
Victor exhales hard, wiping his face. “He’s dead,” he mutters.
I want to believe him. I really do. Because if Donovan’s dead, this ends. But it doesn’t feel over. Something ancient coils in my ribs. The whisper Frankie would call a warning. The quiet before a worse kind of storm.
I crouch beside the body, where blood pools thick and metallic, hot in the already suffocating air. It still steams, warmth rising in faint curls. Too warm. The scent clings to my nostrils—rust and ash, sharp and lingering.
But I can’t ignore the whisper in my chest, the instinct that’s never steered me wrong. Not yet.
Victor curses and glances around the smoke-choked garage. “Arden got her out,” he says, more to himself than to anyone else. His eyes are wild with the need to see it for himself. “But I’ve gotta make sure she finds a medic.”
He takes off before I can reply, cutting through the chaos with single-minded purpose. His boots slip on blood, but he doesn’t stop. That kind of love doesn’t.
I make a mental note. Olivia’s out, but Victor needs eyes on her. Needs to be sure. We all do.
“Go,” I call after him. “We’ll finish this.”
He nods, eyes scanning the chaos, committing every detail to memory. I stand. Turn.
“Check the perimeter,” I bark at Nash. “Secure exits. Nobody walks unless we say so.”
Knox and East are already moving bodies, gathering weapons. Kyle jogs past with a comm in his hand, shouting for backup and medics. The echo of sirens now curls in from outside—thin, delayed, useless. The air vibrates with the tension of something unfinished.
“Malachi!” I whirl at the shout. It’s Kyle, voice sharp. “He’s still got a fucking pulse!”
Time slows. The garage seems to inhale all at once. My breath catches. My stomach flips. I cross the space in four strides, drop to my knees beside Donovan. My hands are shaking. I don’t let anyone see it.
He should be dead. Should be. But there it is. Faint. Unsteady. A fucking pulse.
Rage flares so hot in my blood I think I might burn. My teeth grind and my fists clench. My vision goes narrow and red at the edges.
“Get me cuffs. Zip ties. I don’t care,” I snap. “We are not losing him. Not this way.”
Nash tosses a pair over. I bind Donovan’s hands myself. Every twist of the plastic is a promise. Every cinch, a vow.
Because this? This changes everything. He’s not dead. He’s going to talk. And when he does? We’ll finally get all of it. The auctions. Alice. The society. What really happened to Cornelius that night. Where my siblings were taken. And maybe—just maybe—a way to burn it all down and bring them home.
I rise, blood on my hands, the weight of war in my chest. My fingers are sticky, red down to the nail beds. It drips onto myboot, soaking in. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters now but the truth.
“Get him in the van,” I say. “We’re not done yet. Not even close.”
As East and Kyle move Donovan’s body, Knox appears beside me, already on the same page. “You want me to call Sloane?”
