Malachi doesn’t answer. Doesn’t move. But I feel the shift in him. The quiet coil of instinct, of warning. I can feel his tension in the air between us. Charged. Waiting.
“I’m Rex,” the man continues, tipping his head toward the door behind him. “You want answers?” he says. “Step inside.” Rex opens the padded door, the hinges creaking low.
My heart ticks faster, but I square my shoulders. Malachi glances at me. That flicker of uncertainty in his eyes again. He’s thrown. Off-kilter. Still chasing the ghost of a girl he hasn’t seen in over a decade. The possibility of her.
So I nod. Grab his hand. “We’re not leaving without something,” I murmur. “Let’s go.” He follows.
Rex steps aside, letting us into a room that smells faintly of leather, chalk dust, and time. It’s cleaner than expected. Neat, intentional, almost curated to feel safe. The walls are dark but freshly painted, the lighting soft despite the overhead bulb. A worn bench lines one wall, and a metal table sits beneath a mounted shelf stacked with files, gloves, and a half-empty bottle of water. In the corner, a locked cabinet hums faintly; surveillance or something close to it. The contrast to the brutal world outside the door is jarring, a sanctuary constructed for secrets.
I get the feeling this room has heard things it’s not supposed to. And kept them. Rex closes the door behind us with a soft click. Then he looks at Malachi again. Measured. Curious. Maybe even a little cautious.
A door I hadn’t noticed, next to a locked cabinet, opens. Then he steps out. Still in black. Still dangerous. Behind him, just barely visible in the shadows, the woman. The one who moved with the ease of someone trained to disappear. The one Malachi tracked with his eyes the way a man watches someone carrying pieces of himself. Malachi goes still. So still it hurts to look at him.
Rex doesn’t flinch. Just steps aside, following a script already written. I feel Malachi inhale. A slow, sharp breath, as if something ancient just cracked open inside him.
The man’s gaze sweeps the room. Doesn’t settle on us at first. But I see the flicker when it does. Maybe he was waiting for us.
Then Malachi whispers, so low only I hear it. “Amelia.” His voice breaks on it. I turn slowly toward him. He’s pale. Frozen.
My heart stutters, but not for the same reason. My pulse spikes because the man, him, he’s stepping further into the light now, and I can see him clearly for the first time. That jaw. Those eyes. The mouth that curled around six million with terrifying ease.
Even though I’ve never seen him before last night, never heard his name, something in me knows. It’s not a memory. It’s deeper. More primitive. A thread pulled taut inside my bones.
I’m staring at a truth sharp enough to gut me, and cold rushes through my limbs before I can brace for it. The man steps fully into the room, and silence stretches taut between every breath.
He stops in front of us, eyes locked on Malachi, flicking to me only briefly. Measuring, calculating.
And I know. Even before anyone speaks, I know this man is tied to me. Tied to everything I’ve tried not to remember, everything I thought I buried too deep to resurface.
Malachi still hasn’t moved. Still hasn’t breathed. So I reach for his hand, threading my fingers through his and gripping tight.
Because whatever he’s feeling? I’m already bleeding with it.
Chapter 60
Malachi
Shestepsforward,afraidI’ll vanish if she blinks. I can’t move. Can’t breathe. The air thickens around me. Smoke, old engine oil, the faint iron tang of blood that only I seem to notice, a warning my body recognizes as a reckoning.
Her hair is longer now, darker too. Her frame leaner. But the eyes, they’re the same. Wide and full of a thousand memories I’ve tried to bury. The same eyes that used to peek through cracked doorways, watching me train in the garage. That used to well with tears when our father staggered through the house in a drunken rage, smashing whatever he could grab.
The same damn eyes I’ve only ever seen in memories, because by the time I got to the warehouse the night Cornelius died, she was already gone.
The man steps forward, extending his hand. “I’m Phoenix.” He glances at Amelia. “I had to check and make sure she wanted to see you.”
His voice is steady, but there’s a protective edge to it. A subtle claim, not overbearing, but clear. He’s not asking permission. He’s guarding her.
I nod once, trying to mask the emotion coiling low in my chest. I appreciate it, the way he’s looking out for her. Hell, part of me’s grateful. But another part—deeper, older—bristles at the fact that someone else got to be that person for her when I couldn’t.
It’s not fair. It’s not his fault. But it still lands with the impact of a bruise I didn’t see coming.
“Amelia,” I whisper, a word fragile enough to shatter in my mouth. My throat tightens. Her name tastes like ash and hope; something holy that I don’t deserve to speak out loud.
She stops short, tears already swimming in her lashes. Her lips part, voice barely a breath. “You’re not dead.”
I almost laugh. Almost. But it would come out cracked and wrong.
“I thought you were killed that night,” she says, shaking her head. “They said you didn’t make it.”
