“She has been the greatest gift of all.”
Malik crossed to the fire, taking up the iron poker and jabbing at the burning logs with deliberate force, as if willing the flames to swallow his vulnerability.
Roman and I exchanged a glance.
I took a breath before speaking. “Malik, we’re thankful for everything you’ve done for us. You’re not a monster.”
He didn’t turn around. He remained crouched before the fire, his broad back to us, his body rigid.
“I’m here for both of you,” he murmured. “And I want to beg your forgiveness for the anger, the sadness—the pain I’ve caused.”
He rose then, pivoting to face us. His expression was unreadable, his face carved from stone. Only his eyes betrayed him, shadowed by a past he could never outrun.
“Everything I’ve done was my ultimate do-over.” His voice was resolute, but beneath it lay something raw, something fractured. “Each time I look at you, I see Isabelle and Armand. And it fills me with remorse. It drives me to make amends.”
For a moment, the room was silent but for the gentle crackling of the fire.
Then Roman cleared his throat and pushed himself to his feet. He crossed the room with measured steps, coming to stand before Malik.
The two men locked eyes—one of the darkness, the other forged in battle.
“Even if we have lived before,” Roman said. “I am different now.”
He exhaled. “I was a gladiator in this life. I fought for my existence in the Colosseum. But once I left Rome, you saved my life.”
Roman placed a firm hand on Malik’s shoulder.
“That means something to me.”
A heavy pause stretched between them, the weight of their shared past across time, across lifetimes, settling in the space between their words.
“We had an honor code as gladiators,” Roman continued. “If someone saved us from death, we were bound to them for life.”
His grip tightened slightly.
“You’re the darkness, Malik. You could have killed me at any time. But you didn’t.”
The firelight lit Malik’s features, highlighting the tension in his jaw and how his throat moved when he swallowed.
Roman’s voice softened. “You took care of my wife when I was gone. And when your heart is on the line—with Olivia, I know that must be hard for you.”
For a long moment, neither man spoke.
Then, finally, they nodded at one another.
A silent understanding.
A bond forged not just through past lifetimes, but through the choices made in this one.
I felt my throat tighten.
The sincerity in Roman’s voice and the quiet regard Malik showed for my husband were almost too much.
I pressed a hand to my chest, forcing back the emotions swelling inside me.
Because for the first time, I understood something.
This wasn’t just a tangled web of past lives and old regrets.
