Page 43 of Malachai
“Shh. Let me finish.” I brushed my lips against her neck. “I read a story once about a man who trapped a bird in a cage so small it couldn’t even spread its wings. When the bird stopped singing and tried to peck its own heart out, the man didn’t open the door. He reached in, squeezed until its bones snapped, and kept the body in a glass box on his desk. He’d rather have a dead thing that belonged to him than a living thing that belonged to the wind.”
My fingers flexed lightly around her throat.
“That’s your choice. You stay here with me—breathing, dancing, living—or I put you in the ground so no one else can ever haveyou. I’m not spending another three years chasing you. If you try to slip away again, I won’t reach for your wrist. I’ll reach for your heart. I’d rather mourn you than wonder who’s looking at you. I’d rather bury you in the backyard than let you be another man’s fantasy while I rot alone.”
I felt her swallow hard.
“Do you understand? There is no ‘away’ for you. There is only me… or there is nothing.”
I pressed a kiss to her temple.
“Jesus Christ, Malachai,” she whispered. “That’s your version of ‘I missed you’? The threats are necessary? You make my life in New York sound worse than it ever was.”
“Get dressed.”
“What?”
“Get dressed, Indigo.”
“It’s late. Where are we going?”
I stood, water sliding off my body as I stepped out of the tub. The conversation was over.
“We’re going to your studio.”
Chapter 19
Indigo
Malachai spoke to the two SUVs full of men who had been following us for safety before letting me inside.
Returning to my dance studio felt like stepping into a ghost story—especially since someone had died right outside. The air was thick with the scent of floor wax and some fruity cleaning product. I moved through the space in a daze, my fingertips grazing the barre. I could barely see my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. For three years, this life had been a closed book, yet the muscle memory hummed beneath my skin.
Malachai didn’t say a word, but his presence was heavy behind me until his hand settled firmly on the small of my back. He applied pressure, guiding me toward the rear of the studio—to the room where heavy-duty poles rose toward the ceiling. It was the sanctuary, the place where the Midnight Ballerina had truly been born.
“This is what I want to show you.”
The room was dark except for a single spotlight over the center of the floor. Malachai stood in the shadows near the back wall, arms crossed, watching me with that unnerving stillness.
“You said my imagination makes what you’ve done worse. When I found out where you were after you came back, I had all the footage from that club sent to me. Hours of it,” he said quietly.
My stomach dropped. “Why?” It was one thing taunting him with what I’d done. It was another for him to actually see it.
He didn’t answer. He simply lifted his phone and pressed play. The large mirror on the wall flickered to life, projecting the video. Midnight appeared across the screen. For some reason, I dissociated; Midnight became her own entity. I watched her strut onto the stage in nothing but rhinestones, making the entire crowd lose their minds.
The opening lyrics of the track I’d chosen wrapped around me as I watched her hips roll in time with the lazy, pulsing beat. She arched her back deeply, letting her body move like liquid. Her hand slid down her own curves, tracing the lines of her breasts, waist, and thighs as if she were discovering her own skin for the first time. She spread her legs wide and dropped low, settling into a slow, heavy grind that felt like it was pulling the oxygen right out of the room.
She rolled her hips in filthy, hypnotic circles, her thighs trembling under the strain. Every movement was teasing and intimate. She was Midnight—the ghost I’d buried in New York. The girl who had never lost a baby, never stabbed her husband. I watched her from somewhere outside my own body, floating near the ceiling, observing the way her—my—hands gripped the floor, the way her—my—mouth fell open like she was asking for something she couldn’t name.
That’s not me. I won’t be her ever again.
That thought made me sad and angry.
“Turn it off,” I whispered.
He didn’t. He let it play.
“No. You gave them this,” he said, his voice dropping into that terrifying low register. “You gave strangers something I never got. Not like this.”
