Page 53 of Avidian (The Demon and the Savior #1)

I bolt upright, my heart pounding as if it’s trying to break free from my chest. My hand flies to my mouth, muffling a gasp that threatens to turn into a scream.

The room feels too small, the air too thick, and I start shaking my head, desperate to rid myself of the intrusive thoughts swirling like a storm in my mind.

This can’t be true.

It can’t.

Carmen’s boyfriend was in Solace—the organization Malachi leads. My Malachi. No, not mine. My head throbs as I try to process the journal, each line replaying in my mind like a sick mantra.

“Brian.” She said Brian might not even be his real name.

God, what if Malachi is Brian? He’s charming, strong.

And he’s good at seducing women. My stomach churns violently, and I press my hand harder against my mouth, as if I can physically hold back the bile rising in my throat.

Tears spill down my cheeks, hot and unwelcome, as the weight of doubt crushes me.

I clutch the journal tighter, my fingers digging into its worn cover. Carmen never described him, not in detail. No hair color, no eye color, nothing. She left me nothing to confirm or deny what I’m thinking. My head spins, and the room tilts, my breathing growing shallow and erratic.

“Malachi,” I whisper, the name a plea and a curse all at once. I want to believe it’s not him. I need to believe it’s not him. But a sliver of doubt worms into my heart, planting seeds of suspicion I can’t uproot.

I close my eyes, pressing my forehead against my knees, trying to steady myself, to think rationally.

Malachi would have told me. He’s had so many chances to tell me.

Unless this is the part of him he didn’t want me to see.

Unless there is something larger at play here that I’m not seeing for what it is.

I swipe at the tears on my cheeks, my hands trembling as I force myself to breathe.

One, two, three deep breaths—each more deliberate than the last. The air burns in my lungs, but it’s enough to clear some of the fog in my mind.

I’ve been here before, teetering on the edge of chaos, but I won’t let myself fall.

Get a grip, Kat.

I close the journal and press it against my chest, as if doing so could somehow silence the storm of emotions threatening to tear me apart.

Malachi isn’t here. I don’t have answers, and jumping to conclusions now won’t get me anywhere.

I need to keep my head. I need to be the Kat Sinclair who’s survived far worse than this, the one who perfected her stoic facade in the face of unimaginable horrors.

I can’t let my emotions cloud my judgment. Not now. Not when everything feels like it’s hanging by a thread.

I take another breath, this one steadier, and push the intrusive thoughts aside, at least for now.

They’ll creep back—I know they will—but I’ll deal with them when I have more to go on.

When I see Malachi again, if I see him again.

That thought cuts deep, sharper than I’m prepared for, and it takes everything in me not to crumble under the weight of it.

I shake my head, dismissing the ache in my chest. Focus. I need to be calm, calculated, and practical. Treat this like any other case. Set emotions aside. Piece the clues together.

I toss the journal onto the bed and run my hands down my thighs, getting a grip. I can’t lose myself in paranoia. Not yet. If I want answers, I’ll have to face this head-on, step by step. No assumptions. No hysteria.

I can figure this out.

I sit frozen, the journal still resting on the bed beside me, my mind racing as I piece together the scattered fragments of this nightmare.

Carmen’s betrayal, her anger, her desperation—it all started to make sense when I saw those first images she shared.

She was furious at her boyfriend for something so terrible for watching and letting things go too far with Damien that night.

She said she loved him. And Damien...warned me. Over and over again, he warned me.

“He’s closer than you realize.”

I thought it was Damien’s sick game, his need to taunt me, to keep me spinning in circles.

But now? It feels like he was giving me the answers the entire time, wrapped in riddles and cruelty.

The way he wouldn’t help me, the way he seemed almost gleeful every time I stumbled—it wasn’t about me.

He was fucking with Malachi too. If he knew Malachi was the killer, then all of his taunts were calculated, every jab aimed at cutting deeper.

The memories rush back like an unforgiving tide.

Malachi in the park that night. It was late, really late, and he was upset—so visibly shaken that I couldn’t get a read on him.

I chalked it up to a bad day, an off moment, but now I wonder if it was something else.

Something darker. What if things went wrong?

What if he’d killed Carmen and Damien and I ran into him in the aftermath?

He has access to a plane, to resources that most people couldn’t dream of. It would’ve been a stretch but doable.

And then there’s Solace. The organization isn’t large, and Malachi is its leader. Could something like this—two murders, calculated and personal—really have happened without him knowing? Without his involvement? The answer is there, glaring at me, and it’s one I can’t bring myself to say out loud.

No, it couldn’t.

I struggle to breathe. The very real possibility that none of this was Malachi doesn’t absolve him. Even if he didn’t pull the trigger—or, in this case, thrust the knife—someone in Solace did. And if he didn’t know, then he’s blind. If he did...

I clench my fists, nails digging into my palms as I force the intrusive thoughts to settle. I don’t want to believe any of it, but the pieces fit too perfectly to ignore.

And yet...Malachi saved me. He’s been the one standing between me and the worst of this world.

He’s been my anchor, the only person who’s made me feel alive in years.

How do I reconcile that with this possibility?

How do I face him when everything inside me is screaming that he might be the very monster I’ve been trying to find?

Killing Damien is one thing, but Carmen too and then playing me the entire time…

being intimate with me and all the things we’ve shared all while he was keeping this from me.

The tears threaten to fall again again, but I swallow them down, locking them away. There’s no time for emotions. No time for doubt. Not now. If I’m going to survive this, if I’m going to get the answers I need, I have to stay sharp.

The truth will come out, and I know how to find it once and for all. I get up, quietly lock the door, and reach into my pocket, pulling out the small vial.

Avidian.