Two days after the dinner party, Serena tried to fix it.
Not with an apology.
Not with honesty.
But with the one thing that had always worked before: control.
Malik was in his office when she arrived—unannounced, as usual.
The sun was hanging low behind the skyline, casting long shadows across his desk. He was reviewing permit delays for the Southbend project, the kind of work that required no emotion. He preferred it that way lately.
Serena didn't knock.
She entered in heels that cost more than a month's rent in half the city, wearing a soft black dress that clung like regret and perfume sharp enough to slice through tension.
"You're busy," she said, eyeing the papers.
"Always," Malik said, not looking up.
"I thought we could talk."
He flipped a page. "About what?"
Serena crossed the room, sat on the edge of his desk.
Close, but not close enough to touch.
"About us," she said.
There it was—that voice. Smooth. Controlled. Weaponized.
"I feel like we've... drifted," she continued, choosing her words like she was threading a needle through glass.
"But I know we can get back on track. We always do."
Malik set his pen down. Looked up at her slowly.
"Do we?"
Serena hesitated, then pressed on, faster now, as if momentum could save her.
"You've been cold for weeks, Mal.
I know I've been... distracted. With the gallery, with Celina, with sponsors—"
She laughed lightly, a brittle sound.
"—but we've survived worse. We just need to make time again. Prioritize."
She smiled at him, wide and hopeful, as if this were just another rough patch. A scheduling problem. Something to pencil in and fix between meetings.
Malik met her smile with a cool, still silence.
"I'll think about it," he said eventually.
Her smile faltered.
"I think," Serena said carefully, voice lowering, "you're still hurt. And I get that.
But we can't just keep pretending everything's normal and then freezing each other out."
Malik's expression didn't shift. "Who said I was pretending?"
That caught her off guard.
"I've accepted things for what they are," he added. "Nothing more. Nothing less."
Serena stood then, smoothing her dress, trying to regain her composure.
"That's what this is to you now?" she asked, voice brittle.
"A negotiation of facts?"
He tilted his head. "Isn't that what it's always been?"
Serena's jaw tightened. "I loved you."
He didn't blink.
Didn't flinch.
"You loved the version of me that bent," he said softly.
"Not the one that learned how to hold shape."
That night, Serena texted him around 1:20 a.m.:
Staying at the loft. Big planning meeting in the morning. Don't wait up.
Malik didn't.
He turned off his phone and slept like stone.
At the gallery the next afternoon, Landon dropped by unannounced.
Jordan passed along a casual note to Malik's desk:
Croix came by to see her. They looked pretty cozy. Thought you'd want to know.
Malik didn't respond.
He didn't need to.
He just sat back, folding his hands, letting the weight of inevitability settle over him like a familiar coat.
Let them dig their hole deeper.
Let them laugh and plan and touch each other in shadows.
He wasn't chasing.
He wasn't even angry anymore.
He was just waiting.
And when the time came,
They wouldn't even realize they had built the noose themselves.