Malachi Azure
Kai knew he had caused Jess a lot of pain. As much pain as he had felt in everything that happened between them, he knew she had felt it worse. Seeing her in person was painful, making all of the guilt he had that much stronger. He wasn’t the same person that Jess met 20 years earlier. He wasn’t that person who went into a relationship knowing he would let someone get hurt, just to help his family. He wasn’t the person who would keep himself closed off the way he did back then, just to be able to manipulate a situation as necessary to get the result he needed. Now it was because he had gone through hell to only fail and lose everything he did let himself care about. He wasn’t the same Kai who first fell in love with Jessica Pierce either. Back then he still saw a semblance of hope that he could have a life he wanted. That time was long gone, and he was a broken man who had barely anything left in him. That being said, Jess was still one of the few people in the world who had ever truly known the real Malachi Azure, who he was at his core. The others being Skye, and unfortunately Elettra. Then Val and Akielah, who knew Kai far too well, even if there were times where he could hide what was inside from them.
Kai couldn’t hide a slight frown as she corrected him to call her Jessica instead of Jess. He understood, she was still Jess to him, but he wasn’t someone in her life that had the right to call her that anymore. It was at that point that she was asking him to leave when two little girls, right around Scarlet’s age, came running up to Jess, their mother. Kai gave a small smile seeing Jess with the girls, readying himself to leave despite not finding Val, but it seems as though the universe had other plans. It was then that the older of Jess’s daughters saw Scarlet, asking her if she wanted to join them. Before Kai even had the chance to react to Scarlet looking up at him with pleading eyes, she was running off with the girls.
With all of the girls running off to have fun, Jess stood up letting Kai in reluctantly. Though, as she led him towards the backyard, she stated how Val was out of town for the week with Daniel. “F^^k…” Kai did not account for Val not being there. He didn’t know what he was going to do. The only thing he knew was that he needed to protect Scarlet at all costs. For the present moment, that meant letting her enjoy herself at the backyard kids dance party, so she could simply be just a kid. Out there, there were plenty of kids just having fun, with their parents to the side with drinks, talking and watching the kids having fun. Once Jess had left her son with the other little ones, she came back towards him, saying to let Scarlet have her fun, but then he needed to leave. Kai stayed there for a moment, watching Scarlet picking out a dress with Jess’s daughter. There was such a large smile on her face, one that meant so much to him. She was safe and having fun. With that, he turned, walking inside to speak with Jess.
“Thank you for letting her stay and have fun for a while. She doesn’t get to be around kids her own age very often.” Kai truly was thankful for Jess allowing Scarlet to be there for a while because she did not have many opportunities to play with other kids. His wife’s kids were a little older than her, but she never got to actually have fun with them. Sometimes she would see her cousins, and there were a couple of people that worked in the palace with kids her age she would see sometimes, but this was different and more than she normally had. “and I didn’t mean to come interrupt your life again. I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have if I had known you were here.” Kai truly didn’t want to mess Jess’s life up even more. He knew he already had done so much, and he didn’t want to do any more harm.