Page 2 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Malachi

The patch on the table doesn’t move. It sits in front of me as if it has a heartbeat, daring me to touch it. Black leather. Bold stitch. PRESIDENT. The same as it always looks. But tonight, it isn’t Cornelius’ anymore.

It’s mine.

The air in the meeting room is heavy with silence. Not empty. Just still. As if everyone inside the clubhouse has inhaled at once and forgotten how to let go. The weight of expectation presses against my shoulders, a silent gravity dragging down my spine.

James sits to my right, solid as ever, hands folded over the table as if they’ve been carved there.

East lounges to my left, boot hooked on the table edge, spinning a pen through his fingers, untouched by the weight of the vote pressing down on the rest of us.

And in the shadows, Knox leans against the wall, arms crossed, watching everything with the quiet calculation of a man already ten steps ahead.

I should feel honored. Instead, I feel buried.

My hands rest on my thighs, fingers splayed, damp with sweat. My pulse thuds slow and deliberate, each beat a countdown to something I can’t stop. The scent of beer, sweat, and worn leather thickens the air, anchoring me in this moment that feels more funeral than celebration.

Cornelius used to say, “Wearing this means bleeding first. Not barking the loudest.”

He bled for this patch. Not once. Not figuratively. The last time I saw him alive was through smoke.

The warehouse had already gone quiet. Concrete floor soaked in blood and ash. Fire damage blooming along the east wall like a wound. I’d run so hard to get there. Pushed my bike past its limits, hands clenched tight on the grips like sheer want could reverse time.

But I was too late. Cornelius was crumpled near the loading bay, blood soaking through the shoulder of his cut, one hand outstretched, as if he’d tried to reach someone. Jared and Amelia were gone. Taken. No note. No threat. No ransom.

Just silence. He died trying to save them. And I failed all three of them. That guilt didn’t fade. It calcified. Became the foundation for every wall I’ve built since.

James should be the one stepping up tonight. Everyone knew it. When his name came up, every brother at the table turned to him.

But he’d only nodded toward me and said, “I’ve carried the past long enough. It’s time someone carries the future.”

Now I’m staring down at a leather cut that smells faintly of oil, smoke, and something older. Something worn into the threads. The stitching under my thumb presses deep, a brand I chose.

One word. PRESIDENT. My hands shake as I reach for the new patch.

I pull my knife from my pocket, slide the blade under the border of the VP patch, and begin cutting the stitching free.

Each tug of the thread feels deliberate, final.

When it comes loose, I lay it carefully on the table.

The new patch feels heavier in my hand than the entire leather ever has.

It’s not just a title. It’s a reckoning.

I stitch it on slowly, the thread biting through leather with the weight of everything at stake. When it’s done, the cut settles across my shoulders, not as honor or power, but as a verdict.

Judgment.

East breaks the silence with a clap. “Well, shit. Our fearless leader finally accepted his doom.”

A few low chuckles stir the tension. James leans back, expression unreadable, but I catch it—the flicker in his eyes. Something close to pride.

“Next vote,” he says. “Vice President.”

Knox doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. He doesn’t have to. The vote passes before it even starts. I hand him the patch. He accepts it with a single nod. No speech. Just the promise that comes with knowing he’ll sense the danger before I do and take care of it without asking.

James raises his glass. “To the next generation.”

“To the ones stupid enough to take the job,” East adds with a grin.

I give a faint nod. “Dinner’s on the club. Drinks too. First round’s mine.”

Chairs scrape back. Boots hit the floor. Voices rise, as if someone finally remembered how to breathe. They filter out one by one, but I stay where I am.

My hands press flat against the wood, breath slow and even, though I feel anything but steady.

Don’t let it rot . Cornelius’ voice lives in me now. Not as comfort. As a command.

He meant the club. The legacy. The people still here when the smoke cleared. He meant the family we made.

I push to my feet. The chair gives a soft groan. My spine feels too straight, held rigid for too long. I make it halfway to the door before raised voices echo down the hallway.

Candace.

Her voice snaps sharply through the thick air, laced with a fury only a daughter can summon. “You think throwing money at dues makes up for the shit you’ve pulled? You’re pathetic, and you know it.”

Chuck’s response is slurred but angry. “I’m still your father. Watch your damn mouth.”

The word father lands with the sting of a cold slap.

Of course he is. Sometimes I forget Chuck has a kid.

Candace doesn’t come around much anymore.

The older she gets, the less I see her. She’s just another stubborn teenager with too much attitude and not enough respect.

Another kid acting out. Chuck’s one of us.

Her old man. Whatever’s going on between them is just the usual father-daughter drama.

Still, something about the way her voice cracked—not with weakness, but heat—makes something in me pause. Just for a second. Just long enough to wonder if maybe I’ve missed more than I realized.

I remember when he started showing up around the club.

He was loud and magnetic. At first, I barely noticed him.

I was too busy trying to survive the wreckage of my own house.

My father had just killed my mother and older brother.

That year was all fire and silence. Seeing Chuck walk in as if he belonged, carrying something worth showing up for, should’ve made me angry.

Maybe it did. Or maybe it just made me want something I didn’t have and didn’t know how to name.

A door slams hard enough to rattle the wall, and Candace storms past me without a glance, fury in her bones, shoulders tight with unshed pain. I don’t move. Don’t follow. Just listen to her boots echo down the hallway, sharp, staccato bursts that feel more threat than retreat.

Then I walk out of the room on autopilot, boots heavy against the hardwood, every footstep louder than it should be in my skull.

Outside, the air hits harder than I expect.

It smells of pine sap and diesel, distant rain clinging to the sky, and the faint sour edge of oil on warm gravel.

The clubhouse behind me feels alive in a different way now.

No longer a refuge, more a kingdom propped up by bloodstained oaths and memories that never stop bleeding.

Candace stands on the porch. She leans against the railing, arms crossed tight under her hoodie, a cigarette held between her fingers with practiced defiance, as if she knows it looks cool even if it makes her gag.

Her sleeves are shoved up. Her jaw is set.

The air around her hums with tension, a wire pulled too tight.

She lifts the cigarette to her lips and inhales. Immediately coughs, sharp, choking, real. I watch her mutter something, curse under her breath, and try again. This time she draws in less, blows it out fast, chasing the illusion more than the habit.

“You don’t smoke,” I murmur.

She doesn’t look at me. “Maybe I do now.”

I step out fully, taking the opposite post on the porch. She stays turned away, staring into the dark as if it holds answers.

“You didn’t have to come,” I say.

“I know.”

A pause stretches between us, thick enough to fill the space. “Then why?”

Her mouth pulls tight. She exhales slowly through her nose. “So I could watch the club crown another king and pretend it means something.”

I look at her. Really look. She doesn’t meet my eyes, but she doesn’t need to. Her posture says everything. She’s sixteen going on scorched earth. Shoulders braced, daring someone to push her.

“You think I’m going to ruin it.”

That makes her laugh. Bitter. Short. Ugly. “I think it’s already ruined.”

Her eyes don’t land on me, but the weight behind her words does.

Maybe she isn’t pointing fingers, not yet, but that doesn’t mean the shadow of blame isn’t already circling.

The kind that starts as smoke and ends in fire.

Not my fault. Not yet. But I can feel it shifting.

Brewing. Deep down, I know the day is coming when she’ll stop holding back.

I don’t react. Not outwardly. But it cracks something anyway. Her tone is even. Not dramatic. Not loud. But it hits as strongly as a gut punch all the same.

Before I can ask what she means, she flicks the cigarette away and grinds it beneath her heel, as if it’s offended her. Her movements are sharp and clipped, every gesture tight with the effort of holding something back.

The silence that follows isn’t empty. It thrums. Hot. Humming. Then she speaks again, voice lower now, threaded with something that feels part resignation, part resentment.

“You only see what you want to see.”

That’s it. No explanation. No context. Just that.

She doesn’t wait for a response. Doesn’t give me a chance to ask what the hell she’s talking about. She turns and walks down the stairs, shoulders squared, head high, vanishing into the dark as if the night is the only thing left she trusts.

I stay frozen, the railing digging into my palms, her words echoing louder than they have any right to. You only see what you want to see.

The worst part is I don’t know if she means me, the club, or all of us. But I know it matters. Because whatever she means… I’ve already missed it. And maybe that’s the problem.

I stand there for a while, hands curled around the porch rail until my knuckles ache. The cut on my back feels heavier with every breath, the leather clinging to my sweat-damp shirt.

Then, as it always does when things go quiet, the memory hits.

Cornelius’ voice on the phone is tight and urgent. “They took them, Kai. They took Jared and Amelia.”

My blood goes ice cold. “Who?”

He doesn’t wait. Doesn’t answer. Just hangs up. He was always that way—do first, bleed later. I race to the warehouse, gut twisting the whole way. By the time I get there, the place is on fire. Blood on the floor. Ash in the air. My siblings are gone. And Cornelius is dying.

He went in alone. Tried to save them. And I got there too late. Again.

I drop to my knees beside him. He looks at me, tries to say something, but all I catch is the way his hand reaches toward me—shaking, blood-slick, empty.

It’s haunted me ever since.

And somewhere in the middle of that night… Donovan disappeared.

Donovan Castiel. No polished front. No politician’s mask.

Just a criminal with a head start. He moves through the streets with the slow, invasive spread of smoke.

Launders money. Traffics drugs and people.

Worms his way into every corner of Willowridge that looks the other way for a cut.

He has ties to everything—the backroom deals, the trafficking network we’ve been unraveling thread by thread.

I used to wonder if it was a coincidence.

If him vanishing just as Cornelius died and my siblings were taken was just bad timing.

But I don’t believe in coincidence. Not in Willowridge.

It doesn’t feel like power. It feels like blame. Beneath the noise, beneath the silence and grief that still hasn’t settled, one truth pulses in my chest. A bruise that never heals.

There’s no room for softness. Not for me.

Family isn’t something you’re born into. It’s something you bleed for.

And tonight, it feels like I’ll never stop bleeding.