Page 20 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Candace

The solid crack of a cue ball colliding with another echoes through the bar.

The sound slices the air, clean and sharp, momentarily silencing the low murmur of voices.

Maggie sinks another shot with easy confidence, her silver hair shining under the overhead light.

Her leather jacket hugs her frame with the ease of a second skin, broken in at the seams and soft in the way only years of rebellion can wear something down.

There’s something timeless about her. She seems born to ride hard and love harder.

I used to think she was intimidating. Now I think she’s exactly the kind of woman I want to be. One who owns her space. Her voice. Her choices.

She grins at me. “I can teach you too, honey.”

I laugh, shaking my head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be as good as you.”

“You never know.” She shrugs. “But I guess karate was always your thing.”

The words hit differently than they should. It’s a casual remark, but it lands as strongly as a punch. My throat tightens, breath snagging just enough to notice.

Karate used to be mine. It wasn’t just something I did; it was mine. A place where silence felt sacred, not suffocating. One that was safe. A rhythm I could control when everything else was chaos. The sound of breath. The shape of movement. It made me feel strong, capable, centered.

It was the only thing that ever truly felt mine.

As for music now? The lyrics are scribbled in the margins of receipts and notebooks I never let anyone see. Quiet beats tap out when the noise in my head gets too loud. Little notes live in my chest, always pushing to become something whole again.

But life has a way of stripping you of the things that keep you whole. One bill at a time. One lie at a time.

Sloane raises a brow. “Karate?”

The mention of it coils something sharp in my chest. I nod, managing, “Yeah. I don’t take lessons anymore, but I still train and practice every day.”

I keep the movements alive in the early hours, before shifts or after closing, when the house is quiet and all I can hear are my thoughts scraping against my skull.

I go through the forms as if I’m building a wall around myself.

Brick by brick, strike by strike. Precision over chaos. Control over collapse.

Sometimes, when the anger is too much, I hum to the rhythm of the strikes. A habit from before I even knew what songwriting meant. A pulse I can control when nothing else makes sense.

Maggie leans against her cue stick, studying me. “What do you mean you don’t take lessons anymore?”

I don’t want to answer. Their eyes are too gentle. Too knowing. I can feel the cracks forming in the walls I’ve spent years building. The ones I’ve patched with silence and smiles and just-enough-distance. My spine stiffens. I cross my arms and brace myself.

“I got busy,” I say, voice flat.

A lie. A tired, useless lie that burns in my throat the second it leaves my mouth.

She steps closer, lowering her voice. “What’s the real reason?”

I look away, picking at the frayed hem of my jean jacket. The threads pull too easily, just as the seams in my life do. Loose. Thin. One tug from unraveling. “Dad couldn’t afford it anymore.”

The second the words leave my mouth, shame creeps in. I hate how small I sound. As if I’m a kid making excuses. As if I’m still defending a man who hasn’t earned it.

Maggie stiffens as her expression shifts. Something between frustration and understanding, the kind of look that says she knows more than I do. The kind of look I used to mistake for pity. Now it just makes my chest hurt.

“James and I paid for your lessons,” she murmurs, but her voice cuts with the sharpness of a blade. “But one day, your dad told us we didn’t need to anymore. That he could take over.”

My heart stutters. The breath leaves my lungs in one sharp exhale, as if someone just punched me in the gut.

He lied.

He let me believe we couldn’t afford it. Let me think I was too much. A burden. That I had to grow up faster, take the hit, move on. As always. And the worst part? I did and didn’t even argue. I packed up my gi, hung up my belt, and acted as though it didn’t matter.

But it did. It mattered.

All these years, I thought I gave it up because we didn’t have a choice.

Turns out, it wasn’t about money. It was about him.

My pulse pounds in my ears as I look down at my hands, curling into fists without meaning to. I remember what it felt to land a perfect roundhouse, to move with confidence and control. That was mine. And he took it. For what? Pride? Ego? Guilt?

I tap my thumb twice against the table edge. A beat. A habit. The rhythm of holding it together. Hold steady. Don’t let it bleed out here.

Movement catches my eye, and there he is—my father—shuffling toward the meeting room. He looks older than I remember. Grayer. Slower. There’s no beer in his hand, no slurring in his step. But he’s ragged, hollow-eyed. A man made of paper and ghosts.

Still, the anger rises, bitter as bile in my throat.

He lied to them. He lied to me.

And I’m still here. Still trying. Still hoping he’ll look at me the way he used to, as if I matter.

He disappears inside, and I bite down hard, swallowing the lump clawing its way up my throat. My jaw aches from holding everything in and my shoulders lock. My teeth press until the tension grinds into the base of my skull.

Maggie doesn’t say anything else. She must see the war happening inside me because she backs off.

I drift toward the far end of the bar, needing distance. Space. Something that doesn’t smell of leather and broken promises. I pass the jukebox. The static hum of the neon lights. The sharp tang of grease and wood polish. All of it clings to my skin, soaked in memory.

The urge to walk out, to be done with this whole damn thing, pulses with the steady rhythm of a drumbeat under my skin.

Three slow breaths. I mouth the silent line I always do before things spiral. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.

That’s my lyric. My lie.

I tell myself I’m fine.

That I can hold it together.

That if I just stay out of his way, avoid eye contact, don’t speak unless I absolutely have to, I can survive the rest of this damn lunch without snapping.

Then the meeting room door opens, and one by one, they start to file out. My father exits first, eyes scanning the room but skipping right over me as if I’m nothing. The others follow—James, Knox, East, Nash—each lost in their own thoughts.

Then Malachi walks out.

Last, as always, commanding attention without saying a single word. His leather cut hangs open, revealing a deep red shirt that hugs his chest with a possessiveness that borders on obscene. His walk is slow, confident, that ever-present undercurrent of danger and control wrapped in muscle and ink.

He sees me.

Of course he sees me.

Instead of passing by, instead of pretending I’m just part of the scenery as everyone else does, he leans against the doorframe and looks at me as though I’m the only thing in the room.

My pulse betrays me first. A sharp stuttering kick against my ribs before it starts to race. My body betrays me before my mind can shut it down.

That look on his face—as if I’m something worth watching, worth wanting—it lands with a heat I don’t know how to carry right now.

I hate him. I do. I hate the way he talks to me, the way he teases, the way he always gets under my skin as though it’s his personal hobby.

But I can’t stop looking at him.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

The more I try to hate him, the more he becomes the only person I want to see when everything else falls apart. The only person who doesn’t ask me to smile, doesn’t pretend I’m not angry, doesn’t flinch when I shove.

He just meets me there in the fire. Unbothered. Unburned.

His smirk spreads slowly, eyes dragging over me with maddening focus. It’s not just attraction, it’s curiosity. It’s that same look he gave me outside the club when I blocked him out and he didn’t budge.

Like he’s daring me to admit I feel it too.

And I do.

I glance away first. Not because I want to. Because I have to.

Because the last thing I need right now is for him to see how close I am to falling apart.

But the moment is already burned into my skin. The tension. And heat. The ache I’ve been denying since the first time he called me Sour Patch as if it were some kind of secret between us.

I don’t understand why I feel this pull. Why the man I swore I’d never trust is the one person I keep reacting to.

But maybe, just maybe, it’s because he sees all the parts I keep trying to hide and he doesn’t look away.