Page 28 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Malachi

“I don’t know where the hell he’s hiding,” Nash mutters, voice gravel-thick and unshaken. “But someone’s helping him.”

The words land heavy, echoing the dull thud of a gavel.

I ease back into my chair, leather groaning beneath the shift of weight, fingers steepled in front of my mouth.

My spine aches from a tension I can’t stretch out.

My eyes flick from face to face. Men I’ve bled with, buried things with.

Nash. Knox. East. James. Leo. Arden. The ones I trust when it all goes sideways.

The ones I’ll burn the world down to protect.

The air is thick with sweat, leather, and the sharp scent of motor oil clinging to the vents. It smells of history. Of long nights and bad decisions. The weight of what we don’t know claws at the back of my skull, cold and relentless, threading ice through the base of my neck.

Each of them carries the last few weeks in their own way; tight jaws, restless fingers, haunted silences.

Kyle keeps adjusting his sleeve in a failed attempt to keep his nerves from showing.

Leo taps the edge of his boot against the concrete, a steady rhythm ticking beneath the table.

Nash leans forward, elbows sharp on the wood, the veins in his forearms flexing every time he clenches his fists.

It’s stitched into all of us now, that ache. That quiet rage.

“This isn’t a coincidence,” Leo says, tone clipped and cold. “It can’t be.”

East’s fingers drag along his jaw, the gesture slow, thoughtful. Calculating. “What was the name of that guy who helped get the new sheriff elected?”

“Connor,” Leo and I say in sync.

James gives a small nod, but his gaze flicks away.

Avoidant. My chest tightens, the first crack of instinct shifting through my gut.

James avoiding eye contact? That’s not nothing.

That’s history crawling up from the grave.

Something he doesn’t want to say out loud yet.

Something he knows I’m getting close to.

I glance toward Leo and Arden. They’ve got their fingers closer to that world than the rest of us.

Connor played his part in sweeping out the rot through official channels—badges and ballots and camera crews.

But we were the ones doing the scraping from underneath.

We were the ones burying what couldn’t be cleaned.

Leo leans forward, arms planted with the steadiness of roots into the wood of the table. “We’d have to go through Victor. Connor barely tolerates him, but Liv—Victor’s girl—is close with Connor’s girl. There’s talk Donovan had her in his sights, and Connor stepped in before it got real bad.”

The words hit as strongly as a punch wrapped in velvet. Soft on the surface, brutal underneath. Arden nods once, silent. He doesn’t need words to make himself known. Half the town whispers about what he is. Vampire. Devil. Ghost. He just finds it funny.

But me? I’ve seen the way his eyes change when someone lies to him.

That flicker of something ancient behind his gaze.

He knows more than he ever lets on. When he chooses silence, it’s never because he doesn’t have something to say.

It’s because he’s waiting. Calculating. Listening to things the rest of us can’t hear.

The mention of another girl nearly being dragged into Donovan’s orbit makes something primal unfurl in my chest. My fists tighten beneath the table, fingers digging crescents into my palms. Jaw locked, grinding against a memory I can’t kill.

I shove down the image of blood on concrete, Cornelius gasping in my arms, his life seeping out faster than I could stop it.

That night hasn’t left me. Probably never will.

My throat burns. Old rage. Older guilt. It festers under the surface, never healing, just waiting for a reason to tear wide open again.

We’re still fighting ghosts that haven’t even been buried yet.

My gaze cuts to James. He hasn’t spoken again.

Hasn’t needed to. But the weight he carries has never been about words.

He’s the club’s spine. Steady, scarred, and carved from old truths no one else wants to speak aloud.

His silence now says more than any confession.

If there’s something more to all this, he knows it.

Maybe he’s just been waiting for me to ask.

“I’ll reach out to my old contacts,” Knox says, voice smooth but edged.

His calm is a scalpel, not a balm. He still has strings buried deep in federal circles. Dirt and leverage he doesn’t talk about unless it’s absolutely necessary. While James holds our past, Knox could destroy a government with what’s in his phone. And I don’t say that lightly.

I give a sharp nod. “Alright. No one moves alone. We don’t get caught flat-footed again. You hear anything, anything, bring it straight to me.”

The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s loaded. Heavy with the tension right before a detonator clicks. I let it hang for a beat, then switch gears.

“Candace is staying here for now. Bank foreclosed on her house yesterday.” The words taste wrong in my mouth, bitter and acidic.

A flavor that coats failure. That says I should’ve done more.

“Her car’s barely holding together, so Kyle—take it to the shop.

Make sure it’s a priority. Don’t care what it costs. ”

The vow burns behind my ribs. I promised myself she’d never fall through the cracks again. Not on my watch. Not while she’s under my roof.

Kyle nods, no hesitation. His throat bobs with a hard swallow, eyes flicking to mine like he knows how much it costs me to say it out loud.

“I’m picking her up later. Gonna try to talk her into quitting that country club gig.”

A few snorts break the tension.

“Hope you still have your balls when you get back,” East mutters, dry.

I half-smile, but it fades quick. “Thinking maybe if I offer Ruby a job too, it’ll go down smoother.”

James lets out a grunt that’s halfway to a laugh. “Offer Ruby whatever you want, but if Candace so much as suspects you’re playing chess with her life, she’ll cut you down faster than any of us could. She’s not her father’s girl. She’s fire, and she burns what tries to control her.”

He’s right. I know it. I don’t want to cage her. Just want to keep her breathing. But sometimes love and control blur at the edges, and when it comes to her, every instinct in me goes feral.

I sigh, long and quiet. “Yeah. I’m pretty damn fond of my balls. I’ll come up with something smarter.”

James grunts again, satisfied.

“One more thing,” I say, standing but not moving from the table. “Club morale’s shot to hell. We need something to remind everyone we’re still here. Still breathing. Kyle, talk to the other prospects. Bring their ideas next meeting. If one of them’s solid, we’ll take a vote.”

Kyle straightens in his seat, his eyes flickering with hope. There’s a quiet pride in his posture, the kind that says this is the moment he’s been waiting for. Found family isn’t just blood and bullets. It’s giving them a reason to laugh in the dark.

He’s been grinding for that patch for nine months. He’s earned it. The others? They filter out one by one, boots thudding, voices echoing down the hallway, laughter starting to return. Kyle stands and goes with them, his steps lighter than before.

But I stay seated. And James does too. The room grows still again, all that noise gone the way smoke disappears into wind. He studies me, doesn’t push. Just waits.

“What’s weighing on you, son?” he asks finally.

I watch him for a long beat. My throat works around words that feel fossilized inside me. Ancient. Sharp-edged.

“Did Donovan have anything to do with my brother and sister disappearing?”

James doesn’t answer right away. His eyes darken, drifting toward the far wall, trying to stare through it. The past might as well be etched there in blood and regret. A storm builds behind his expression. He turns away.

I don’t rush him. I let the silence stretch, tight and aching. The air gets heavier, harder to swallow. When he finally speaks, the words come quiet. Steady.

“I don’t know everything. But yes. I believe he did.”

The floor tilts. It might as well crack beneath me.

My blood runs ice cold, then hot again. Truth is a blade.

And I just took it straight to the gut. I run a hand through my beard, fingers catching against the roughness, hoping pain will ground me.

Trying to settle the sickness curling in my gut.

Something hard lodges behind my ribs. A scream that never got to be born.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

James leans forward, resting his arms on the table, setting the truth down the way someone might finally release a burden.

“Cornelius did everything he could. He worked with Connor. Tried to clean the rot out without dragging the club through the fire. He wanted the people to know we weren’t Donovan’s dogs. We were their shield.”

I was just a patch back then. Just a kid clawing to survive. Never thought I’d lead. Never thought I’d want to. Never thought the ghosts I buried would start whispering again.

“Did Cornelius die trying to get them back?” My voice is low, scraped raw.

James doesn’t flinch. Just a pause. A breath.

“Yes,” he says softly. “He did.”

It hits me the way a blade slips between the ribs—silent and sharp. I close my eyes for a moment. Let it settle. Let it sting. Because now I know. And this doesn’t end with grief.

This ends with reckoning.