Page 41 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Candace

The reason I ever wanted to tend bar was simple.

Money. Not just the hourly, but the tips.

The drunker the men, the more they talked, and the more they tipped.

Liquor loosened their tongues and their wallets, blurring the line between generosity and guilt.

I learned how to lean into that early. But lately… it feels different.

Maybe it’s because, for once, I’m not looking over my shoulder wondering if my dad’s gonna ruin everything I’ve clawed together.

Maybe it’s because Malachi handed me that stack of cash without hesitation, as though I meant something.

I tried to refuse it. Swore I wouldn’t take it.

But he can be relentless in the way gravity is.

You don’t realize you’re falling until your feet are no longer on the ground.

My fingers drift to the rag I’ve been clutching too long, soaked through and cold now.

I grip it tighter, turning it into a rhythm I don’t even realize I’m tapping—slow, steady, just enough to ground the static building in my chest. The same kind of beat I hum sometimes when no one’s listening.

A wordless melody ghosts through my mind; one I started scribbling a week ago on the back of a bar napkin.

I tucked it into my jacket, then forgot it was there.

But now the lyrics try to come back, rising the way breath moves through water. I swallow them down.

It’s slow tonight. Early evening on a Friday, the kind of lull that happens before the real crowd shows up.

Ruby’s perched on the barstool closest to the service station, sipping soda through a swirly straw like it’s whiskey, offering lazy commentary on everything and nothing.

Across the room, the guys are gathered in low conversation, half-shadowed, half-lit by the dim glow of the hanging lights.

They’re planning something. Hunting my father. Hunting Donovan.

My rag circles the same spot on the counter over and over, but I can’t stop watching them.

Malachi is angled toward me. Every time I look up, he’s already watching.

There’s heat in his gaze. Not the kind that burns, but the kind that melts.

It makes my stomach twist in ways I’m not ready to unpack.

And the worst part is? I think he knows.

Then the door slams open.

Chairs scrape back. Feet hit the floor. Nash is the first to move, hand already on the weapon at his hip.

A second later Darla appears.

She stumbles inside with legs that don’t seem to belong to her, mascara streaked, lip split, a black dress hanging in rags off her frame. A mask dangles from her wrist, a sick joke in satin and glitter.

Ruby’s up in an instant, darting to her as powerfully as a cannonball. I shove past the bar and drop to my knees.

“Darla,” I breathe, arms already wrapping around her trembling body. She smells of champagne, sweat, and smoke. A twisted fairytale gone wrong. Her face is a canvas of pain, one eye swelling shut, the other brimming with tears.

The air changes. Shifts. Every molecule in the room seems to hold its breath.

East sinks to the floor beside us, gentling her hair back from her face with surprising tenderness. His voice, when it comes, is iron wrapped in velvet. “What happened, baby?”

She opens her mouth. A sob cracks through instead.

Frankie appears from the hallway, tattoo gun still buzzing softly in her hand.

One of the other prospects must’ve asked her to look at a faded piece or correct a bad line.

Something easy enough to pause. Her eyes land on Darla and everything stills.

She disappears for a second before coming out with her hands free.

In two strides, Frankie’s on the floor too, arms looping around Darla, holding her close as though she could shield her from the world. “Talk to me, D,” she whispers. “What the hell happened?”

Darla hiccups, barely audible. “My dad.”

The whole room leans in.

“He said we were going to some party. I was excited. He never—he never takes me anywhere anymore. I thought…” Her voice breaks.

She gathers herself. “But I overheard him talking to Trent. That guy he wants me to marry.” Her eyes flit to Ruby and me.

“It wasn’t a party. It was an auction. He told Trent to buy me.

Said I was being difficult, refusing to marry him, so he’d fix it so I couldn’t say no. ”

Her voice cracks on the last word. The sob that follows rips through the room, loud and sudden, crashing into the silence as loud as thunder. I cover my mouth with my hands, kneeling back on my heels.

Frankie pulls her tighter, whispering something I can’t hear.

Darla shudders in her arms, then draws back, swiping at her eyes. She winces when her fingers graze the bruise. “Guess I won’t be singing at karaoke night,” she tries to joke, but it falls flat and no one laughs.

East stands, cradling her like she’s made of glass and dynamite all at once. “Come on, sugar. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Ruby shrugs off her jacket and lays it over Darla’s torn dress with a kind of gentleness I’ve never seen from her before.

“Ruby,” I murmur, “watch the bar?”

She nods without looking away.

I trail after East and Malachi, who’s a quiet storm ahead of me, shoulders tight and steps sharp, silent but tightly coiled. We climb the stairs, the weight of the club’s fury pressing against our backs. The scent of whiskey and leather clings to the walls. Too familiar, too suffocating.

Inside the room, East settles Darla gently into the chair, careful not to jostle her and risk making her fall apart. I move on instinct, digging through drawers until I find a pair of leggings and a T-shirt.

“Want to shower?” I ask.

She nods.

I help her into the bathroom, closing the door behind us. When she pulls what’s left of the dress off, my heart stutters. A dark bruise blooms along her ribs.

“Darla… did he kick you?”

She tries to hold it in, but a sob shudders out of her. She nods. “I heard them talking. I ran. Trent caught up with me.” Her voice drops to a broken whisper. “He beat the shit out of me. I don’t—I don’t know how to fight like you do.”

“I’ll teach you,” I say, my voice thick. “I will. But I’m just glad you got away.”

She gives a wet, bitter laugh. “I grabbed his gun and shot his dick off.”

My eyes widen. “You what?”

A ghost of a smirk twitches across her face. “Yeah. Pretty sure he won’t be using it again. Ever.” She laughs, but it’s sharp and trembling. Then it crumbles. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she whispers.

“You don’t have to figure that out tonight. Just shower, okay? We’ll deal with the rest later. The Outsiders take care of their own.” I squeeze her hand gently. “And you’re one of us.”

She looks up at me, eyes soft. “Us, huh? About time you admitted it.”

I smile faintly. “Yeah. No point in pretending anymore.”

She turns toward the water, and I back out, leaving the door cracked in case she needs me.

Outside, East is pacing. Malachi leans against the wall, tension simmering beneath the surface, a volcano waiting to erupt. His eyes flick to mine, searching. And I know. This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.

The bar emptied out earlier than usual. Too quiet.

Too tense. Malachi shut it down before the clock demanded it, locking the door with more force than necessary.

The air felt too heavy for small talk. Whatever plan the guys were murmuring about in the corner didn’t make it to me, just pieces.

East took Darla to his place so she’d have a safe spot to crash while the rest of us tried to make sense of what the hell we’d uncovered.

Ruby hadn’t said much, just lit a cigarette with shaking fingers and paced as if one wrong word might set her off.

Her father and Darla’s moved in the same rotten circles, but the mayor?

Selling his own blood as property? There was rage under her silence; an inferno she hadn’t figured out how to aim yet.

Now it’s just Malachi and me.

We’re in our room, but it doesn’t feel like a sanctuary.

Not tonight. The walls feel thinner. My back presses into the headboard, knees pulled tight to my chest. Malachi’s in the chair across from me, hunched forward, elbows on his thighs, braced in a way that makes it seem he’s trying to hold himself together with sheer tension.

The silence between us crackles. His fingers flex, then still. Then finally, he breathes. Long and slow. The kind of breath you take before you bleed.

“I think all of this ties back to Donovan,” he says, voice low, weighted. “Been trying to piece it together for years.”

I don’t speak. Just wait. He doesn’t look at me when he continues.

“My dad was hooked on the drugs Donovan flooded this town with. Every day, he got worse. One night, I came home and found Matt, my older brother, dead. And my mom... my mom screaming under him while he beat her. I was too late to save her, but it didn’t stop me from…”

His words break. He doesn’t need to finish. I already know.

My throat constricts, nails digging into my thigh through the blanket. The edges of the room blur, the air bending and warping until everything feels submerged.

“I killed him,” he says, finally meeting my eyes. “I didn’t have a choice. Jared and Amelia? They were just kids. I had to get them out.”

I swallow the lump rising in my throat. “Where are they now?”

Malachi leans back, eyes going distant. Haunted.

“Jared... he couldn’t stay clean. He hated what the drugs did to people, but they still owned him.

He tried to break free more times than I can count, but the pull was stronger.

One night he called me rambling, terrified.

Said they already had Amelia. That he was next. I didn’t know who they were.”

His jaw tics.

“He told me where he was. I rode faster than I ever have in my life. But by the time I got there... he was gone. And Cornelius. He was on the ground, bleeding out.”

I don’t move. Can’t.

His words hang in the air, thick and choking, smoke without fire, impossible to wave away. I try to blink, but my eyes burn. He’s still talking, or maybe he stopped. I can’t tell. My heart’s beating too loud. Too slow. Too broken.

I want to say something. Anything. But all I can do is stare at him, seeing something I hadn’t seen before. Maybe I am.

All this time I thought I had him figured out; just another hard man in a harder world. A cold-eyed brute who only knew how to fight and take. But now… Now I see the cracks.

I see a boy kneeling over his mother’s bloodied body. A boy who became a killer to save what little family he had left. A boy who lost everything and still tried to hold on to hope with blood on his hands.

Here I am, clinging to my own pain, treating it as armor, when his should have drowned him. He didn’t turn to stone. I did.

I wrap my arms tighter around my legs, suddenly ashamed of every sharp word I’ve thrown at him. Every glare. Every assumption.

I didn’t know.

But now I do. It hurts in a place I’ve kept locked up so long I forgot what it meant to feel anything real.

I don’t move at first. Just sit there, curled up tight the way I always do. But something in me cracks. Quiet and final.

I can’t keep holding on to this edge, not with him. Not tonight.

His story clings to the walls, bleeding into the silence between us.

And I see him—really see him. Not just the scars or the temper or the reputation.

I see the pain he never speaks out loud.

The boy who did the unthinkable to protect the ones he loved.

The man still trying to make sense of everything he lost.

I can’t stay on my side of the room anymore. So I let my legs slip down from my chest and push off the bed, barefoot, careful. He doesn’t look up right away, maybe thinking I’ll leave. Maybe hoping I won’t.

But I don’t stop until I’m in front of him.

He finally lifts his head, and the moment our eyes meet, something inside me just… gives.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, barely louder than breath. “For all the ways I made you feel like you didn’t deserve to be seen.”

His eyes flicker, jaw tightening, unsure how to hold kindness. He seems to have forgotten what it feels like.

So I kneel in front of him, hands trembling as I reach for his. I expect him to pull back, but he doesn’t. His fingers curl slowly around mine, tentative and aching, as though it’s the first time he’s been touched without demand or violence in a long, long time.

“I don’t want to be hard with you anymore,” I admit, voice breaking. “I’m tired of fighting everything. Especially you.”

His shoulders drop, the weight lifting from his chest in a way he didn’t realize he’d been carrying.

When he leans forward so his forehead rests gently against mine, I close my eyes and let him.

No sharp edges. No armor. Just us, breathing the same heavy air.

For the first time in what feels like forever… I’m not holding back.