Page 73 of Malachi (Outsiders MC #1)

Malachi

The sun’s starting to set, bleeding molten gold across the rooftop railings. It should be beautiful, should mean something. Instead, it settles heavy in my chest, the weight more ash than light.

The heat sticks to my skin, the kind that clings through sweat and memory. My shirt’s plastered to my back, heavy with the day’s humidity, but it’s the silence that itches more than the heat. That slow, suffocating silence that presses in when the ghosts are louder than the city.

Savannah buzzes below me, streetcars clanging, tourists laughing, jazz drifting from some open-air bar two blocks over, but I can’t hear any of it without feeling I’m five seconds from unraveling.

The city keeps moving, and I’m just... still.

Suspended between moments. Pacing the balcony, jaw tight, fingers twitching for something I can’t name.

We came here looking for ghosts. Thought maybe I’d get answers.

Maybe I’d find Amelia. My brother. A whisper of Cornelius.

A crack in the damn silence. But all we got was a masked ball of monsters pretending they don’t reek of blood.

Now it’s quiet. Too quiet. The kind of quiet that carries the taste of a lie.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, sharp and insistent. I snatch it out, half expecting it to bite. Coach Tompkins. I hesitate. Just for a second. The kind of pause that means more than I want to admit.

Then swipe to answer. “Yeah.”

“Jesus, Hayes,” he says, voice rough and jagged. “You answer the phone like you’re being held at gunpoint.”

I glance out over the railing, watching a seagull dive straight toward the water. “Not far off.”

“You sound like shit.”

“I feel worse.”

He snorts. “You always were a dramatic little shit.”

I don’t argue. He’s earned the right to call it how he sees it. Coach Tompkins is one of the few who’s been with me through every version of myself, before the patches, before the blood, before the name Malachi meant something outside of pain.

Silence stretches on the line. Not uncomfortable. Intentional. He’s calling for a reason.

“You still in Savannah?” he finally asks.

“Yeah.”

“You staying another night?”

I drag a hand down my face, jaw tight. “Probably. Why?”

“I got wind of something. Figured it might interest you. Shake some of that haunted house energy off.”

I lean my elbows on the railing, let the heat of the metal ground me. “Keep talking.”

“There’s a fight. Underground circuit. Tonight.”

That gets my attention. “Yeah?”

“Not your usual backyard meathead match. This is organized. Clean. High-stakes. Invite-only. Word is, it’s been running silent in Savannah for a while. You want in?”

I exhale through my nose, slow. “You know I don’t throw hands just to bleed anymore.”

“Yeah,” he says, and there’s no judgment in it. Just familiarity. “But I also know when your silence gets too loud, you start chewing on it with a jaw full of gunpowder. Sometimes it helps to hit something that won’t cry afterward.”

My knuckles twitch. He’s not wrong. The burn under my skin has teeth tonight. The kind sharpened by grief and adrenaline.

“But that’s not the part that made me call you,” he adds.

“It’s the guy who runs it.” I go still. “Heard of him a few times,” Coach Tompkins continues.

“No name. No face. Keeps to the shadows. But get this, he’s got women working the event.

Not just as eye candy. They run shit. Security. Coordination. All of it.”

My heart gives one slow, heavy thud.

Coach Tompkins doesn’t stop. “Some of ’em came outta bad scenes. Stuff no one wants to admit happens. But word is, he pulled ’em in. Gave ’em a place. Power.”

Something shifts in my chest. A door creaking open in the dark. Or a ghost brushing too close.

“You think he’s tied to the kind of people we’re after?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I’m not pretending to know what you’re walking into down there. But guys this twisted? Who build kingdoms under the floorboards and keep the lights low? They don’t do it for fun. They do it because there’s something they’re protecting. Or hiding.”

I stare down at the street below, where a couple is dancing barefoot in a puddle, spinning the way fools in love tend to do. The world feels tilted around them. They move untouched by the rot beneath the surface. I wonder what that feels like.

“Will he be there?” I ask.

“Every time,” Coach Tompkins says. “Doesn’t fight. Just watches. Always waiting.”

My pulse kicks up. Something in me says go. Go and bleed. Go and see. Go and listen for the echoes of the people I’ve lost.

I close my eyes for a second, letting the weight of the city press into my skin. Candace is inside, probably pretending to be asleep, probably just as hollowed out as I am. We came here for answers. Maybe this is the closest thing we’ll get.

“Text me the address,” I murmur.

“You sure?”

I stare out at the city. The ghosts. All the wreckage. The way her voice said please last night like she didn’t think she was worth saving.

“I got a few things left to bleed out.”

The air hits with the force of a gut punch the second I step inside.

Warm, wet, metallic. It’s blood, smoke, and breath held too long.

The kind of heat that sticks to my ribs and sinks into my pores.

It isn’t just the scent, it’s the vibration of the place.

Bass thrums low through the concrete floor, the crowd packed in shoulder to shoulder, pulse jumping in time with every scream and slam against the cage.

This isn’t chaos, it’s a ritual. Violence with rhythm. Hunger sharpened by boundaries. A system disguised as savagery, every scream and strike following its own dark logic.

Coach Tompkins meets us at the back entrance, arms crossed over his barrel chest, eyes scanning the shadows that threaten to bite.

“Drove down just for this,” he mutters, then looks me over the way a man studies a storm. “Heard the guy running this place doesn’t talk. Doesn’t need to. Girls work for him. Ring’s clean. Payout’s fat. But there’s a weight to it. This shit means something.”

He doesn’t say more. Just claps a rough hand to my shoulder and moves to find his spot.

Candace barely spoke on the way over. But now, standing just past the velvet rope, she resembles a woman trying not to fall apart. A drink in her hand she hasn’t touched. Fingers clenched white around the glass. Her eyes never leave me.

I catch her flinch when the first fighter hits the mat. See the tension ripple up her spine. She doesn’t want me to do this. But she doesn’t ask me not to. She knows I need it. Need to feel something.

My knuckles flex as I step into the cage. No gloves. No frills. Just flesh, sweat, and scars under sharp fluorescent light. Black shorts slung low on my hips. Tattoos slick with the promise of war.

The crowd roars, a guttural chant rising through the exposed rafters and steel beams. I catch snatches of whiskey breath, cheap cologne, perfume that burns with sugar fire. Heat presses in from every side.

Then I look up and I see him. The man from the auction.

No mask this time, but I know it’s him. He stands across the ring floor, leaning casually against a column near the VIP balcony.

Black button-down shirt, sleeves rolled just enough to show the ink climbing his forearms. Hair swept back, jawline carved in stone.

Still. Observing. Detached in a way that makes him feel larger than the room itself.

Gravity bends in his direction and everything else shifts to follow. One of the women beside him leans in to whisper something. He nods once, slowly, eyes never leaving me.

My pulse stutters, then slams hard in my chest. He’s not just watching. He’s measuring.

When the bell rings, everything else drops away. I don’t remember moving—I just am. A blur of muscle and breath. My opponent swings wide and fast, carrying something to prove. He’s taller. Heavier. Flashy. Doesn’t matter.

When I duck the first punch, I drive my fist straight into his ribs. Feel the crack beneath the skin. He wheezes, stumbles, then grins in a way that says he wanted it. Good. So do I.

I fight to chase shadows. Every hit a question I can’t stop asking.

Every dodge a scream I haven’t let out. My fists move in a familiar rhythm.

My feet are a pattern on the mat. I don’t hear the crowd anymore.

Just the rush of blood in my ears. The smack of flesh.

The hiss of air. My heart pounding in its cage.

I can feel Candace’s eyes on me. Always her.

My opponent comes at me wild and reckless now, bleeding from his mouth, rage in his fists. I wait. One breath. Two. Then I drop him with an uppercut that echoes loud enough to stop hearts. He hits the floor. Hard. The crowd explodes. But I don’t lift my hands. Don’t smile.

Just stand there, blood dripping from my knuckles, chest heaving, heat pulsing through me with the force of a second heartbeat.

I turn and the first thing I see is Candace. Wide eyes. Lips parted. Frozen between running toward me or screaming for me to stop. Her grip on the rope is white-knuckled, her drink forgotten.

Behind her is him. Still in place. Still unmoved.

The man doesn’t clap. Doesn’t flinch. Just watches.

Then he tilts his head a fraction, answering something I never asked out loud.

A chill rolls over my skin despite the heat.

I feel it in my teeth, in the hollow behind my ribs.

That man knows me. He turns. Walks through a side door flanked by guards.

One of the women follows, her heels striking the floor with sharp finality. Gone.

I step out of the ring the way someone wakes from a dream left unfinished. My skin still buzzes, but not from the fight. Not from adrenaline. From him. From whatever the hell that was. He has answers and I’m going to get them.