22. Malachi
MALACHI
With Ophelia taking her bath, I don’t have anything else to do but explore the safehouse.
Cain and Roman have already checked it out, but I haven’t had the chance yet.
Though I trust they know it’s safe, I still want to assess the place for myself.
If something happens, like we’re attacked, then I want to know the fastest and easiest way to get Ophelia out of here.
I think back to the facility we took her from and try to piece together the actions they’re likely to be taking right now.
I assume they’ll let her father know she’s gone.
Her father is most likely going to assume it’s the Prophet and his people who’d snatched her, but he won’t think that for long.
That place had CCTV, and neither Roman nor Cain covered their faces when they entered.
If they’d worn their masks, they would never have been able to just walk right in like they did.
But it means the moment her dad sees the security footage, he’s going to recognize them from when we visited him at the house. He’ll know right away that we have her.
Is that going to make him feel better or worse? I’d hope he’d prefer Ophelia to be with us than the Prophet, but who the fuck knows how that man’s mind works. He’s also going to question how we found out where she was.
I hope he doesn’t look to Ophelia’s mother.
Mrs. Sinclair took a risk when she passed that note to Cain. If her husband finds out, who knows what kind of actions he’ll take against her. He’ll see it as a betrayal, and men in our world don’t take betrayal kindly. He’ll punish her for it.
He’ll want to punish us, too, but it might make a difference when he learns Ophelia was almost raped in the place he sent her to.
Will it give him pause when he finds out we were the ones who stopped it?
If he gives us the chance to speak before he shoots us, I’ll ask him to picture what would have happened to his daughter if we hadn’t got there in time.
I think to what Roman did to the man who tried to hurt Ophelia. Will that give her father a reason to consider us people who shouldn’t be messed with? Will it make him think his daughter is safer with us, or in more danger?
My head is a whirlwind of thoughts as I wander from room to room. I note how each of the doors and windows, while seemingly normal at first glance, have metal shutters that will be triggered upon an intrusion.
I chuckle to myself. What the fuck kind of work does Cain’s fight club friend do to need a setup like this other than running that club?
I reach the rear of the house and open another door.
This room is dark, so I pat my hand against the wall, feeling around until I find a switch and turn on a light.
To my surprise, I find myself in a soundproof room.
For a moment, I think it’s a panic room, but then I note the objects hung on the walls and realize I’m in a recording studio.
“Well, fuck me,” I say in amazement, stepping deeper into the room. I drag my hand through my hair and turn in a circle.
I’m still no wiser as to what business Cain’s friend is in, but I find I have a newfound respect for him.
I glance around, trying to spot any cameras, but there are none in here—at least none that are obvious.
Electric guitars are clearly the star of the show, hung on the walls as though they’re works of art, but an acoustic guitar is on a stand in the corner.
I go over and pick it up, marveling at the quality.
With the weight of the instrument in my hands, I finally feel calmer.
The past twenty-four hours have been crazy, but we’re safe now.
Our girl is upstairs, taking a bath, and I have a guitar in my hand.
For the moment, I can’t want for anything else…
Except for one thing—for Ophelia to have hugged me back.
I take a seat on a stool and settle the guitar on my lap.
I know now that Ophelia was traumatized, not only by what Roman did, but by the man who tried to rape her.
Had my touch reminded her of him? I hate that possibility.
Will she think of him every time one of us is intimate with her?
My fingers tighten around the neck of the instrument, and I force myself to loosen my grip. I don’t want to damage it.
It’s not easy to control my emotions when it comes to her.
I’m frightened for Ophelia, even now we’ve gotten her back.
I hated seeing her drugged once again. It reminds me so much of how my mom used to be when I was a kid—the glazed eyes, the distant half-smile, the sense that it was impossible to get through to her.
My mom used to drink and pop pills because it was her escape.
She’d been forced to marry my father, who was a violent man, at a young age, and had given birth to me not long after.
She’d been younger than Ophelia is now when she’d become a mother.
Of course, I hadn’t understood that when I was growing up.
She’d just been my mom, and all I’d known was that she was never there for me.
I lost count of the number of times I’d cleaned her vomit from the floor, and—as I’d gotten older and bigger—picked her up and carried her to the couch or to bed.
I’d always wanted to hide the worst of it from my father, not wanting him to see her like that.
If he did, he’d get even angrier, then she would drink more or take more pills.
It was an unforgiving cycle, and one I’d been caught in the middle of.
She had another side, though, as most addicts do, a fun and charming one.
When she bestowed her full attention on you, it was like the sun coming out from a cloud, and you were bathed in warmth.
She loved music, and some of my happiest memories were her picking a vinyl to place on the record player.
It was almost a ritual, how she did it. First cleaning the stylus with a little brush, then wiping the record on the turntable with a large velvet brush.
It was fucking conflicting how much I loved her in those moments, and it made me want to protect her, even when she was messed up.
It never lasted, though.
One time, I came home to discover she’d fallen and had somehow smashed my father’s beloved flat screen television on the way down.
I’d taken the blame for it, lying and telling him that I’d been playing with my baseball indoors.
My uncle had been with him at the time—or at least a man he insisted I call ‘uncle,’ though I don’t believe we were blood related—and they’d held me down and beaten me so badly they’d broken my jaw and several ribs.
I was ten years old.
I’m a disappointment to my father—I know I am.
He hates everything about me. The way I dress, the music I play, and now he’ll hate the woman I love.
I’m sure of it, because she’s fragile, too, and she has issues of her own.
He’ll say I’m only interested in her because of her problems, that I have mommy issues, or some shit like that.
I don’t buy that, but it does worry me that Ophelia might be vulnerable to the same addictions as mom, especially if she doesn’t deal with everything she’s been through properly.
It’s easy to escape into alcohol and drugs, especially if it’s a slow descent, but it’s a hell of a lot harder to find yourself again.
I strum a couple more chords on the guitar and tune the strings. No one has played this for some time. I wonder how often Cain’s friend uses this place. Is he the musician, or did he build this room for someone else?
The door cracks open, and I look up.
To my surprise, Ophelia is in the open doorway.
She’s found a change of clothes from somewhere—a white t-shirt and a pair of navy-blue shorts, both loose on her but better than the outfit from the facility.
Her cheeks have some color back to them, perhaps from the heat of the bath, and the ends of her hair are damp.
She hasn’t washed it, but I guess it must have trailed in the water as she’d soaked herself.
“Hi.” She seems shy, lingering in the doorway.
I offer her a gentle smile. “Are you feeling better?”
I go to set the guitar down, but she shakes her head.
“Don’t stop,” she says. “I want to hear you play.”
I can’t help but widen my smile. “You do?”
She enters the room fully, takes a seat in the leather chair in the corner, and tucks her feet up under her. “Of course. I love your voice.”
Her praise warms me, and I grin. I take a few more minutes to finish tuning the guitar, then pluck at the strings until the air fills with music. I start to sing…
“Is she real or an apparition,
Can I trust in my own vision,
She breathed new life into my soul,
I’m consumed with making her whole…”
I keep going, risking tiny glances up at her to judge how my playing is affecting her. Her eyes are shiny, but a smile touches the corners of her lips. It’s all I want—just to see her smile again.
I finish playing and set down the guitar.
Ophelia bursts into applause. “I love it, but I don’t recognize it.” She gives her head a tiny shake. “Not that I should be surprised, considering I hardly know anything popular.”
“You wouldn’t recognize it.” My cheeks warm, and I glance away. “I wrote it. I wrote it for you.”
I risk looking at her again, holding her gaze this time.
Our eyes lock. There’s such a connection between us, our eye contact speaking more than words.
She pushes herself out of the chair and slowly crosses the room toward me.
When she reaches me, she wraps her arms around my neck and straddles my hips, seating herself on my lap.
The stool is precarious, so she keeps her toes on the floor, and I grab the backs of her thighs to hold her in place.
She presses her forehead to mine, and her eyes slip shut. “I loved it, Malachi.”
“I love you , baby.”
The words slip out before I even think them through.
The moment I hear myself say it, it’s like a punch to my chest. Adrenaline shoots through me, and my heart kickstarts.
Fuck. I hadn’t meant for that to slip out.
It’s too soon. She’s been through so much, and now I’ve probably just fucked it up again.
How could she possibly love someone like me?
She’s so beautiful, so ethereal, and I’m like some reject from a 90s emo band.
Ophelia lifts her forehead from mine. She stares at me, her mismatched eyes wide. “Say that again,” she demands.
Do I dare?
I force myself to be strong and tell her because it’s the truth.
“I love you.”
Her voice is a whisper. “How can you love me? I’m scarred and damaged, and I hear another man in my head.”
I push a stray strand of hair from her face. “Baby, we’re all scarred and damaged. That’s how we know how to heal each other’s wounds.”
A tear slips down her cheek, and I brush it away with my thumb.
“I love you, too, Malachi.”
My heart swells to twice its size. “And Roman and Cain, too.” It isn’t a question. If she feels this way about me, I know she’ll feel the same way about them.
She molds her lips softly to mine before pulling back. “Yes, but let me tell them in my own time, okay? It’s important.”
“Anything you want.” I cup her cheek and kiss her again, relishing the taste, feel, and scent of her.
I wouldn’t dream of ruining this moment for either of my two best friends.
Her lips are soft against mine, and I pull her closer.
Our tongues tangle and, because of how she’s straddling me, my growing erection jams against her pussy.
I know what she’s gone through, and I don’t want to push her, but God, I want her so much.
She kisses me harder and grinds herself onto me.
It seems I’m not the only needy one here.
My hands move from the backs of her thighs to her ass, and I slip them underneath the waistband of the oversized shorts to cup her bare skin.
She’s not wearing any panties. Our breathing grows more frantic, and she shows no signs of this not being what she wants.
It’s definitely what I want. I need to be inside her.
I want to use my body to wash away anything bad that’s ever happened to her.
She loves me, I think. She loves us.
The four of us are meant to be.
I try not to give thought to all the things that stand in our way—Ophelia’s father, our families, the Prophet, all our combined trauma. We will figure out a way through this, no matter what. All that counts is that we’re together.