Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Jade
The cabin is buried deep in the woods and while I expected it to smell like some old, abandoned building in the middle of the forest, to my surprise it’s quite luxurious and very clean.
We arrived a few hours ago and the sky has gone completely black, the only light in the living room coming from the fire I built in the fireplace and the designer floor lamp in the corner of the living room not far from the window.
Malachi hasn’t moved since we got here. He just stands by the window, staring out into the absolute dark, a glass of whiskey in his left hand, the ice melting, completely untouched.
I sit on the edge of the leather sofa wrapped up in a warm blanket, as I watch the rigid line of his back and the tense cut of his shoulders under his dark shirt.
“You know we can talk about it,” my voice cuts through the quiet crackle of the burning fireplace.
He doesn’t turn around as he responds. “Talk about what.”
“Tell me what they did to you…”
“It’s a long story, Jade.”
“I have all the time in the world,” I insist, refusing to back off.
Malachi takes a slow breath, still not looking at his whiskey, but the ice clinking against the glass as he finally turns to face me. The shadows in the room carve deep lines into his face, making him look exhausted.
“Two years ago, right after he killed my father, Ronan Devlin set up a meeting on the south docks,” Malachi starts, his voice flat, completely stripped of any human emotion.
He walks over to the heavy wooden coffee table and sets his glass down. “Yes,” he nods, continuing. “It was supposed to be an opportunity to negotiate peace between our families, and as the newly assigned head of the family, Zeke was supposed to go.”
“But he sent you in his place.” Finally all the pieces begin to fit together and it clicks. Now can understand why Ezekiel’s face turns pale every time someone mentions the Devlins.
Malachi nods. “We were all feeling vulnerable after both of our parents had been recently killed at the time, and we couldn’t afford putting Zeke’s life in danger.”
“If he went down, the Kavanaghs would have been screwed,” I say.
“Exactly,” he confirmed. “We wouldn’t had even lasted a week. And we didn’t trust Ronan because he had already betrayed our father. The two of them were very close friends and allies before Ronan decided to stab him in the back.”
“So wait,” I say, trying to piece together the puzzle. “You’re telling me that Nolan and you kinda grew up together? Were you friends?”
“Friendly,” he responds. “You know how these things work with families like ours.”
I nod, knowing exactly what he means. I had friends like that myself growing up, those I was forced to be close with because Papà was a close ally of their fathers. Though in my family, we relied more on blood than on partnerships.
“I found out that the Devlins were moving extra muscle into the perimeter,” he continues, looking down at his hands. “So I told Zeke to stay at the Eden and I took his car and went to the docks in his place.”
My stomach drops. “It was an ambush.”
“Yes, they wanted to cut off the head of the snake, but they got me instead,” Malachi finally looks up, meeting my gaze. “They dragged me away and locked me up, beating me senseless until I forgot my own name.”
I look at his wrists, remembering the thick, faded white scars I felt under my fingers when we were lying in bed the other night.
“Did you talk?” I ask quietly.
“No,” Malachi’s jaw tightens, a flash of pride beaming in his green eyes. “Aside from telling them pretty graphically everything that they can shove in their ass, I didn’t give them a single goddamn syllable.”
“Of course you didn’t,” I give him a small smile, my hand reaching forward and landing on top of his.
He looks down at my hand and then back into my eyes as he continues. “Zeke finally found the place. He kicked the door in, put a bullet into the guard that was keeping an eye on me and took me out of there.”
“You’ve got such a big heart, Mal.” A sigh escapes as I gently caress his hand.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the people I love,” he says, his voice dropping low. “I knew there was a risk, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat if that meant my family would remains safe and alive.”
I stand up from the sofa. “That’s why you have to be the one holding the leash and why you need to control every room you walk into… Because the one time you didn’t, you were chained to a wall.”
Malachi stares at me, his eyes narrowing. “Control is the only reason I survived that room, Jade. It’s the only reason I’m breathing right now.”
“I know, but survival isn’t the same as living, Mal,” I fire back, refusing to back down. “I understand the trauma and I have huge respect for what you did for your family. But please don’t try to lock me in because of it…”
He goes completely still, the sudden silence in the cabin almost deafening.
He studies my face as if he’s expecting me to fight him or to pull away, but instead, I reach out grabbing the hem of his dark shirt and pulling it up over his head.
After tossing his shirt onto the floor, I press my hands flat against his bare chest, feeling the fast thud of his heart against my palms. His skin is burning hot, sending a bolt of heat between my legs.
“Bedroom,” I tell him. “Now.”
A part of me expects him to argue or to do something unpredictable like he always does. But he doesn’t. Malachi gets up and follows me into the small, dark bedroom at the back of the cabin.
I push him down by his shoulders until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed, forcing him to sit down.
He watches me, his green eyes dark and hyper-focused, tracking my hands as I reach for the hem of my shirt.
I can see the strong urge in his shoulders, the instinct to reach out, grab my hips, and drag me down to the mattress where he dictates the terms.
“Lie back,” I say, my voice dead quiet in the cold room but he doesn’t move.
His jaw locks so hard the muscle ticks beneath his skin. But he exhales, a harsh breath through his nose, and forces his shoulders back until he lies flat against the duvet.
I strip my clothes off in the freezing air of the cabin, letting the clothes drop to the floorboards, before I crawl onto the bed.
His eyes are wide with expectation as he watches me slide a knee on either side of his hips.
The second my bare skin brushes his, his hands snap up, his strong fingers wrapping around my waist, a pure, lightning-fast reflex to anchor me and take the reins.
I grab his wrists, pushing his arms back, pressing his hands flat against the mattress on either side of his head. “Don't touch me. Let me do everything.”
Letting anyone pin his hands goes against every survival instinct he has left in his blood and I can see the fight in his eyes.
He swallows hard, his large fingers curling into the fabric of the quilt, gripping the material so hard his knuckles turn bone-white, but he forces his hands to stay open and stays down.
I lift my hips and lower myself on his dick, taking it agonizingly slow. The friction is a heavy, burning ache that settles deep in my stomach, making my head spin instantly.
Malachi continues to breathe heavily, a rough sound scarping out of his chest as his hips buck upward in a desperate attempt to meet me, attempting to be the one who sets the rhythm. But I drop my hands onto his collarbones, using all my weight to force him back down flat.
“I said stay still,” I whisper, leaning in until my hair falls across his face.
He grits his teeth, his eyes burning with desire for control but he manages to remain put.
I continue to ride him slowly, drawing out every millimeter while my inner walls adjust to his size.
Watching the iron-clad control bleed right out of his face sets my blood on fire and I almost explode into an orgasm.
His eyes are blown wide, the pupils swallowing the green, tracking every single breath I take as he lets me dictate the depth.
I lean down, pressing my mouth to the tense line of his jaw, tasting the salt and sweat on his skin. Once I’m comfortable enough and fully relaxed with him inside of me, I speed up, letting my hips snap down harder, chasing my own pleasure and taking exactly what I want from him.
But I push the boundary a little too hard and I watch how Malachi’s submission snaps entirely as his hands tear free and he grabs my hips with bruising, unforgiving force causing the room to spin.
Before I can even pull a breath into my lungs, my back slams hard into the mattress and his hips snap forward as he buries himself so deep inside of me, my breath punches out in a short gasp.
There is no slow buildup anymore. He strips away every ounce of the control I just had in three hard, driving thrusts.
“Look at me,” he demands, the mattress dipping heavily under his weight.
My eyes snap open, meeting his as he is looming over me, his broad shoulders blocking out the dim light from the living room, trapping me completely in his shadow.
He shifts his grip, letting the heavy, warm weight of his palm press into my skin, his thumb resting dead center over my racing pulse.
“Tell me who this belongs to,” he says, dragging his hips back and forth again, hitting an angle so sharp it makes my back arch off the mattress.
“You,” I gasp, my nails digging blindly into the back of his hand. “You…”
“Say it right,” he stops moving completely, a devilish look in his eyes as he holds himself perfectly still, leaving me suspended, and my body physically aching for the friction.
“I’m yours,” I sob, the defiance completely bleeding out of my voice. “I’m all yours, Mal…”
He grins, his lips finding mine for a passionate kiss as the heavy wooden bedframe slams loudly against the cabin wall in a rhythm that completely shatters the dead quiet of the woods.
Every time my muscles pull tight, every time I am a fraction of a second away from breaking, he deliberately shifts his angle.
He alters the depth just enough to deny me the release, enjoying as the frustration tears through me, his green eyes locked dead on my face, dismantling every ounce of the defiance I threw at him in the living room.
I desperately try to move my hips and regain at least a little control, desperate for more, but his grip on my hips is absolute iron, leaving me trapped under his weight.
“Please,” the word breaks in half, completely stripped of whatever pride I brought into this room. “Malachi, please.”
“Was that so hard?” He whispers into my ear, his breath hot. “Good girl.”
Malachi drags his hips back one last time and drives forward, burying himself as deep as he can go, and he stays there, pinning me flat to the mattress, causing the tension to completely snap.
A breathless scream tears out of my throat, echoing off the bare wooden walls of the cabin as the release hits me like a physical blow.
The pleasure is so overwhelming it blinds me, my nails digging deep, bloody half-moons into the heavy muscle of his shoulders as my body completely unravels beneath him.
Malachi doesn't last a second longer, his face buried in the crook of my neck as he collapses.
All of him drops over me, but I don't try to push him off.
Instead, I wrap my arms tight around his back, pulling him even closer as my fingertips trace the hot, sweat-slicked skin of his back, slowly trailing down his arms until I reach his wrists.
My fingers find the thick, uneven ridges of scar tissue left behind by the chains and I get carried away, running my thumb over the raised lines in the dark, listening as his heavy breathing slows down.
If there’s anything I learned tonight it’s that Malachi Kavanagh loves me. He might not do confessions the old-fashioned way, but allowing me to lead tonight, even briefly, revealed more about his feeling than any words he has ever said at loud.
Malachi
I draw a thick black line through the address on the map spread across the cabin’s kitchen island.
Empty.
That makes four properties in three days. Nolan’s businesses have stopped operating entirely, while his legitimate fronts are dead quiet. And as if that isn’t enough, half of his men boarded buses out of New Orleans before Tuesday morning.
“The man is a ghost,” I say at loud to myself.
“Elijah just cleared the south docks. There’s absolutely nothing,” Zeke’s voice comes through the speaker of the burner phone resting in front of me. “Makes me wonder if his men ran, or if he is hiding them?”
“We know one thing for certain, he’s bleeding cash,” I say, leaning my weight against the counter. “He can’t afford to pay an army to sit on their hands. I suspect he sent the liabilities out of state and kept the shooters.”
“What do you think that means?”
“He’s probably pooling his capital for one big swing.”
“Then we can't wait for him to swing,” Zeke says.
“I agree,” I toss the marker down. “I want Levi to start paying visits to every supplier Nolan uses. They drop Devlin today, or we burn their trucks tomorrow. And Cain can take the port. I’ve got two of Nolan’s dock supervisors on payroll as of an hour ago.”
I spent the last forty-eight hours buying the loyalty Nolan couldn’t afford.
It’s simple math, Devlin’s soldiers are scared and broke.
If I offer them an envelope of cash and a guarantee they can live to see another day, in exchange they give me the exact shipping container numbers Nolan uses to move his money through the port.
“Cain has the port,” Zeke confirms.
“Good,” The call ends and I slide the burner across the counter.
The tension that has been gripping the base of my skull since the motel raid finally starts to ease. This is the type of game where I thrive and neither Nolan Devlin nor any of his men could possibly beat me at.
“All good?”
I look up at Jade who has been sitting on a wooden stool on the other side of the island. She has a mug of tea between her hands, but she hasn’t taken a sip in ten minutes.
She’s just watching me, making sure I don’t do anything that would backfire and end with me getting hurt. Which, knowing my own track record, I can’t blame her for worrying about.
“Looks like it,” I reply, but she narrows her eyes at me, her left eyebrow raising. “What?”
She looks down at the map, the scattered burner phones, the long lists of Devlin businesses crossed out in heavy ink, the look in her eyes curious.
“Nothing.” She shakes her head, her voice warm. “I’m just fascinated by all of this. How easy it is for you to cut his throat without even laying a finger on him.”
“Bullets are messy, Jade,” I say, walking around the island and stopping right behind her back. I wrap my arms around her waist, pulling her back flush against me. “Taking a man’s money is clean. Nolan is a dead man walking, he just hasn’t realized it yet.”
“Finish him,” she says.
“I will.”