Chapter 45
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Jade
The ceilings in Malachi’s city house are twelve feet high.
The floors are polished dark wood, and the bed I am currently stuck in is massive.
It is a beautiful, luxurious house. There is even a cook downstairs who makes three meals a day plus snacks, a butler who manages the deliveries, and maids who move quietly through the halls.
But none of the staff are actually allowed to take care of me. Malachi has this obsession with being the one who handles all of it.
I shift against the heavy pillows. A sharp, burning pain spreads along my waist where the stitches hold the bullet wound closed.
I bite down the inside of my cheek hoping that if I pretend it doesn’t hurt, the pain will somehow magically go away, and look toward the open double doors on the right side of the bedroom.
The adjoining room is a formal sitting area. Or, it used to be. Two days ago, Malachi had his men drag a massive oak desk into the center of the rug. He turned the space into his command center. I watch him working, a burner phone pressed to his ear, staring at a stack of printed security logs.
He hasn’t left the second floor since the ambulance dropped me here, and it’s starting to get a little annoying how much he babies me and treats me like a child.
Though, on the other hand, him doing this melts my heart entirely.
It’s hard to believe that in all these years, this is the first time I actually have someone who cares about me and goes above and beyond to make sure I’m comfortable, that I’m alive.
“Uh-oh,” I grimace as I notice the sudden shift in his face as he finishes his call, and tosses the phone onto the desk. “All good?”
Instead of answering, Malachi gets up from his desk and walks back into the bedroom. He stops beside the nightstand and picks up the small orange plastic bottle of painkillers.
“Just another dead end,” he says, checking the label, and then his heavy silver watch.
“So that’s why you are staring at a piece of plastic,” I say.
“You have to take the meds in ten minutes,” he looks up from the meds, his eyes meeting mine.
“I don’t need them.”
“You got shot, Jade,” he says, his voice calm and steady. “You’re taking these whether you think you need them or not.”
“It just grazed the muscle,” I say, crossing my arms carefully. “And you are hovering. I thought you had work to do.”
“I am working.” He sets the bottle down and pours a glass of water from the pitcher. “And I’m not hovering. I’m monitoring my wife after she got shot.”
“I am sitting in a bed with who knows how many guards outside. The perimeter is perfectly secure.”
A knock sounds at the heavy bedroom door before he can argue.
“Come in,” Malachi says.
A young guard whose name I don’t remember walks in. He is holding a clipboard against his chest tightly and looks extremely uncomfortable standing in Malachi’s private quarters.
“Boss,” the boy says, nodding to Malachi. “Cain sent me up with the supply routes for the south docks. We need a signature to move the trucks tonight.”
Malachi’s burner phone rings on the desk in the other room. He looks at the doorway, then back at the guy. “Leave the clipboard on the bed, I need to take this.”
Dean! The boy’s name is Dean.
Malachi walks into the sitting room and shuts the heavy double doors halfway to muffle the sound of his voice. Dean steps forward and sets the clipboard on the edge of the mattress near my feet, continuing to wait awkwardly.
Bored out of my mind with the curiosity getting the best of me, I pick up the clipboard and start reading over the printed route.
“You need to reroute this,” I tell Dean, handing the clipboard back. “Take the western service road, the interstate is too exposed right now.”
Dean takes the board, but he doesn’t move or say a single word. He shifts his weight from one boot to the other, glancing nervously toward the half-open doors of the sitting room.
“With all due respect, Mrs. Kavanagh,” Dean says carefully. “I should probably get Malachi to sign off on a route change.”
“Suit yourself,” I shrug, the sudden ping of pain reminding me all over again that I was shot.
As Malachi walks back into the bedroom, he slides his phone into his pocket and stops a few feet from Dean, his height and broad shoulders completely dwarfing the younger man.
The casual, careful way Malachi handles me vanishes instantly, replaced by the cold, absolute authority of Malachi Kavanagh.
“What did you just say to her?” Malachi asks, his voice is completely flat.
“I just…” Dean swallows hard. “I was waiting for your approval on the route, sir.”
“My wife gave you an order,” Malachi says, staring down at him. “If she tells you to drive those trucks into the Mississippi River, your only question is which bridge to use. Do you understand me?”
Dean goes completely pale, nodding rapidly. “Yes, sir. I apologize.”
“Apologize to Jade,” Malachi corrects him. “Not me. You apologize to the one you hurt.”
“I apologize, Mrs. Kavanagh,” Dean turns his head to me, bowing slightly. “Please forgive me for my ignorance.”
“We’re good,” I say, picking up a bottle of water from the floor and bringing it to my lips to take a sip.
“Reroute the trucks,” Malachi says to Dean. “Then get out of my house.”
Dean nods quickly, then turns and practically sprints out the door, pulling it shut behind him.
I watch as Malachi walks back over to the nightstand, picks up the pill bottle, and shakes two white tablets into his palm. He holds them out to me along with the glass of water.
“You’re terrifying,” I tell him, taking the pills. “I think I should be scared of you.”
“He needed to learn the chain of command,” Malachi says simply. “And every Beast needs it’s Beauty.”
“Did Malachi Kavanagh just willingly call himself a Beast?” I raise my eyebrow, suppressing laughter.
“Okay maybe no more meds for you,” he takes back the empty water glass “You’re starting to hallucinate things.”
“Liar.”
Later that night, after the staff have left for the evening, and the guards settle into their exterior patrols, I find myself waking up from a very confusing dream.
I don’t want to scare Malachi further, but I’m starting to suspect I have insomnia.
The pain medication wore off an hour ago, leaving a heavy ache in my side.
Malachi is awake.
He is sitting on the edge of the mattress, resting his forearms on his knees, staring at the dark hardwood floor. He has taken his shirt off, the faded scars on his back barely visible in the dim light.
I reach out and press my hand flat against his warm spine and he instantly turns his head to face me. He just shifts on the mattress, lying down beside me, without saying a word.
“Why are you still awake?” He is careful not to touch my bandaged waist, but he pulls me close, resting his face in the crook of my neck.
“You aren’t sleeping either” I whisper.
His fingers trace a slow, absent path along my collarbone. His breathing is steady, but the muscles in his arms are very tight.
“I survived so much shit,” Malachi says into the quiet room, his voice low. “I thought I knew exactly what fear felt like. I thought I had a tolerance for it.”
He stops moving his hand. He presses his palm flat against my chest, right over my heart.
"But standing in that hangar," he continues, "watching a gun barrel pressed against your head and knowing I was too far away to stop the bullet. That was the first time I actually felt it, Jade. That was absolute terror.”
I turn my head, resting my cheek against his dark hair. From day one, this man refused to give me an inch of ground. He fought me for every ounce of control and now, he is lying in the dark, stripping away every piece of his armor and handing it directly to me.
“I’m right here,” I say softly.
“I know…”
“I love you, Malachi.”
I don't hesitate. I can’t wait for a better moment because I don’t think there could be a moment better than this one to say it. The words leave my mouth easily, completely honestly, probably the first time I’m saying something with so much certainty.
And he goes completely still for a few agonizing seconds. When he lifts his head from my shoulder and looks down at me, I notice that the shadows in his green eyes are gone. There is no hesitation, no more holding back.
“I love you,” he says, the words a heavy, permanent, carved in stone.
He leans down and kisses me. It isn't a desperate kiss, or a rough one, like the ones we’re used to. It is slow and deliberate, a quiet promise in the dark.
When he finally pulls back, he rests his forehead against mine.
“Did Elijah call?” I ask, my voice quiet.
Malachi nods slowly, the softness in his face fading, replaced by that tactical focus of the man who owns this city.
“They found the jet,” he says. “Abandoned on a private strip in Texas. The pilots were paid in cash to walk away and Nolan is gone.”
I look up at the ceiling. The threat is still out there. Nolan Devlin is smart, he is well-funded, and he knows exactly how to hurt us.
“Are you worried?” I ask.
“No.” Malachi traces his thumb over my jawline. “He can run, he can buy new passports, hire new men, and hide underground for a few months. But he can’t stay hidden forever. He'll have to come up for air eventually.”
“And if he’s just a cyborg who doesn’t breathe?” I joke, hoping to lighten up the mood a little.
“I guess we’ll find out,” he smiles back.
Malachi’s eyes lock onto mine, cold and absolutely certain as he casually asks if I’ve eaten, followed by a quick: “And when he does,” he says, “I will be waiting.”