Malakai's POV
The dad been long in the way only certain days were.
Not loud. Not bloody. Not yet.
Just long.
The Castellan situation had cracked open further by midday. By the time my second meeting ended, I had a name. By the time the third ended, I had two. Whoever had reached into my supply chain had done it cleanly enough to suggest help from someone inside my own people, which meant tonight, or tomorrow, or the night after, somebody was going to learn what it cost to be careless with my trust.
But that was for later.
That was for the dark.
I had spent the afternoon moving between meetings and phone calls, sitting behind desks that were not mine in offices I would never set foot in twice, watching men sweat across polished tables while they pretended their hands were not shaking. Two had lied to me. One had told the truth. The truth was worse than the lies. The truth always was.
By the time the car turned onto the long drive home, the sky had bled itself out into a low, dull grey, and my head felt heavier than my body. I had killed no one today, but I had decided who would die, and that was almost the same thing.
I stepped out of the car and into the house without speaking to anyone.
The staff knew the difference between my silences.
This one meant do not approach.
I shrugged out of my jacket on the way to the stairs, draped it over my arm, and started up. I needed a minute. Maybe two. A glass of something dark. A quiet room. to bury the day before the day started burying me.
That was when I heard it.
The front door opening below.
Footsteps.
Hers.
I stopped on the landing without turning around.
She did not see me at first. She came in the way she usually did — quietly, careful with the door, careful with her bag, careful with the small space she took up in a house that did not yet feel like hers. I heard her thank David in that soft voice she used when she did not want to be noticed.
Then I heard her start up the stairs.
I should have walked away.
I had work waiting. I had names to follow. I had men whose breathing was already counted in days.
I stayed.
She did not see me at first. Her eyes were on the steps. One hand trailed lightly along the banister, the other clutched the strap of her bag. The bracelet I had given her flashed once in the low hallway light.
Halfway up, she paused.
She didn't see me.
But she sensed something.
Her head turned slightly toward the upper corridor. Not enough to find me in the shadow. Just enough to make the small hairs at the back of her neck remember that the house had teeth.
She stood there for a breath.
Then looked away first.
And kept walking.
I watched her cross the upper hall and disappear into her room, the door closing softly behind her.
I did not move for a long moment after that.
Something was wrong.
I knew it the same way I knew when a man across a table was about to reach for a gun. The same way I knew when a quiet street was about to stop being quiet. The body learned to read the world long before the mind caught up, and mine had spent twenty years learning to read rooms, footsteps, breath, silence.
Hers had been off.
The angle of her shoulders. The way her hand had gripped the banister a little too tightly. The pause halfway up the stairs. The way she had not called out for Bridget, had not stopped in the kitchen, had not lingered by the front windows the way she sometimes did when the sky was turning.
She had walked into this house tonight like she was carrying something.
And whatever it was, she had carried it home alone.
I went to my room first.
I needed a minute before I did anything.
I poured myself a glass of whiskey I did not particularly want, set it down on the dresser, and stood with both hands braced against the wood for a long moment, staring at nothing.
I thought about the morning.
About the cold side of the bed.
About how she had slipped out without a word.
About the way she had frozen in the dining room doorway when she saw me and then recovered just fast enough to pretend she hadn't.
About good morning in that small, careful voice.
I had been cold to her this morning.
On purpose.
Because the alternative — the version of me that wanted to lift her chin and tell her not to leave any other bed of mine the way she had left it last night — was not a version I could afford to let walk into a dining room with a maid pouring coffee and my sister scrolling on her phone three feet away.
So I had been cold.
And she had felt it.
She had taken it the way she took everything else in her life. Quietly. Without complaint. And then she had gone to school and come home with something heavier on her shoulders than the bag she carried.
The two things were not the same.
I knew the difference.
This was not hurt feelings.
This was the way a person walked when something at school had unsettled them more than it should have, and they had spent the entire ride home trying to decide whether to mention it to anyone.
I left my room and walked down the hall.
I did not knock immediately.
I stood outside her door for a moment, the way she had stood on the staircase a few minutes earlier, letting the house breathe around me.
Then I knocked.
Two slow taps.
"Yes?" Her voice came through the wood. Soft. A little startled.
I opened the door without waiting for more.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed, still in her school clothes, her bag at her feet. Her hair was a little tousled from the day. She had not turned on the lamp yet, so the room was caught in that dim blue stretch between afternoon and evening, the light from the window pale on the floor.
She straightened the second she saw me.
"Malakai."
I closed the door behind me.
The click of the latch sounded louder than it should have.
She watched me with that careful look she got around me — half nervous, half something else, the something else getting harder for either of us to ignore.
I did not sit.
I crossed to the window first, slid the curtain aside half an inch with two fingers, and looked out at nothing. Old habit. I checked sightlines in every room I entered. I always had.
Then I turned to face her.
"How was school."
Her shoulders moved very slightly. A small lift. A small drop.
"Fine."
I looked at her.
She held my gaze for a breath, then dropped her eyes to her hands.
That was an answer in itself.
I walked over slowly and sat down — not next to her, not too far, in the small chair across from the bed. The same chair I had used the night before. Close enough to read her face. Far enough not to crowd her.
"Try again," I said.
Her fingers twisted together in her lap.
"It was fine," she said. "Really. Nothing happened."
"That's the problem."
She looked up at that.
I held her eyes.
"Something not happening," I said quietly, "is sometimes louder than something happening. You came home tonight carrying something. I want to know what it is."
She let out a small, almost-laugh under her breath. Not amused. Just tired.
"You notice too much."
"I notice what I choose to notice."
That landed somewhere I had not aimed for. I saw it in her face — the small flicker, the way her throat moved when she swallowed. She lowered her eyes again.
The silence stretched.
I waited.
I had spent my whole life learning when to push and when to wait. With her, more and more, it was wait. She did not respond to pressure. She responded to space. Give her enough silence and she would step into it on her own.
She did.
"It was Alyssa," she said finally.
My jaw tightened before I could stop it. Of course
"Tell me."
"Nothing happened," she said again, quickly, like she needed to get that out before anything else. "She didn't touch me. She didn't say anything. That's the part that's bothering me."
I slightly nodded to her but mostly myself knowing that what I told that bitch stuck in her head. Kiera continued.
"I saw her in the hallway this morning," she said. "Before first period. She looked at me. Just looked. Then she rolled her eyes and walked away. That was it."
"And?"
"And I saw her again after the last bell. Near the staircase. She did the same thing. Looked at me. Didn't say anything. Just—" Her hands moved a little, a small helpless gesture. "Looked. Then turned away."
She glanced up at me as if expecting something
"Alyssa doesn't do that," she said. "Alyssa doesn't just look. She corners me. She says something. She makes sure people are watching. She— she performs. That's her whole thing. She doesn't just walk away."
"Maybe she now knows her place and has chosen to stop bothering you."
I sat down lowly then patted the bed beside me signalling her to sit. She did and I gave it my all not to bend oven to her neck and inhale her creamy scent. Like vanilla ice cream and citrus.
She has gotten worried about a problem that I personally fixed and all I can do now is just admire her beautiful worried face while trying not to laugh .
I didn't want to tell her that I paid her crap family a visit because of how that whore was treating her. I fear she would feel offended and lose trust in me.
" What if she is planning something really bad. Its usual of her to be that way and I know I'm not just over thinking. "
She said quietly almost vulnerable. She's so beautiful
I turned to face her and she faced me
" I doubt that. And even if she is, I'll will deal with it .....and her personally. I promise. But promise me that you will always tell me everything that happens . No matter what is it."
Her eyes dropped.
She did not answer.
But I saw her hands stop twisting in her lap.
That was answer enough.
I looked at her for a moment.
She looked up at me.
The light through the window was almost gone now. The room had gone darker around us, and her face caught only the faint blue of the dying afternoon. She looked tired. Smaller than she had any business looking.
I lifted my hand and rested it lightly against the side of her face, the way I had the night before. My thumb brushed once, slowly, along her cheekbone.
Her eyes fluttered closed for the briefest second.
Then opened again.
"About this morning," I said, low.
She waited.
"That wasn't for you. It was wrong of me. I didn't mean to make you feel bad. Or hurt you" I said while caressing her cheek and held her a bit closer. "I never would."
She did not say anything. But something in her face softened in a way that told me she had heard exactly what I meant. I pulled her in and gave her a kiss on her forehead. And then looked at her waiting for a reaction.
Her eyes held shock at first then satisfaction. And she smiled.
I let my hand fall.
"I have work tonight," I said. "I'll be back late."
"Really?" She soumd3d almost sad.
"Yes Mishka. I'm a very busy man you know." I said then stood up and adjusted my clothes.
"Can't you stay?"
"I can't Mishka. I have a very serious thing to deal with."
"Well then. Can I come with?" And that everyone was the exact moment I decided that this girl is truly extraordinary. Asking to follow me to work. If it was just office work or going to talk business, I would have agreed. I honestly didn't want to leave her side. But it is to dangerous. And I want her to be in the midst of any trouble whatsoever.
" No." I said sternly with a voice that said End Of Discussion.
"OK but please be careful. Okay?" She asked then looked at me as if she was waiting for reassurance. I nodded giving her the answer she wanted to hear. Or see
"If anything happens — anything at all — you call me. Not Bridget. Not David. Me. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
I held her eyes for one more breath.
Then I turned and walked toward the door.
I had almost reached it when she said, quietly behind me:
"Malakai."
I stopped.
I turned and looked at her with one hand on the door knob. She looked like she was nattelimg with herself on something and the next I, she ran and wrapped her hands around me.
I stiffened automatically. Physical affection had never come naturally to me. I had spent too many years teaching myself that closeness was weakness.
" Don't stay out too late. And when your back, even if I may be asleep, come see me."
I rested my chin on her head. She wasn't necessarily short for herself. Like 5'9 or so. But I was taller, 6'4 and muscular.
I quietly inhaled the scent of her hair. Heavenly.
" I will Mishka." I said then she unwrapped her arms from my waist . My hands were still in my pocket and on the door know. I didn't hold her back.
She looked at me and smiled and wave a good bye.
I nodded and exited her room quietly before going to my own.
But as I walked back toward my own room, I felt it again — that quiet, dangerous thing that had been building under my skin since the night she stitched me up with shaking hands and a steady jaw. The thing I had been pretending was responsibility. The thing I had been calling duty. The thing I had been telling myself was nothing more than the simple obligation a man had to a girl living under his roof.
I saw her something or someone more.
Someone to protect? certainly.
Keep close without question?, Yes indeed
Claim?
Mine?
The thoughts themselves should have disturbed me.
Love was a word I had buried with my mother.
I stopped believing in love when I saw my dad slice my mom's neck in a gala because they said " love is seen as weakness and should be eliminated."
That night, as a seven year old traumatised and overly forced to be mature kid, I witness how each male in the event was given a knife and was told to slit the throats of their partners or people they came with. Bridget was just a kid. Could barely even talk properly. She didn't witness what happened like I did. But she understood that mama was never coming back.
It was that day I grew cold. I rebuked warmess and eliminated all feelings I saw as threats.
It was on that same day two years later that I killed my father. My first kill.
But it seems like Kiera was on a journey to break that ice
She had entered my life as collateral.
A responsibility.
A debt.
A complication.
But somewhere between the blood on her hands and the trembling fingers that stitched my wounds, somewhere between her quiet smiles and the way she worried when I stayed out too long, she had become something infinitely more dangerous.
Not collateral.
Not duty.
Not responsibility.
Her.
And perhaps that was the cruelest joke fate had ever played on me.
Because love had died for me many years ago.
I had buried it beside my mother.
And yet—
Kiera, with her soft voice and stubborn heart, seemed determined to dig it back up.