Malakai's POV
"Please."
Her voice followed me to the door.
Soft. Pleading. Careful.
Not loud enough to stop me, not strong enough to command me, and yet somehow it made my hand pause on the doorknob.
"Don't do anything," she said again.
That voice.
I did not understand it.
I did not understand why she did that—why she looked at pain like it was hers to swallow, why she begged mercy for people who had never once shown her any, why she stood there with a handprint burning on her face and still found it in herself to plead for someone else.
For the person who had hurt her.
How the fuck did she do that?
How the fuck did she stand there bruised and quiet and ask me not to answer it?
I turned to look at her.
She was standing by the bed, one hand curled around the edge of the gift box, the bracelet catching faint light against her wrist. Silver flowers. A bullet set into the center. Something delicate made from something violent. It suited her more than I wanted it to.
Her face, however, did not.
The mark on her cheek was still there—angry, red, obscene.
It had no business being on her skin.
"Please," she repeated, softer this time.
There were people in this world who mistook softness for weakness. I had lived long enough to know they were usually the first to die when things turned ugly. Softness was not weakness. Sometimes softness was the cruelest thing to witness, because it forced you to look at your own hardness and understand exactly what you were.
And hers was beginning to do that to me.
I gave her a nod because it was the only thing that would make her stop talking.
But a nod was not a promise.
Not from me.
I stepped out of the room and closed the door behind me, then stood in the hallway for a long moment with one hand in my pocket and the other hanging loose by my side.
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
Inside my head, however, there was nothing quiet at all.
The image would not leave me—her chin tilted up in my hand, her eyes avoiding mine, the red shape of someone else's fingers stamped across her face like an insult.
Someone had touched what was under my protection.
That was the first problem.
The second was that they had apparently done it with the confidence of people who believed nothing would happen to them afterward.
That was a mistake.
A fatal sort of mistake, if I chose.
Over the past week, work had been an irritation I handled because it needed handling. The men responsible for the shooting had been found quickly enough. They had run exactly as far as cowards usually ran before they were dragged back by men like me. By the time I was done with them, there had been nothing left worth recognizing. Enough pain had been returned to the world to settle the account.
That matter should have satisfied me.
It hadn't.
Because all week, while I was cleaning blood from my affairs and burying what needed burying, there had been another thing sitting at the edge of my thoughts.
Her.
Kiera moving quietly through the house as if afraid to disturb it. Kiera showing up with water before I asked. Kiera reminding me about medication in that careful voice of hers, as though she expected me to refuse but asked anyway. Kiera standing at the threshold and never crossing it unless I told her to. Respectful. Alert. Watching everything. Fidgeting with her fingers when she was nervous. Tucking loose strands of hair behind her ear when she was thinking. That faint dimple appearing in one cheek whenever she forgot herself enough to smile for real.
She had looked after me without making it feel like pity.
That was rare.
People usually hovered when they wanted something. They overdid concern when they were trying to buy favor. She had done none of that. She simply noticed. Simply cared. Then stepped back before it could become an intrusion.
I had called her into my study once or twice that week for no reason worth naming. Asked about school. Asked if she needed anything. Mostly I had wanted to see if she was settling in. That was what I told myself.
The truth was more irritating.
I had gotten used to her presence.
And now someone had put their hand on her.
I took out my phone and called Raphael.
He picked up before the first ring had fully died.
"My guy," he said brightly. "Perfect timing. I was just about to call you. Quick question—do you think cream works for me, or is cream too soft? Be honest. I'm on the verge of a wardrobe breakthrough here."
"Raphael."
A beat of silence.
Then, "Jesus. That tone. You could at least pretend you missed me first."
"I need you here in ten minutes."
He sighed dramatically. "You know, normal people say please."
"We're going somewhere."
"That sounds wonderfully illegal. I'm in."
"Ten minutes."
He clicked his tongue. "You really are helpless without me. Fine. Be downstairs."
The line went dead. I changed my shorts to black sweatpants.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket and headed toward the stairs.
On the way down, I passed the long window at the landing and caught my reflection in the glass—dark shirt, dark expression, the kind of face people lied to when they were already afraid and told the truth to when fear became unbearable. The wound in my side no longer pulled when I moved. My body had done what bodies did. It had closed. Healed. Hardened.
Pity the people who thought healing made a man gentle.
By the time Raphael texted that he was outside, I already knew what I was going to do.
Not everything.
Just enough.
He was in the driver's seat when I got in, one arm hanging over the wheel, dressed like he had indeed come from trying on half a store.
"Drive," I said.
He looked at me. "No hello? No Raphael, you look radiant today? Not even a compliment for the jacket?"
"Drive."
He raised both hands. "Alright. God forbid I preserve my self-esteem in this friendship."
The car pulled away from the curb.
For the first few minutes, I gave directions in silence while the city thinned around us and the roads grew narrower. Raphael glanced at me more than once, reading the mood correctly enough not to push too far.
Still, he was Raphael.
"So," he said at last, "where exactly are we going?"
"Kiera's house."
That got his attention.
He shot me a quick look. "Oh? Is her father finally ready to pay his debt?"
"No."
"Then what are we doing there?"
"Setting something straight."
He leaned back in his seat, grin fading into interest. "That sounds far more entertaining."
I said nothing.
The house appeared a few minutes later—smaller than most storage rooms I owned, worn down by neglect, the yard rough and uneven as though no one had properly cared for it in weeks. Grass had grown wild around the edges. Paint peeled from the walls in thin curls. There was a tiredness to the whole place. A sense that it had been held together for years by someone who no longer lived there.
Raphael parked and looked out the windshield.
"This is where she grew up?"
I got out without answering.
He followed.
The front door opened after the second knock.
Alyssa stood there.
I knew who she was at once.
Good think that they aren't blood related and look nothing alike. Kiera's features carried quiet, this one carried poison. She was dressed for attention, the kind of cheap seduction girls like her thought gave them power. Her eyes went to Raphael first, then to me.
Fear flashed there.
Then calculation.
Then a slow little smirk as if she thought she understood the reason I had come.
Disgusting.
"Are your parents home?" I asked.
"Yes, but—"
I brushed past her before she finished. Raphael came in beside me and shut the door behind us.
The living room was cramped, stale with the smell of old fabric and tension. Raphael looked around with badly hidden amusement while I remained standing in the center of it.
"Get them downstairs," I told her.
She hesitated.
I turned my head and looked at her properly.
She went.
A minute later, the father came down in his wheelchair with the stepmother at his side. The woman looked nervous in the way guilty people always did when they sensed the shape of trouble before it was spoken aloud.
The man saw me and started immediately.
"If this is about the money, I swear I'm trying to gather it. Please, just—"
I looked at him.
He stopped.
That was better.
Alisa lingered near the stairs until I spoke again.
"Sit."
The stepmother obeyed first. Then Alyssa. Both on the couch. Both quiet.
Raphael stayed standing off to the side for a moment, then settled against the wall with his arms folded, watching.
I took my time before speaking.
Silence did useful work. It let people hear their own fear growing.
"Kiera no longer lives under this roof," I said at last. "Which means, from this point on, she is no longer your concern, your burden, or your business. You will not involve yourselves in her life unless I allow it."
The father looked confused, but not foolish enough to interrupt.
I let my gaze move from him to the women on the couch.
"This afternoon," I continued, "she came home from school with bruises on her face."
The father stiffened. The stepmother's expression shifted. Alyssa looked down.
There it was.
No denial. Not yet.
I stepped closer.
"After I asked her what happened, she gave me a name."
Still no one spoke.
I looked directly at Alyssa. "Would you like to save me the trouble and tell your father yourself?"
Her throat moved. Her fingers twisted together. "It was just a misunderstanding—"
"No." My voice cut through hers, calm and flat. "A misunderstanding is an accident. A bruise shaped like a hand is not. You sure knew what you were doing. "
The room went still.
The father turned sharply to his daughter. "Alyssa—"
I lifted one hand and he shut his mouth.
"I did not come here for apologies," I said. "And I did not come here for excuses."
The stepmother spoke up. "With whatever happened, I'm sure Kiera deserved it. I mean she is just a useless slu—"
I shot the woman a glare so shard she swallowed hard
The woman said nothing after that.
I kept my eyes on woman. "Listen carefully, because I will not repeat myself. If Kiera returns to my house hurt again, if I hear that you spoke to her, touched her, cornered her, insulted her, spread filth about her, or so much as breathed too close to her in a hallway, I will take that as a deliberate act against something under my protection."
Her face had gone pale.
Good.
"I don't care what grievance you think you have. I don't care what stories you tell yourself about her. Whatever place she had in this house before is over. Finished. She is with me now."
The words hung in the room like something cold and metallic.
Raphael shifted slightly, but said nothing.
I leaned down just enough for Alyssa to understand that this part was for her alone.
"And you," I said quietly, "should consider today an act of mercy. Do not make me come back here and teach you the difference between warning and punishment."
Her eyes shimmered.
The father found his voice before she did. "I'm sorry. I swear it won't happen again."
"I wasn't speaking to you."
He went silent again.
I looked back at her. "Did you understand me?"
She nodded quickly.
"Use your words."
"Yes," she whispered.
I waited.
"Yes, sir."
That was better.
I straightened, adjusted the shirt, and took one last look around the room. Fear had settled nicely. You could feel it now—thick in the air, lodged in their throats, seeping into the furniture. They would remember this conversation long after I left.
People like them always did.
I turned for the door.
Raphael pushed off the wall at once and followed me out without a word. The evening air outside felt cleaner, colder. Behind us, the house stayed quiet. Hollow.
As it should.
We got back into the car, and Raphael started driving before finally looking over at me.
"So," he said, "that girl really did hurt Kiera."
"Yes."
He whistled under his breath. "And?"
I looked out the window. "When Kiera came home, there was a handprint on her face."
Raphael's expression shifted, amusement giving way to something darker. "Damn."
"She asked me not to do anything."
That made him glance over again.
"She begged you?"
I said nothing.
He grinned slowly. "Well, well."
"Don't."
"I'm just saying, for someone who allegedly doesn't care, you drove across town to terrify an entire family over one bruise."
"One bruise was enough."
He gave a low laugh. "And she begged you not to go. That's the part I can't get over. She gets hit and still tries to save the idiot who did it."
I stared ahead.
"Yes."
"That's…" He shook his head. "That's rough."
Then, because he was incapable of leaving anything untouched for long, he added, "You're soft. That's what this is. Terrifying, homicidal softness."
"Shut up and drive."
He laughed harder. "There he is."
But I barely heard him after that.
My mind had already gone back to her.
To the way she had looked standing in that room, trying to hide the pain from me as if my anger would be heavier for her to carry than the hurt itself. To the way her fingers always moved when she was anxious, picking lightly at each other like she needed something small to control. To the faint dimple that appeared only when she forgot to be guarded. To the way she had cared for me this past week without asking for thanks, as though tending to someone wounded was the most natural thing in the world.
I did not like the thought of her hurting.
I did not like the thought of her going quiet and pretending she was fine when she wasn't.
And I hated—absolutely hated—the idea of her being under my roof, under my watch, and returning with pain that came from someone else's hand.
If she was with me, then she was mine to protect.
That was the beginning and end of it.
Not affection.
Not softness.
Responsibility.
At least that was the word I used for it.
It sounded cleaner.
Safer.
More believable than the truth trying to take shape underneath it.
Because the truth was this: somewhere between the blood, the silence, the late-night medicine, and the way she looked at me like I was something to fear and trust in equal measure, I had started paying attention in ways I should not have.
And once I paid attention to something, I did not tolerate damage.
Raphael kept talking, throwing out idle comments about dinner, traffic, and whether threatening people on an empty stomach counted as poor planning, but his voice blurred into the background.
Outside, the city lights smeared gold against the dark.
Inside the car, I sat with one arm resting against the door and thought of Kiera in the room earlier, her voice soft with pleading, her bruise bright against her skin, her wrist glinting with a bracelet made from the night I should have bled out and didn't.
She had asked me not to do anything.
And maybe, for her sake, I had shown restraint.
Maybe.
But restraint was not mercy.
Not from me.
All it meant was that for now, they were still breathing.