Malakai POV
I should not have come home like that.
I knew it the second I pushed open the front door.
Blood has a smell to it—hot, metallic, unmistakable. It follows you in, drags itself across polished floors and expensive silence, turns a house into a crime scene with nothing more than a few staggered steps. I could feel it soaking through the dark fabric of my shirt, slick beneath my palm, warm and relentless as it leaked between my fingers. Every pulse of my heartbeat forced more of it out.
Annoying.
Painful.
Inconvenient.
But not fatal.
Not yet.
The job had gone wrong in the way things only went wrong when idiots with more confidence than intelligence decided to play brave.After going to the docks, I had a meeting. A meeting turned hostile. A deal soured. A man reached for a gun when he should have reached for common sense. I had put him down before he managed a second shot, but not before the first bullet caught me low in the abdomen.
A messy shot.
Not clean enough to kill me on the spot, not deep enough to end me quickly. Just enough to make the drive back feel longer than it should have, every turn of the wheel another sharp reminder that flesh was weak even when the mind refused to be.
I had sent the others away.
No hospitals. No house doctor. No questions. No panic.
I wanted five minutes of silence, a bottle of whiskey, and a pair of steady hands that belonged to me.
Instead, the moment I stepped inside, I heard the television.
Then I heard her.
"What the fuck?"
I lifted my head.
Kiera was on her feet in the living room, her face drained of color, her eyes wide with a kind of raw horror she didn't bother hiding. The light from the television flickered over her, throwing blue-white shadows over her skin, but it did nothing to soften the expression on her face.
For a second, we just looked at each other.
I could already feel irritation climbing up my spine.
Not because she was there.
Because she was seeing me like this.
Weak.
Bleeding.
Unsteady.
I hated being witnessed in pain. Hated weakness in any form, but especially in myself. Men built empires around fear, and fear depended on perception. If the wrong person saw you stumble, they spent the rest of their lives wondering if you could be pushed to your knees.
Kiera was not one of my men.
She was not one of my enemies.
But still, something about her seeing me like that made my jaw tighten.
"Leave it," I said. My voice came out rougher than I wanted. "It's fine."
It was not fine.
Even I could hear that lie.
I took another step toward the stairs, intending to make it to my room before the room started shifting beneath me, but my body betrayed me with a slight stumble. Not much. Just enough.
Enough for her to notice.
Of course she noticed.
I heard her moving before I felt her. Quick steps across the floor, then her hand at my arm—not grabbing, not clinging, just there, trying to steady me.
"Sit down," she said.
There was no fear in her voice now.
Only urgency.
I glanced at her, more from habit than interest, prepared to tell her to mind her business, but the words died somewhere behind my teeth. Her expression had changed. She was still pale, still alarmed, but there was something else there now too—focus.
I knew that look.
It was the look of someone who did not have the luxury of panicking.
I let her guide me the last few steps toward the nearest chair in the sitting area adjoining the staircase. My body objected with a sharp flare of pain that sliced low and hot through my side. I sat down harder than I intended, breath hissing through my teeth.
Kiera knelt in front of me immediately, hands trembling only slightly as she looked at the blood staining my shirt.
"No, no, no," she murmured, more to herself than to me.
Then she looked up. "Take off your shirt."
I stared at her.
Even through the pain, the command registered.
I almost laughed.
"What?"
"Your shirt," she said again, sharper this time. "Take it off."
I leaned back against the chair and looked down at her with what little patience I had left. "Kiera—"
"No." She cut me off, and for one absurd second, I was too surprised to respond. "Take it off."
Her voice had changed again.
There was still fear in it, yes—but now it rode underneath something firmer. Something stubborn. It should not have been possible for someone so quiet, so cautious, to sound like that while ordering me around in my own house.
And yet.
I held her gaze for a long moment.
Then, because arguing required energy and I was beginning to resent how much blood I'd already lost, I gripped the hem of my shirt and dragged it over my head.
The fabric peeled away wet and sticking.
Kiera inhaled sharply.
Not at my body. Not at the scars. Not at the tattoos winding dark over my shoulder and ribs. Not at the old violence written permanently into skin. Her eyes went straight to the wound.
Good.
I glanced down too.
The bullet had entered low on my side, closer to the front than the back. Blood had run in ugly, dark streaks over my abdomen, across the waistband of my trousers, down toward my hip. The wound itself was messy but not catastrophic. I had known from the moment it hit that it hadn't gone deep enough to tear through anything immediately vital. Lucky, if one believed in luck.
I didn't.
Kiera's face tightened.
"How did this even happen?" she asked, almost under her breath.
I gave her a look.
Her mouth flattened. "Right. Stupid question."
She stood so quickly the hem of her shirt brushed my knee and disappeared toward a side cabinet near the hallway. I heard drawers opening. Closing. Opening again. She moved through my house like an intruder and a nurse at once—hesitant in her feet, certain in her purpose.
I should have stopped her.
I should have called one of my men, ordered a medic, handled it properly.
Instead I sat there and watched blood slide down the line of my stomach while Kiera tore through drawers looking for anything useful.
The house felt different at that hour. Darker. The television still played quietly in the background, forgotten now, casting flashes of artificial life over the marble floors. Somewhere upstairs, everything remained silent. Bridget asleep. Nana Rose retired for the night. The staff gone to their quarters. The whole estate breathing in that deep midnight stillness while I sat in the middle of it bleeding onto imported upholstery.
Kiera came back with a bowl of water, cotton wool, bandages, antiseptic, and something metal in her hand.
I looked at it.
Then at her.
"That," I said slowly, "is a cuticle nipper."
"It was the closest thing I found."
"You plan to operate on me with nail equipment."
Her eyes flashed at me. "Do you want help or do you want to die sarcastic?"
I went quiet.
Pain was making me less patient than usual. Her audacity was making me less murderous than usual.
A strange balance.
She set everything down on the table beside me and moved closer again. This time, when she looked at the wound, her face steadied into concentration. The earlier horror was still there, tucked away behind her eyes, but she had shoved it down where it couldn't interfere.
Interesting.
"Is the bullet still in there?" she asked.
"Yes."
"How deep?"
"Not deep enough to kill me before you finish glaring at me."
She shot me a look that would have amused me if I were in a better mood. "You talk too much for someone bleeding out."
"I am not bleeding out."
"You are literally covered in blood."
"Covered," I said, "is dramatic."
She stared at me for a second, then muttered, "You are impossible."
I almost said so I've been told, but she was already reaching for the wet cotton.
The first touch burned.
Not because she was rough—she wasn't. Her hands were careful, almost infuriatingly gentle, but the water hit torn flesh and the sting shot through me sharp enough to lock every muscle in my abdomen.
I did not flinch.
I did, however, feel my jaw tighten.
Kiera noticed.
Her gaze flicked up to my face, then back down. "Sorry."
I said nothing.
She cleaned the blood away slowly, methodically, wiping until the wound came properly into view. Her movements were not practiced enough to belong to a doctor, but they were not clumsy either. She knew how to work around pain. Knew how to keep her breathing steady. Knew how to ignore the blood.
That told me more than it should have.
Girls raised gently did not know how to do this.
Girls protected all their lives did not look at open wounds with grim focus and start solving problems.
She dabbed away another streak of blood, and I watched the top of her head for a moment instead of the pain. Her hair had fallen slightly forward, loose enough that a few strands brushed her cheek. Her mouth was set in concentration. She looked younger like that. Softer.
And yet there was iron in her.
I wondered how often that iron had been forced into shape by suffering.
"You've done this before," I said.
It wasn't a question.
She paused for barely half a second.
"Not exactly."
A lie by omission.
"I got really deep cuts or stabs so I had to learn things myself."
Noted.
I let it go—for now.
She reached for the antiseptic.
"This is going to hurt."
I looked at her flatly. "Do you think I'm new to being shot?"
She ignored that and poured it anyway.
White-hot pain tore through my side.
My hand clamped around the armrest so hard the wood groaned. A curse nearly made it out, stopped only by habit and pride. I sucked in a breath through my nose, slow and controlled, while every nerve in that part of my body screamed.
Kiara looked up instantly. "Are you okay?"
An absurd question.
"No," I said.
To my surprise, she almost smiled.
Almost.
"There," she murmured. "See? That wasn't so difficult."
I stared at her.
"Did you just mock me in my own house?"
"Yes."
Bold.
Very bold.
Then she lifted the metal tool. "I need to get it out."
"Clearly."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
Her eyes narrowed. "If you keep being difficult, I will leave you here."
"You won't."
The words came out before I could consider them.
Her expression changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Because she knew I was right.
And because I knew it too.
Something passed between us then—not warmth, not trust, nothing so simple. Just recognition. The silent acknowledgment that whatever this strange thing between us was, it had already moved beyond mere circumstance.
She exhaled through her nose. "Fine. Then shut up."
I leaned my head back against the chair and let my eyes close for half a second. "Do it."
The next few moments were nothing but pressure, pain, and the metallic scent of blood thickening the air. Kiara worked carefully, her hand steadier now than it had been at the start. Every time the makeshift tool touched the wound, another bolt of pain flashed low through my abdomen, mean and vicious, dragging a cold sweat down my spine.
I had endured broken ribs, knives, burns, dislocated joints, and the slow art of torture done by men who fancied themselves patient.
Pain was not new.
But pain administered by a girl with wide eyes and a cuticle nipper in my living room at nearly eleven at night?
That was a first.
"You can squeeze something if you want," she said suddenly.
I opened my eyes.
"What?"
She looked embarrassed the second the words left her mouth. "I just mean—people do that, right? When something hurts?"
I stared at her long enough that color rose slightly in her cheeks.
Then, because I couldn't help myself, I said, "Are you offering your hand?"
Her eyes widened. "No."
I looked away before the corner of my mouth could betray me.
For the next minute, she said nothing. Just focused.
Then finally—
"I see it."
I went very still.
She adjusted her grip. "Don't move."
"If I intended to move," I said dryly, "I would have thrown you off me by now."
She frowned, then concentrated harder.
A sharp, ugly pressure dug into the wound.
Then a burning pull.
Then release.
She sat back with a short breath, a bloodied piece of metal pinched in the end of the tool.
"The bullet," she said softly.
I looked at it.
Then at her.
Her hand was trembling now, the adrenaline wearing off just enough for reality to catch up with her.
She had done it.
In my house.
On me.
With a fucking manicure instrument.
I let out a slow breath and leaned my head back again.
"Well," I said after a moment, my voice lower now, roughened by pain and fatigue, "that is deeply humiliating."
She blinked at me.
Then, to my surprise, she laughed.
It was small. Soft. Disbelieving.
But it was a laugh.
The sound hit something strange in the room, lightening it for a second in a way I did not entirely appreciate and did not entirely dislike.
"You're welcome," she said.
She cleaned the wound again, this time more carefully, and packed it with gauze before binding it as tightly as she dared around my side. Her fingers brushed my skin more than once, cool and quick and entirely practical. But every touch still registered.
Not because I wanted it to.
Because I was too aware.
When she finished, she sat back on her heels and looked at me properly for the first time since she'd started.
"You need rest."
I gave her a long look. "How authoritative."
She ignored the sarcasm. "And probably a real doctor."
"No."
"Malakai—"
"No doctors."
The refusal came sharper than I intended.
She quieted immediately.
For a moment, the only sound between us was the distant murmur of the television and the quieter one of our breathing.
Then she asked, softly this time, "Why?"
I should not have answered.
But blood loss did strange things to a man's restraint.
"Because doctors ask questions," I said. "And I have no interest in answering them."
Her gaze held mine.
There was so much she didn't know. So much I would never explain. Men like me did not survive by becoming easy to understand.
Still, she nodded.
Not because she agreed. Because she understood enough not to push.
I pushed myself to stand.
The room tilted slightly, then corrected. Kiera was up immediately, one hand halfway out as though she meant to steady me again.
"I can stand," I said.
"I can see that."
But she stayed close anyway.
I looked down at her.
At the concern she was trying and failing to hide.
At the stubbornness still lingering around her mouth.
At the bruises faint against her skin, the ones she thought people did not notice.
And suddenly I was struck by the absurdity of it.
Here she was, a girl taken as collateral, standing in my house in sleep clothes and bare feet, binding my wounds in the dead of night as if she had any right to care whether I bled out on my own floor.
And here I was, letting her.
No.
More than letting her.
Trusting her.
Even if only for an hour. Even if only because I had no better option.
That realization sat badly with me.
Trust was more dangerous than bullets. Bullets only tore flesh. Trust knew how to reach deeper.
"You should go to bed," I said.
She looked like she wanted to argue.
Didn't.
Instead she glanced at the bloodied materials on the table, the ruined shirt on the floor, then back at me. "You should too."
I almost told her I had work left.
Calls to return. Bodies to account for. Men to punish for tonight's failure.
Instead I said, "I'll manage."
Her expression made it clear she thought that was bullshit.
Interesting again.
Most people took what I said and ran with it, too frightened to challenge me. Kiara, for all her fear, kept arriving at that dangerous edge where concern overrode caution.
She bent to gather the used cotton and bloodied bowl.
"Leave it," I said.
"I'm cleaning it."
"That is not your job."
She looked at me then, properly looked, and there was something in her face I could not immediately name. Not defiance. Not pity.
Maybe just exhaustion.
"Maybe not," she said quietly. "But I'm doing it anyway."
I didn't stop her.
I stood there, shirtless and stitched together by willpower, watching her move around the room with the remains of my violence in her hands.
No one had cleaned up after me in years.
No one I allowed, anyway.
By the time she finished, the television had long since become meaningless noise in the background. She turned it off, and the silence that followed felt heavier than before.
At the foot of the stairs, she hesitated.
Then turned back.
"You almost passed out at the door," she said. "So if you die in the night after acting all tough, I'm going to be very annoyed."
I stared at her.
She stared back.
Then, because apparently this house had become a place where impossible things happened, I felt the ghost of something pull at the corner of my mouth.
Not a smile.
Never something so careless.
But close enough to startle us both.
Kiara saw it.
Her eyes widened just slightly.
I let the expression die immediately.
"Go to bed," I said.
This time, she obeyed.
I watched her until she disappeared down the hallway and her door clicked shut behind her.
Only then did I turn toward my room.
Each step was slower now, the edge of adrenaline finally dulling into something heavier. But the bleeding had stopped enough. The wound was packed. The bullet was out. I would live.
Again.
Inside my room, I shut the door and leaned against it for a moment, letting the darkness settle around me.
My body ached.
My side throbbed.
My shirt lay ruined downstairs.
And somewhere under the pain, under the exhaustion, under the cold machinery of everything I still had to deal with before dawn, one thought kept circling back with quiet, unwanted persistence.
Kiera had not looked away.
Not from the blood.
Not from the scars.
Not from me.
And God help the men who thought I did not understand what that kind of courage could become in the wrong hands.
Or the right ones.