Jade
“It’s beautiful up here,” I say, a smile on my face.
New Orleans stretches beneath us in a sea of warm lights, the streets glowing between old buildings and iron balconies. From this high up, the city almost looks peaceful. Like there aren’t wars being planned behind closed doors and men carrying guns through dark alleyways. Like normal people live down there and worry about normal things.
Maybe that’s why I love looking at it from up here, because I don’t feel like I’m standing in the middle of the storm.
It’s been a magical night. After having a lovely date today, my husband and I decided to have dinner at the rooftop terrace. It is quiet, the only four other tables all tucked away near the far stone wall. A single white candle flickers in a glass jar between us, casting a soft, steady glow over Malachi’s face. He hasn’t touched the steak on his plate. His fork rests beside his knife, and his green eyes are fixed entirely on me, ignoring the rest of the city spread out below us.
I should probably be concerned about the fact that my husband has been staring at me for the better part of twenty minutes. But I’m getting used to it. If anything, Malachi Kavanagh has never been subtle about wanting something. And apparently, that includes looking at his wife like she’s the only thing sitting on the planet.
We haven’t mentioned Nolan all night. Cain’s stakeout yielded a lead recently, but tonight belongs to this table, the quiet space we carved out of the noise, and the heavy, undeniable shift in our lives.
I don’t know exactly when things changed. Maybe it was in the hospital, when I woke up and found Malachi asleep in a chair beside my bed with one hand wrapped around mine. Maybe it happened later, when the stitches came out and he stared at the scar on my side like it had personally offended him. Or maybe things had been changing from the beginning, slowly and quietly, every time one of us gave the other something without realizing.
The realization that neither of us wants to imagine a life without the other was terrifying.
“You’re not eating,” I say, resting my chin in my hand.
“I’m fine,” Malachi says, his voice low.
Liar.
I glance down at his untouched plate before looking back at him. “That’s what you said the last time we went out.”
“And?”
“And then I found your food completely untouched an hour later.”
“I was busy,” he says.
“Doing what?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.
His expression doesn’t change and he just shrugs his shoulders.
“You know, normal husbands occasionally talk to their wives during dinner,” I laugh.
“I’ve been talking to you,” he responds, leaning forward.
“You’ve said six words,” I take a sip of my drink.
“Seven,” he responds, and I notice the way he’s forcing himself not to smile.
I blink at him. “Are you counting?”
“No.”
“You just corrected me,” I say.
“Eat your food, Jade.”
“Or what?” I raise an eyebrow.
There he is.
He reaches across the white tablecloth, his fingers finding mine, his skin warm and heavy. He traces a slow circle over my knuckles, his thumb brushing the gold band sitting next to my engagement ring.
I look down at our hands. The fear that haunted the cabin, the blood on the hangar floor, the constant, sickening threat… it all feels miles away tonight. We survived the war and we built something real out of the wreckage.
I never thought I would get this.
There was a time when I genuinely believed my life would always belong to someone else. First to the expectations placed on me, then to the consequences of decisions made long before I was old enough to understand them. I spent so much time fighting for the right to make my own choices that I forgot what it might feel like to actually have a future worth choosing.
Then Malachi happened.
My husband.
I look at the ring on my finger again, remembering how absurd it all felt in the beginning. How angry I was. How certain I was that this marriage would become another cage I needed to escape from.
Instead, somewhere along the way, he became home.
Malachi’s grip tightens and he doesn’t look away as he speaks. “I want us to have a child.”
For a second, I genuinely think I heard him wrong.
I stop breathing for a second, trying to process the heaviness of the words he dropped on me. “A child,” I repeat, my voice barely a whisper.
“Yeah,” he says, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the table, and closing the small distance between us. “I spent my whole life building walls, keeping people out, making sure nobody could ever use anything against me. And then you walked in.”
He stops, his jaw tightening slightly as he searches for the right words, the honest truth he never gives to anyone else aside from me.
And just like that, every joke disappears from my mind.
Because Malachi doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean. He doesn’t make promises casually or speak simply to fill silence. Every word that comes out of his mouth feels deliberate. Measured. Like he’s already thought about it a thousand times before deciding I deserve to hear it.
“I used to think keeping people safe meant keeping them at a distance,” he continues, his gaze steady and intense. “I don’t think that anymore. I want a family with you, Jade. I want a house that isn’t a fortress. I want a real life.”
My throat tightens, because I know what those words cost him.
Malachi has spent his entire life preparing for loss. Building walls before anyone had the chance to hurt him. Keeping every person he cared about behind layers of security and armed guards because somewhere inside him, he always expected the worst to happen.
And I almost died anyway.
For months after the hangar, I could see what it did to him. He never spoke about it unless I forced him to, but I didn’t need words. I saw it every time his hand drifted toward the scar on my side while he thought I slept. Every time he checked the locks twice before bed. Every time he looked at me for one second too long, like he was making sure I was actually there.
Having a family means giving someone else the power to hurt you and I understand now why that terrifies him. Which makes him asking for it mean even more.
“Malachi…”
His eyes don’t leave mine. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?”
“You’re wondering if I’ve lost my fucking mind.”
A laugh escapes me through the sudden burn in my throat. “That possibility crossed my mind.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “I’ve thought about it for a long time.”
“How long?” I ask.
“Since the hospital,” He replies, taking a sip of whiskey.
“You were thinking about this while I was recovering?”
“Yes,” Malachi leans back slightly, but he doesn’t let go of my hand. His thumb continues moving over my knuckles, slow and absent-minded. “I’ve spent my entire life knowing how to deal with problems. If someone comes after me, I deal with it. If someone threatens my family, I deal with it. If something goes wrong, I find a solution.”
His jaw tightens as he continues. “But there was nothing I could do when you were bleeding on that floor.”
I stop breathing, unable to form a sentence.
“I could’ve chased him,” he continues. “I could’ve taken the shot. I could’ve gone after Nolan and maybe stopped him before that plane left the runway.”
“But you didn’t,” my voice is barely a whisper.
“No,” he shakes his head.
“Because you stayed with me.”
His fingers tighten around mine. “Because you were more important.”
“And that made you want a baby?” The simplicity of it nearly breaks me and I swallow the sudden knot in my throat.
“It made me realize that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life waiting for something bad to happen,” he replies. “I’ve been doing that for years, building everything around the possibility that one day someone will take it away. I don’t want to do that anymore,” His expression softens in a way only I ever get to see. “I want to actually live, Jade.”
My eyes fill with tears and I swallow. Because that is probably the most vulnerable thing Malachi Kavanagh has ever said to me. And I think it’s safe to assume it’s the most vulnerable he’s ever been in front of anyone.
He wants a future with me.
My chest burns as I slide my hand out from under his, standing up from my chair and walking around the small table. I don’t care that we are in a public restaurant. I pull his head back against my stomach, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders, pressing my face into his hair.
Malachi wraps his heavy arms tightly around my waist, burying his face against my chest. His grip is fierce, possessive, and completely grounding.
My fingers slide slowly through his dark hair. This version of him still surprises me. The man sitting between my arms is the same man who can walk into a room and make grown men go silent. The same man who runs an empire on fear and loyalty. The same man who spent years convincing the world that nothing could touch him.
And yet, right now, he is holding me like I’m the safest place he knows. And maybe that’s true, maybe I am. Maybe that’s what love does to people like us.
“Okay,” I whisper into his hair. “Let’s do it.”
He lets out a long, ragged breath against my skin, and for the first time since the day we met, the predator lets go completely. A part of me wishes I’d get to see this version of him more often, that the world got to see him like this.
“I love you,” he whispers.
“I love you, too, Mal.”
For a while, neither of us moves. For the first time, I don’t feel like I’m running to catch up with life, scared that it will run away from me. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, with my arms around my husband. Our future is waiting somewhere ahead of us, and despite everything we’ve survived, I’m no longer afraid to reach for it.
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