Secrets and Sins: Malachim (A Secrets and Sins Novel) (Entangled Ignite) (5 page)

“Are you parked far?”

She shook her head, suddenly desperate to get out of the office, away from him. Away from the disturbing, unwanted awareness he awakened after such a long slumber. “I’m catching the train home.”

“This time of night?” he asked, voice sharp.

Irritation rushed up to square off against his tone, and she welcomed it. Anything to overshadow the
other
emotion.

“It’s five-thirty.”

His frown didn’t ease. “It’s dark out.”

“That usually happens after four-thirty during the winter months,” she drawled, rounding the desk and hitching her purse and tote straps over her shoulder.

“Amusing.” He didn’t budge, blocking her path to the office door. Old stirrings of fear rattled in her chest like ghosts in a haunted house. His wide shoulders and stern expression set off silent distress bells in her head, and she backed up a step. And was disgusted by the retreat. The sensual curve of his mouth flattened, and he shifted, placing more space between them.

“Excuse me,” she said, proud the trembling inside her wasn’t reflected in her voice.

“I’m leaving in ten minutes. I can give you a lift home.”

“Thank you, but no. I can be at the station in that amount of time.”

“Danielle, I don’t like the idea of you walking around here at night, alone.”

“Unless you plan on offering a car as part of my benefits package, you really don’t have a choice.”

Ice crystallized his gaze, and the concerned, frustrated employer transformed into a distant, aloof stranger. This time, self-preservation caused her to shift away, not self-loathing.

“Point taken. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Malachim exited the room as silently as he’d entered.

What the hell had just happened?

Mercurial was not a word she would have attributed to Malachim Jerrod. Steady, reserved, unbending—those were more appropriate adjectives. Yet his transformation in demeanor had been as sudden as if an emotional switch had been flipped. A shrewd, dogmatic Malachim set her on edge… An unpredictable Malachim scared the hell out of her.

Shaking her head, she left her office, closing the door tight.
Careful
, she cautioned herself. His smile—the self-deprecating warmth and beauty of it—invited her to lower her guard, to join him in the dry banter that seemed to be his special language. But behind the sensual grin dwelled a man who’d established and built a successful, thriving business by the sheer force of his will. A man whose impressive trial record revealed an intimidating tenacity and intelligence. A man who’d covered a murderous secret for years.

Never could she afford to forget for whom she worked. She’d chosen to ignore the hints of darkness that lurked beneath a charming, refined exterior once before. Alex had been enough of a lesson for this lifetime and the next. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

With that warning ringing in her head, she crossed the shadowed reception area and let herself out of the office. She hurried past the dark buildings with their empty, blank windows that stared at her like dark, sightless eyes. A shiver shuddered down her spine, and she quickened her pace. And silently cursed Malachim. If he hadn’t created such a hoopla about her walking in the dark to the station, she wouldn’t be imagining soulless gazes peering at her out of evil, brick faces.

“Dumb,” she growled.

The tight band pinning her arms to her side came seconds before the knife at her throat and the, “Scream, and I’ll slice your throat,” at her ear.

Fear swelled, and the dark wave almost dragged her under its obsidian tow. She shrank from the lethal edge of the blade. But the hard, firm press of his chest to her back, of his hips to her bottom, almost yanked her beneath again. She jerked, almost cutting her skin on the knife.

A hoarse, mean chuckle heated the shell of her ear. He wrenched her backward, grinding his pelvis forward until the threatening length of his erection was unmistakable.

“Do you understand me?” the stranger asked. “Say yes.”

“Y-yes,” she stuttered. Her mind blanked in terror, and she shook in his grip.

“That’s a good girl,” he crooned and grazed the blade up and down the front of her neck in an obscene caricature of a caress.

“Please,” she whispered, not daring to swallow. Not with the wicked blade’s edge skipping over her skin. “You can have my purse, my bag.”

“Oh, I’ll have it,” he said. “That and more.” Sharp teeth clamped down on her earlobe. Tugged. “I didn’t know you’d be so pretty.”

Nausea surged, razing her esophagus with its acidic burn as he ground his rigid penis against her behind. She gagged. And fought not to sob. Struggled not to break under his perverted, deadly touch and the agonizing memories it evoked.

A car screeched to a halt beside the curb, and the squeal of tires was a discordant, terrifying note in the dark. The passenger door flew open.

“Hurry, damn it!” a voice hissed. “We don’t have time for this shit. Get her in the car. She isn’t supposed to be hurt.”

She
? Oh Jesus. What was he talking about?

“Walk, bitch.” Her attacker slowly removed his vise grip from around her and clutched her left upper arm in a punishing grip. “Try anything, and I’ll hurt you bad. Understand? You’ll wish all I did was cut you. Now get in the car.”

He shoved her toward the waiting vehicle. In the long shadows cast by the tall buildings, she couldn’t discern its make or model. Just that it was mid-sized and terrifying. Every public service warning and street-awareness commercial she’d ever seen or heard flashed through her head at hyper speed. If he managed to get her into that car and away from the primary scene, she would be in serious trouble. Like the dead kind.

No!
The primal scream whirled in her gut like a tearing wind, whipping in her chest and up her throat until it erupted in a shattering, deafening cry. All the terror and rage brewing inside her filled the night air.

“Are you crazy, bitch?” her attacker hissed, shaking her so hard her teeth clapped together. But Danielle detected the trace of fear in his voice.

He thrust her forward again, but she didn’t budge. Desperation and horror lent her a strength she hadn’t known existed inside her. She couldn’t get in that car. She’d fought too hard, sacrificed too much to survive. To endure more abuse, more degradation…

She bent her leg and stomped on his instep. The impact vibrated in her foot and up her calf.

“Fuck!” He hopped back, the arm around her neck tensing. With a growl, she clutched his wrist with her free hand, tilted her head to the side, and sank her teeth into his arm. His jacket filled her mouth, and she coughed, struggling not to retch on the grime and stench of God-knows-what that coated her tongue and nostrils. She clamped down, encountering skin and bone, and clung like a rabid dog.

His howl rang in her ears. Triumph sang through her. She bit harder. Tramped on his foot once more.

“What the fuck, man? You can’t handle one bitch?” the man in the car yelled.

“Get the hell off me,” the man behind her barked. With a hard wrench, he wrestled his injured limb away from her, shoving her forward with a palm to the middle of her back.

Danielle stumbled. Her knee slammed to the ground. Stone ground into her palm. A hard gust of air whooshed from her lungs as pain radiated in her body.

“That was stupid.” Hard fingers dug into her shoulder. “Damn stupid.”

Chapter Seven

Son of a bitch.

Malachim stalked through the reception area and down the hall toward his office.

“Unless you plan on offering a car as part of my benefits package, you really don’t have a choice.”

Danielle’s sarcastic reprimand had been meant to put him in his place; he understood that. Logically. But emotionally… He ground his teeth together. Emotionally, the words had been a steel-toed kick in the nuts.

She’s not Tara, you ass.

Unbidden, an image of his ex-fiancée rose to taunt him, and the bitterness and rage came right along with it. As always. His jaw clenched. Tara Lincoln had been gorgeous, successful, intelligent, and as treacherous as a snake. Too bad a year had passed before he’d realized just how deceitful. By then, he’d spent thousands of dollars like some pathetic sap and had almost handed over his reputation and business to her—and his father. Since the moment of Malachim’s birth, Christopher Jerrod had made it his mission to hurt, humiliate, and undermine him. And bribing Tara to pass along confidential information about Malachim’s clients was his latest scheme. The woman he’d loved had been on his father’s payroll, and they’d almost accomplished their goal of staining his professional reputation and stealing his clients. Personally? The ripping out of his heart had been a rousing success.

Yeah, Tara had wielded her sexuality like a master swordsman with a finely honed saber. Quick to strike with deadly accuracy, so her victim didn’t even feel the slicing pain until the tip was buried deep in his heart. He frowned and rubbed a palm over his pectoral as if massaging the phantom scar she’d left behind. The betrayal had been a year ago, but the memory still burned, but he knew better than to paint all women with the tainted brush of one.

But Danielle was hiding something. And he couldn’t be sure whether that something wasn’t close ties to Christopher.

Yet except for that husky, honeyed bourbon voice, Danielle did nothing to exude sexual appeal. Even her conservative black suit tried—and failed—to downplay the sensual thrust of her breasts, the slim tuck of her waist, and the sweet curve of her hips. Her one concession to overt femininity was the pair of sexy black stilettos that made a man want to fall down and weep in appreciation of firm calves and long, beautiful legs.

And her hair. Sweet Jesus, that hair. A soft hiss escaped his lips. Even as he’d stood in that tiny office with her, his fingers had itched to touch the riot of curls that tumbled behind her shoulders. Black as raw, midnight silk. Untamed. Free. The sight tugged at a place inside him that had never seen the light of day. It was a place that yearned for the unrestricted abandon of emotion most people experienced and enjoyed in childhood before rules and expectations were impressed upon them, retarding and inhibiting the very thing that made them kids.

He wanted to crush his face to those loose spirals and waves, inhale her wild scent, feel the tickle of the strands caress his skin, knowing it would be as close to that elusive place of freedom as he would ever come.

Malachim growled as he slapped his palm against his partially opened office door and stalked inside his inner sanctum. Would you look at him? He was a fucking poet and didn’t know it.

“Uh-oh. Who’s pissed you off?” Raphael Marcel arched a dark, pierced brow as Malachim barely spared a glance for the two men sprawled in the chairs in front of his desk. Malachim strode to his closet and snatched his coat off the hook. Rafe and Chayot Gray had closed up their security firm for the evening and waited for him while he’d checked in with Danielle before she left. The three of them had planned to have dinner and beers at a local bar after work, but right now a steak and a Sam Adams were the last things on his mind.

“Nobody. I’m fine,” he snapped, shrugging into the heavy wool. Rafe and Chay shared a look. The wealth of “he’s full of shit” in the nonverbal exchange kicked Malachim’s annoyance up several decimals. “You two are going to synchronize periods any day now.”

Chay chuckled while Raphael loosed a bark of laughter. Malachim, Gabe, Rafe, and Chay were as close as brothers. Closer. Malachim should know. His own father couldn’t stand to breathe the same air as him. Still, while Malachim had chosen law as his path, and Gabriel, writing, Chay and Rafe had joined their career plans together. They leased the second-floor suite of Malachim’s building for Liberty Security Services, their security and information systems firm. Raphael’s pierced and tattooed exterior camouflaged a brilliant, shrewd mind that could create and write code the Pentagon would have a hard time cracking. Partnered with Chay’s analytical brain and razor-sharp intelligence, the pair created air-tight security systems for large companies as well as contracting out their services.

Their partnership was well-balanced. Not really a people person, Rafe handled the technical duties, and Chay shouldered the business aspect with clients. With his solemn eyes and quiet demeanor, he seemed to inspire the confidence and assurance their mostly high-maintenance clientele required.

“What’s got your nuts in a knot?” Rafe laced his fingers over his stomach, the insolent smirk that had earned him many hours in detention lifting a corner of his mouth.

Malachim scowled as he rounded his desk and picked up his briefcase. “You are so eloquent. I just don’t understand why Chay won’t allow you near the clients. Such a way with words you have.”

Raphael shrugged his wide shoulders. “Me neither.”

“Maybe because our clients don’t like to be called ‘foolish fuckers with no more sense than God gave a gnat,’” Chay drawled.

“See?” Rafe waved a hand in Chay’s direction. “There’s your answer. People don’t like the truth, so Chay keeps me locked away where I can cause no harm.”

Malachim snickered, his irritation over Danielle’s stubbornness and his overreaction to her remark fading.

“So what’s up?” Chay inspected Malachim’s face. That was the thing about the man who made up the “baby” of their unholy quartet. Long before he’d entered the security field, Chay had made a habit of watching people, of studying them. After being attacked years ago by a man who should’ve been trustworthy, his penetrating gaze rarely missed anything, was always searching for signs. Always ready to react. Defend.

With Malachim’s childhood of lies, he didn’t trust easily. And Tara’s betrayal had only jackhammered that lesson home. But while his rose-tinted glasses had been peeled off, Chay’s had been viciously ripped away by terror, pain, evil, and death. As a result, Chay watched the world with the guarded sharpness of a wild animal that mistrusted anything walking upright on two legs.

Fuck Richard Pierce. Hatred for the monster who’d stolen Chay’s innocence seethed and boiled inside Malachim’s gut. He might be on the verge of losing his law license and the firm he loved, but damn if he wouldn’t repeat the decision he’d made twenty years ago. With one exception. He would’ve loved to have been the person who stabbed the pervert in the stomach, rather than being on the clean-up crew after his friend did so. He would’ve chosen to save Chay additional nightmares of murder on top of the ones he probably suffered from Richard Pierce’s predatory actions.

Malachim shook his head. And for a second bore every minute of his thirty-five years on his shoulders like a heavy, suffocating shroud.

“Nothing’s up,” he said, replying to Chay’s question. He scrubbed a palm over the top of his head. “I just had a disagreement with my new paralegal.”
My new stubborn, enigmatic, brilliant, sexy-as-hell paralegal.
An image of her curvy little figure in the naughty librarian suit and killer shoes popped into his head. Arousal tightened his gut.
Shit
. That just wasn’t good.

“Already?” Rafe chuckled. “Damn, man. She’s only been here a day. You don’t think you should’ve waited until—I don’t know—a week before you revealed your asshole-ish side?”

As Malachim flipped his middle finger at Rafe, Chay splayed his hands, palms up. “Seriously, you couldn’t have pissed her off before lunch? Then Travis and I could’ve won our bet.”

“Y’know, you two do have an office upstairs,” he growled. “It wasn’t her performance or quality of work. I have absolutely no complaints about that…” He frowned, tapping his fingers on the top of his briefcase.

“For a man with no complaints, you don’t look pleased.” Rafe cocked his head to the side and smoothed a scarred knuckle over his pierced eyebrow, a habitual gesture since they were boys.

“I am,” Malachim insisted, but his frown didn’t ease. “I’m thankful. When I first hired Danielle, I thought we would have to spend several weeks training her. But instead, she arrived this morning and jumped right in, taking on several of Travis and Sharon’s cases without batting an eye. Hell, the brief she drafted for Travis was perfect; he couldn’t have done better himself. Shit, I couldn’t have done better.”

“Soooo.” Chay leaned forward, propping his elbows on his thighs. “And this is a bad thing, how?”

“Like I said, it’s not bad. It’s good. Especially for Travis and Sharon, since I’m zero help right now.” Damn, that grated his skin like a badass rash. He’d tossed them into this pile of crap and couldn’t even grab a shovel to help dig them out since his license was suspended until the criminal case was resolved. “The thing is, her résumé doesn’t show any work history in this field. Just a certificate. Today should’ve sent her running for the nearest bar or back to that diner. Instead…”

Instead she’d waded in, plugged one of the holes in his drowning practice. And set his bullshit radar blaring on high alert.

Danielle was a contradiction. A woman with the pure beauty of a saint who possessed the alluring voice of a sinner. A woman who waitressed at a neighborhood diner but could comprehend and analyze legal jargon and documentation as if they were
Dick and Jane
books.

A woman who seemed to have no problem speaking her mind with him, yet stiffened and flinched when he stood too close or moved too suddenly. He hadn’t missed how she’d stiffened when they’d shaken hands the night of her interview. Or how she’d backed away from him in her office moments ago.

Oh yes, Danielle Warren was one huge, walking contradiction.

And he didn’t like contradictions…or trust them.

Maybe he’d have Leah conduct a simple background check on Danielle. As a private investigator, she had means of digging up information Malachim didn’t have access to. Just to be on the safe side…

“Look, forget it.” He lifted the case and headed toward the door. “Instead of sniffing out gossip and chatting like a bunch of damn women, can we go?”

“So polite,” Chay drawled, and Raphael chuckled. His friends rose and followed him out of his office. They waited while he locked the front door to his suite, and the three of them exited the brownstone together.

“So which bar are we headed to?” Malachim asked.

Rafe shrugged. “What about Bukowski?”

“That sounds good,” Malachim said. “Chay?”

“Sure.” He fell into step on the other side of Malachim. “You want me to call Gabe?”

Rafe snickered. “I think that would be the very definition of cock-blocking.” He emitted a long, exaggerated sigh. “Admit it, men. We have been replaced by a woman.” Since discovering several weeks ago that he loved Leah Bannon, their childhood friend, and moving in with her, Gabriel had spent less time with them. Not that they truly minded. Malachim, Rafe, and Chay loved Leah like a little sister. But teasing Gabriel unmercifully was their mandatory duty as friends—whether to his face or behind his back.

“I believe it’s called pussy-whipped,” Malachim added.

Chay laughed. “I’m telling Leah you said—”

“Did you hear that?” Rafe jerked to a halt. His dark brows lowered as he frowned.

“No,” Malachim said, tilting his head. “What?”

“Wait.” Rafe held up a hand. He scanned the empty sidewalk and road. Froze. “Son of a bitch,” he barked, then shot down the street.

Chay bolted after him. Malachim stared after the two men, stunned, before dropping his case and breaking into a run, following close behind. He still hadn’t detected the sound that had alarmed them, but concern had sharpened Rafe’s voice. That provided enough reason to pursue.

Then, as if the moon shifted and chased off the shadows, he saw them.

The large, menacing figure throwing a smaller form to the ground. Heard the pain-filled cry that cut through the night air.

Holy shit
.

Danielle. On her knees. Attacked. Hurt.

Fury boiled, seething hot and dangerous before spilling through his veins and burning away the shock.

With an enraged growl, he overtook and passed Chay and Rafe, his focus on the dead man standing.

Her attacker’s head whipped around. Malachim caught a glimpse of dark hair, pale skin, and a cruel, thin mouth as the piece of shit stilled, then bolted down the street. A waiting car peeled out, tires screaming.

Rafe and Chay dashed after her attacker as Malachim dropped to the ground next to Danielle. He brushed a trembling hand over her hair, smoothing the silken curls back from her forehead. Everything in him demanded he haul her into his arms, run his palms over her shivering body, and assure himself she was okay. Commanded him to shush her soft cries. But he didn’t—couldn’t—violate the boundaries of her personal space any more than his small caress over her hair already did. Though he wanted to hold her, soothe her, he knew if she hadn’t been in shock right now, she wouldn’t allow him this close to her.

“Shh,” he soothed. “It’s okay, sweetheart. He’s gone.”

Another hard shudder quaked through her body. She lifted her head, her fingers fluttering against her neck. “Malachim?”

“I’m here.” He briefly closed his eyes and fought the primal instinct to cradle her close. Her eyes. Goddamn. Those dark, haunted eyes. “Are you hurt? Did he…” Malachim swallowed, clenched his jaw before deliberately relaxing it. “Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head, and he exhaled a hard breath. “No. Just…” She didn’t finish, but her long, slim fingers circled her throat.

“Can you stand?” Malachim gently cupped her underarm, and when she nodded, helped her rise. She wavered, but he settled a palm at her lower back, steadying her.