Page 5 of Protecting his Secrets

“You’re welcome.”

He headed for the exit, Stan having already left, but felt the hairs on his neck prickling again. Glancing over his shoulder, he caught Nick’s gaze once more. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t have minded being studied like a specimen in a petri dish, but right then, that feeling of being the sole focus of someone was unnerving. Malachi ducked his head and left, exhaling heavily.

“Did you get whatever trash you’re going to write about them now?” a voice said beside him as he finished writing his last notes.

He lifted his gaze to Stan’s. “Everyone is entitled to write what they want, Stan. You know that.” Though his stomach agreed with Stan. If he didn’t work his way into an early gravewith stomach or sleep issues before his contract ended, he’d be surprised.

“Of course they are, but even you can give them a break some days, surely.”

“I write the story I see, Stan.” Meaning, he wrote the stories Tucker wanted him to.

Stan huffed, shook his head and left, and Malachi swallowed down bile.I’m right there with you, Stan. One day, you’ll all see.

Heavy with the burden of keeping secrets, he headed down the street, having not bothered with his car as he lived close by. His phone rang as he walked off his melancholy, and he pulled it from his pocket, grinning at the screen.

“Hola, Abuela,” he said.

“Ah, Kai. Anyone who said you couldn’t learn languages was wrong,” his grandmother, Sally, said with a chuckle.

Malachi returned the laugh. “That’s all I can manage. You’re the one learning languages like you’re five years old.”

He could almost hear his grandmother’s shrug as she brushed off his compliments. “What else do I have to spend my time on? Languages are there to be learnt. Spanish is a lovely sounding one.”

“It is. I just wish I could do it justice.”

“That you try is all I can ask. Are you still coming for dinner?”

Malachi wandered down the path to his front door. “I am. I just need to finish this article, and then I’ll be over. Is everyone else joining us?”

He had an older brother and three younger sisters, who occasionally made time in their hectic—cough, cough—schedules to join them at their grandmother’s house for dinner. They had their own lives, but Malachi could never understand why they wanted to distance themselves when Sally and their mother, Emily, were the best and most down-to-earth people he knew. But each to their own.

“Vanessa and Christine said they might make it, but Ben and Zara should be here. Are you being unkind to the royal family again?”

Malachi sighed, taking his shoes off just inside the door. “I’m doing my job, Grandma. That’s all.” Sally fell silent, and Malachi squirmed. “Not long left,” he added when the silence became too much.

“Take care of yourself, too, Kai. Don’t let them take your soul.”

Too late.“Never. I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

“Ich liebe dich,” Sally said, bringing a smile to Malachi’s face. His grandmother was already fluent in German when she switched to Spanish, soaking up the languages quicker than anyone he knew despite her reaching past eighty years of age. She had used the same “I love you” phrase in German the moment Malachi had burst out laughing, thinking she’d said she loved dick. He was grateful his family weren’t prudes because they threw sexual jokes and innuendos like best friends would.

“I love you, too, Abuela.”

“See you soon.”

Malachi hung up and headed for the kitchen to make a coffee, delaying the inevitable for as long as possible. When the coffee steamed in his mug and he inhaled the aroma with a blissful smile, he drifted towards the desk in the corner of the room, its only saving grace being the view behind the house. Each step was like trudging through knee-height snow, but he gritted his teeth and sat at his computer, booting it up. While it did its thing, he put his notepad down and checked the recording on his phone. He had the entire visit recorded, but he relied on notes as well, just in case his phone failed.

By the time he was ready to start his article, he had bolstered himself against the words he had to write. He always wrote the hardest article first because then he could counteract his words, and the words of other reporters, in the easier one. Plus, heneeded the pick-me-up after writing such soul-destroying things about the royal family.

Staring at the cursor blinking on the empty page, he held his fingers over the keys. Breathing deeply, he started typing, wincing and swallowing hard with every blade he sliced through the royal family. When he finished, he stared down at his arms, expecting blood to be dripping from his vein where he’d torn them apart. Shoring himself up again, he read through the article, checking for errors, and finally emailed it through to Tucker.

Then he raced to the bathroom and threw up. Same routine every time.

He flushed and splashed water over his face before pouring himself a glass of water from the kitchen. He sipped it, hoping the coolness of the liquid would settle his stomach, but only one thing could.

His counter-article.

The Malachi Sanders title wasIs The King Ill?But the Kai Ruffers title wasLeading By Example.

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