Chapter 3 #2
So does every other eye in the room.
For the first time since Lady’s video started playing, Shady looks hit.
Not angry.
Hit.
Cherry wipes at her cheeks, but the tears keep coming. “You told me I didn’t have to be alone. You told me you would always look out for me. Then you started looking at her.”
Her gaze cuts to Lady’s frozen face.
Small move.
Ugly move.
Human move.
That is what makes it dangerous.
I want Cherry to be pure evil so I can hate her cleanly.
I want Shady innocent so Lady doesn’t have to wake up from being kidnapped and find another woman’s grief waiting in his bed.
But life is never that generous. Men make messes and call them nothing.
Women bleed on the edges of them and get called dramatic for noticing the stain.
Cherry looks back at Shady. “They knew about the baby. They knew where my sister lived. They knew you stopped answering me. They knew exactly what to say.”
“You gave them Lady’s garage code,” Vice says.
Cherry sobs harder.
Magic says, “Answer. How did you even get it? How did you know where she lived?”
“Yes,” she whispers. “I gave them the code. I followed her once. Learned the building. Knew who to ask. I have plenty of friends who clean pools, wash windows, and keep their mouths shut for cash.”
Shady closes his eyes.
For half a second.
When he opens them, something inside him has gone colder.
“You gave them the code to her fucking home.”
“I thought they were going to scare her. Leave a rose. Maybe take pictures. I swear, Shady, I didn’t know they were going to take her.”
“That lie’s getting old,” I say.
I cross the room before anyone stops me.
Cherry looks up just as I reach her.
I slap her.
Hard.
The sound cracks through Vice Ink like a shot.
My palm burns. My wrist screams under the bandage. Pain shoots all the way up my arm, but I don’t care.
Cherry stares at me, one hand pressed to her cheek.
“You gave them my best friend,” I say.
Her eyes flood with tears.
“I didn’t know.”
I slap her again.
Diablo says my name behind me, but he doesn’t move.
Good.
He is learning fast.
Cherry folds forward in the chair, sobbing into her hands. “I was scared.”
“So is she.”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“But it did.” My voice shakes so hard it almost breaks. “It happened because they found your worst pain and your pettiest hope and tied them together with a bow.”
Cherry looks past me at Shady, desperate. “Tell her.”
Shady doesn’t move. “Tell her what?”
“That you came to me after Eclipse.”
The room goes sharp again.
“No,” Shady says.
Cherry laughs through tears. “No? That is all you have?”
“I came to check on you.”
“You fucked me.”
His jaw flexes.
No.
No, not because I care who Shady fucked before Lady. I care because Lady might care. Lady, who is tied to a chair.
Cherry’s eyes shine with something cruel now, grief and jealousy twisting together until I can hardly tell one from the other.
“He fucked me after he started seeing Lady,” she says. “After Eclipse. After she left with that promoter. He was mad. He was drunk. He came to my room.”
Shady moves then.
Fast enough that Magic steps in front of him.
Not because Magic can stop him if Shady truly wants through.
Because a brother offers a wall before a man does something he can’t undo.
“I didn’t fuck you that night,” Shady says.
Cherry flinches.
“But you did.”
“I don’t remember it.”
The word lands like a slap.
Shady looks toward the screen.
Lady’s bloody mouth.
Lady’s white rose.
Lady’s clue.
Then he looks back at Cherry.
“If I fucked you, it was because I was pissed and stupid and wanted to prove something to myself that was not true. I knew you were hurt. I knew you heard promises in places I didn’t put them. I left the door open because shutting it meant looking at what we lost.”
Cherry crumples.
He keeps going, quieter now, which makes it worse.
“That baby might’ve been mine. I don’t fucking know. You lie Cherry so I don’t know what to believe. If it was, losing it hurt. And I didn’t love you right, and I didn’t grieve with you right. But I’ll never know if my grief is real or your fantasy.”
Nobody speaks.
That is the first truth any man has said in this room all morning.
My anger doesn’t fade.
It sharpens.
Because Lady deserves to hear that from him before anyone else turns it into a knife.
Shady looks at me.
“I’ll tell her.”
“You better,” I say. “Before someone else does.”
His eyes go back to the screen. “I know.”
Alpha clears his throat.
It sounds almost rude in the silence, which means it matters.
“Then we use what Lady gave us before Toro uses what Cherry gave them.”
Every head turns.
Alpha stands at the old altar table we use for church, laptop open, phone connected by a cable, three monitors arranged like he brought an office into a war room. He rewinds three seconds and plays Lady’s video again.
“You hear me? Don’t get lost. Count the beat. Two left, three right. Flowers don’t grow where planes scream and trains cry.”
His finger taps the table.
Once.
Twice.
Then three times.
“Two left, three right,” he murmurs.
Magic leans over his shoulder. “What, turns?”
“Maybe.” Alpha doesn’t look up. “Maybe rhythm. Maybe both.”
Shady speaks. “Both.”
Every head turns.
His eyes stay on Lady’s frozen face.
“She counted turns in the van. She would. She knows music. She uses beats to remember movement.”
My chest tightens. Lady once taught me how to breathe through a panic attack in the girls’ bathroom by tapping a beat against the tile and telling me to follow her fingers.
“Dale,” I tell Alpha, stepping closer. “Play it again.”
Alpha’s gaze flicks to me. “You know something?”
“She used to do that. Beats. When we were teens.” My throat tightens. “Music is how she remembers things.”
“She said flowers,” Alpha says, turning back to the screen. “Planes scream. Trains cry. We are looking near a flight path and rail.”
Vice pulls a phone from his pocket. “That narrows half the damn city.”
“No,” Alpha says. “The flowers narrow it.”
He rewinds again, dragging the video frame by frame. Lady’s head jerks when the man yanks her hair. The camera shakes. A blur passes in the background. White buckets. Concrete floor. A blue-green wall. Some kind of sign.
Alpha freezes it.
The room leans in without moving.
The letters are cut off behind Lady’s shoulder, half blocked by a man’s arm, but I see enough to make my stomach drop.
REYES FLORAL.
“Reyes Floral Imports,” Alpha says.
Shady lifts his head fully.
The air changes.
Not relief.
Direction.
Diablo steps closer to the table. “Where?”
Alpha types fast. “Three registered locations. Main office in Doral. Retail event front in Coral Gables. Cold storage and import warehouse near the airport rail spur, west of Allapattah.”
Magic smiles without humor. “Planes and trains.”
“Owner?” Vice asks.
Alpha clicks once.
His screen changes to business records, a glossy website full of wedding arches and funeral arrangements, then a woman’s photo.
Dark hair. Brown skin. Red mouth. Cream blouse. No smile. Direct eyes.
Alpha reads the name aloud.
“Amour Reyes.”
The name hangs there.
Amour.
Love.
Of course the woman tied to a flower warehouse where my best friend is being tortured is named love. Miami has a sick sense of humor.
“Is she Mutherfuker?” Six asks.
“No known family tie on paper,” Alpha says. “Father owned the company before her. Died eighteen months ago. She took over. Contracts with luxury hotels, funeral homes, event planners, clubs.” He pauses. “Including Eclipse.”
Shady’s head turns.
Lady plays Eclipse.
My skin goes cold.
“Carmen knows Eclipse well,” I say.
Everyone looks at me.
My voice shakes, but I keep going. “That’s her scene. She knows Lady plays there. She knows Lady is my friend. She knows you chose me. Mira, Diablo, you finally took Carmen’s ring off the table, and now she is flipping the whole damn table over.”
Diablo’s mouth tightens.
“She may have helped,” he says. “She may have pointed them. But the roses belong to the Mutherfukers.”
“I know what you said.”
“Then hear it again. Carmen is dangerous. She isn’t sloppy. This is loud. This is designed to make us think of her first.”
“She came to the hospital to make Miami watch.”
“Yes.”
“So she likes loud when it serves her.”
His eyes hold mine. Let him see I’m not just panic in a bruised body. Let him remember I survived three years of learning when men lie, when they posture, when they smile too soon. Carmen’s fingerprints may not be on the rope, but I can smell her perfume on the idea.
Before Diablo can answer, Alpha’s phone pings.
He looks down.
His expression changes.
“What?” Shady asks.
“The burner that sent the video is still hot.”
Shady is already moving.
Diablo catches his arm.
The whole room freezes.
“Take your hand off me, Prez,” Shady says.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Then I’ll leave a trail.”
“You’re not calling blind.”
“I’m not blind.” Shady’s voice lowers. “She gave me a road.”
“Then be road captain and let Alpha trace while you talk.”
Shady stares at him.
For one second, I think he will rip away anyway.
Then he looks at Lady’s frozen face.
Strategy wins by a hair.
“Do it,” he tells Alpha.
Alpha moves fast. Cable. Burner routing. Key Rat slides in beside him, eyes fast, fingers moving on another phone.
“Speaker?” Alpha asks.
Shady nods once.
The room quiets until I can hear my own heartbeat.
Alpha dials.
Once.
Twice.
Three rings.
Then a click.
Nobody speaks for one second.
Then Shady’s voice fills Vice Ink, low and calm enough to scare every man in the room.
“You touched her.”
My whole body locks.
A man answers, smooth and smug. “Road captain.”
Toro.
“You got one chance to tell me where she is,” Shady says.
“Only one?”
“After that, I start taking from you.”
Toro laughs softly. “She’s listening.”
My breath stops.
On the line, there is silence.
Then Shady speaks, and his voice changes. Not softer exactly. More dangerous because the tenderness is trapped inside it.
“Lady.”
A pause.
Then her voice.
Hers.
Bloody. Rough. Alive.
“Shady.”
I make a sound so small I hate it.