Chapter 4 #2
The body tumbles over the railing and lands in a heap of broken roses.
“Watch your fucking angles!” Six yells.
“I was busy being romantic,” I yell back.
“Be romantic with cover.”
“Bossy prick.”
Lady laughs.
It is tiny. Bloody. Insane.
It nearly kills me.
I drop to my knees in front of her. “Hey, baby.”
Her eyes flash. “Don’t hey baby me while I’m tied up in a damn flower freezer, pendejo.”
My chest caves in around something that feels too soft for a man like me.
“I was going for comforting.”
“You suck at it.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard.”
Her gaze flicks over my side, the blood, the tear in my shirt. “You’re bleeding.”
“So are you.”
“I look better doing it.”
I huff out one ugly laugh and pull a pick from my vest. “Can’t argue with that.”
Her cuffs are police-grade, cheap but real. My hands want to shake. I don’t let them. The first lock pops. Then the second. Her wrists slide free, raw and red.
The sight does something bad to me.
Lady sees it.
“Don’t you dare go quiet on me now,” she says.
“I’m not quiet.”
“You got murder face.”
“I’m a murderer.”
“Later. Get my feet.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t start acting trained now. It’s suspicious.”
I cut the straps at her ankles. She winces when she tries to move, and the sound she doesn’t make hits worse than any scream could.
I reach for her. “Can you stand?”
“I can dance in six-inch heels on three hours of sleep and bad tequila. I can stand.”
She tries.
Her knees buckle.
I catch her before she hits the floor.
For one second, she lets me.
Her body folds into mine, hot and shaking under all that fury. Her face turns into my neck. Her breath breaks once against my skin, small enough no one else would hear.
I hear it.
I feel it.
I would burn the whole city down for that broken breath.
Then she shoves at my chest. “No. Don’t make a thing of it.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
“You’re literally making a thing with your face.”
“My face does what it wants.”
“Tell it to stop.”
“Face, stop.”
She glares.
God, she is beautiful. Split lip, swollen cheek, fury bright enough to light the freezer. Mine in every dark, stupid place inside me, and not mine at all because I haven’t earned the right.
Another burst of gunfire slams into the crates behind us.
I pull her down and cover her with my body.
She goes stiff beneath me.
Not fear.
Refusal.
“Shady.”
“I know.”
“Get off before I bite you.”
“Normally, I’d be into that.”
“Not the time, gringo.”
“Definitely not the time,” I agree, and roll enough to put myself between her and the shooter without pinning her.
Vice drops beside us, shotgun up. “We moving or flirting?”
“Multitasking,” I say.
Lady looks at Vice. “He always this annoying during rescues?”
“Worse,” Vice says. “Usually there’s less blood.”
“Debatable,” I mutter.
Diablo cuts across the aisle with Magic and Six, all three moving like violence learned choreography. Magic has blood on his cheek and a grin that says none of it is his problem. Six covers the stairs. Diablo’s eyes hit Lady, then me, then her wrists.
His face goes black.
“You good?” he asks her.
Lady lifts her chin. “No, but I’m alive.”
“That’ll do for the next five minutes,” Diablo says.
A cold voice comes over the warehouse speakers.
“Well, look at that. Road captain found the road.”
Toro.
Every gun stills for half a beat.
His voice pours through the speakers from somewhere above or beyond the office. Smooth. Amused. Already leaving.
“You came with friends, Shady. I’m disappointed.”
“Come down here and I’ll apologize with my hands,” I yell.
Lady grips my cut. “He’s baiting you.”
“I know.”
“Your face says you want to eat the bait.”
“My face is a narc.”
Toro laughs through the speaker. “She is sharper than you deserve.”
“She’s sharper than everybody,” I say.
“True. That’s why she lives.”
A loading alarm starts blaring at the far side of the warehouse.
Alpha’s voice snaps into comms. “East refrigerated trailer just went live. Heat signature moving through rail-side gate. That’s Toro.”
I look toward the sound.
Everything in me lunges.
Lady is under my arm. Hurt. Shaking. Watching me.
Toro is getting away.
The man who touched her is getting away.
I move one step.
Lady’s fingers lock around my wrist.
Not strong.
Enough.
“If you leave me here,” she says, voice low and deadly, “I’ll crawl out myself and hate you the whole way.”
I stop.
That sentence does what bullets could not.
Diablo looks at me, and there is no command in his face now. Only the question.
Road captain or her man?
No.
That ain’t the choice.
If I’m worth a damn, I have to be both.
“Dune, Tubbs,” I say into comms, voice ripping out of me. “Toro is in the east trailer heading rail-side. Pinch him if you can, but don’t break formation. He wants us split.”
Dune answers first. “On it.”
Tubbs follows. “Got movement, but he’s got smoke.”
Another explosion pops outside, smaller than the first gunfire. Smoke rolls past the dock windows.
Key Rat curses in my ear. “He blew the side gate camera. Slippery fucker.”
Toro’s voice returns through the speaker, fading behind static. “Another day, road captain.”
The speaker pops with static, then dies.
Coward.
I stare at the east wall like I can kill him through concrete.
Lady’s hand slides from my wrist to my knuckles.
“You heard me,” she says.
I look down at her. “Yeah, baby. I heard you.”
Her mouth tightens at baby, but she doesn’t correct me this time.
We move.
I scoop her up because she can argue later when the building ain’t full of armed assholes and chemical roses. She curses in Spanish against my shoulder the second her feet leave the ground.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“Shady.”
“File a complaint.”
“I’ll file my foot up your ass.”
“Good. Means you’re feeling better.”
“I’m not joking.”
“Neither am I.”
She goes quiet, and I hate that more than the cussing.
I carry her through the roses while Vice covers our left and Diablo clears the way ahead. Magic and Six finish what is left of the resistance with ugly efficiency. Boca moans near the chair as we pass, clutching his shoulder.
Lady twists in my arms, eyes locking on him.
Boca smiles through blood. Stupid man. “Ask him, munequita.”
I stop so fast Vice nearly runs into me.
Boca coughs and grins wider, teeth red. “Ask him about Cherry’s baby.”
Lady goes still in my arms.
There is the knife.
Not in my ribs.
In hers.
I hand Lady to Diablo before I know I’m doing it.
Diablo takes her because he knows murder when it moves.
“Shady,” Vice warns.
Too late.
I cross the distance, grab Boca by the front of his shirt, and drag him halfway off the floor. Pain makes him scream. I put my face close to his.
“You say her name again, I peel it off your tongue.”
He laughs, shaking. “Which one?”
I hit him.
Once.
His head snaps back.
Twice.
His blood sprays across white roses.
Vice catches my arm before the third. “He’s useful.”
“He’s breathing. That’s useful enough.”
“Shady.”
Lady’s voice stops me.
Not loud.
Not pleading.
Just my name.
I release Boca.
He drops like trash.
Lady is standing now, one hand braced on Diablo’s arm, the other pressed to her ribs. She looks small for the first time since I have known her, and I hate Boca for making me see it. I hate myself more because the thing in her eyes didn’t come from his gun.
It came from my silence.
“We need to go,” Diablo says.
I nod, jaw locked so tight my teeth ache.
Outside, Miami heat hits like a slap. The cold storage clings to my clothes, but the sun burns it off fast. Sirens wail somewhere far enough to be a problem later. The refrigerated trailer is gone. Smoke stains the rail-side gate. Toro is gone with it.
For now.
I carry Lady again only because her legs betray her halfway across the dock. She lets me until we reach the bikes and the black SUV Alpha sent around with Gville. Then her palm lands flat against my chest.
“Put me down.”
This time, I do.
Her boots hit the pavement, and she sways. I reach for her. She steps back.
Not far.
Far enough.
That space opens between us like a grave.
“Lady.”
She looks at me, then past me at the warehouse, the roses, the blood, the smoke. Then back at me.
Her eyes are wet.
Furious.
Worse than furious.
Clear.
“What did he mean?” she asks.
My chest tightens.
I know exactly what she means.
I still try for time because I’m a coward in the one place that matters.
“Boca runs his mouth.”
“Not that.” Her voice cuts. “Don’t insult me right now.”
I shut up.
The others go quiet around us. Even Magic, which should count as a miracle.
Lady lifts her chin. Blood has dried at the corner of her mouth. Her wrists are raw. There is a white petal stuck in her hair.
She looks like a woman who walked out of hell and brought the fire with her.
“Cherry’s baby? Is the baby yours?”
The world stops.
There are gunshots still ringing in my ears, sirens getting closer, brothers bleeding behind me, Toro escaping into Miami, Carmen’s fingerprints all over the idea of this, and none of it matters because Lady is looking at me like my answer might be the thing that saves us or finishes what Boca started.
I know the answer.
I owe her the answer.
I freeze anyway.
Just for one breath.
One stupid, damning breath.
Her face changes.
Not a lot.
Enough.
“Oh,” she whispers.
That little word cuts deeper than Boca’s bullet ever could.
“Lady.”
She steps back before I can touch her.
“Don’t.”
“Baby, listen to me.”
“No.” Her voice shakes once, then goes hard. “You saved me from them, Shady.”
I swallow.
Her eyes hold mine.
“Thank you. But I can’t handle much more right now.”
Then she turns away from me and climbs into the SUV without looking back.