Chapter 7 #2
The booth sits above the main floor like a throne. When I climb the steps, the crowd roars. The sound hits my bruises, rolls through my bones, and finds the part of me that remembers how to survive by becoming bigger than the room.
I plug in.
Lights drop.
Phones rise.
Somebody near VIP holds up a white rose.
My hand freezes on the mixer.
For one second, I’m back in the warehouse. Cold concrete. Cuffs. Blood. Boca’s mouth too close to me.
Then I see Shady below, exactly where I put him.
Not moving.
Watching the crowd, not me.
Working.
Listening.
I breathe.
One beat.
Two.
Three.
I drop the bass so hard the room explodes.
Eclipse belongs to me.
For forty-three minutes, I don’t belong to pain.
I don’t belong to Cherry’s ghost baby. I don’t belong to Shady’s lie, Carmen’s spite, or Toro’s hands.
I belong to sound. To lights. To every body moving because I tell them to.
Sweat gleams. Drinks spill. Men scream my name like a prayer with lip gloss on it.
Then the screens change.
Not mine.
Not my visuals.
The Eclipse logo glitches once. Twice. Then a blind item fills every screen in the club.
ROAD CAPTAIN’S LOST BABY. CLUBHOUSE REDHEAD. GLITTER GIRL REPLACEMENT.
The crowd shifts like an animal smelling blood.
My music keeps playing because my hands stay moving.
Thank God for muscle memory.
A photo flashes next. Grainy hallway. Shady outside a room. Cherry’s door. Another image: me onstage, glittering under lights, spliced beside a white rose.
Text rolls across the screen.
SOME WOMEN GET PATCHES. SOME GET PREGNANT. SOME GET REPLACED.
The room gasps.
Phones shoot higher.
My cheeks burn.
Not with shame.
With fury so bright I almost smile.
Carmen, you polished, miserable, sin vergüenza bitch.
You should have known better than to hand a DJ the sound system.
I kill the track.
The sudden silence drops like a body.
Then I take the mic.
My hand shakes once. Only once.
“Miami,” I say.
The crowd screams, confused and hungry.
I smile into the lights.
“Qué clase de show, huh?”
A few people laugh. Nervous. Good.
“You came for music. Somebody else came for my business.” I glance at the screen behind me, where the ugly words still glow. “So let’s clear one thing up before I make this bass hurt somebody’s feelings.”
The room goes quiet enough for me to hear my pulse.
“I’m not a rumor. I’m not being replaced.”
Somebody cheers.
Then more.
I keep going.
“Some women get secrets. Some women get scraps. Some women get handed another woman’s pain like it’s supposed to make them compete for a man who should have told the truth first.”
A roar rises.
My eyes find Shady.
He stands below, face wrecked, hands at his sides, letting every word hit him.
“I’m done pretending,” I say. “I’m done pretending these bruises make me fragile. And I’m real done letting rich girls with dead fathers send flowers to women they are scared to face. “So, Carmen, if you’re out there, show your coward face.”
Eclipse erupts.
I drop the next track so hard the speakers scream.
The crowd loses its mind.
I play another fifteen minutes because I refuse to run while Carmen’s little screen hack is still warm. When I finally step down, my legs are shaking badly enough that I grip the rail with both hands and pretend it is attitude.
Nico rushes over, pale. “We’re tracing how they got into the visuals. I swear, Lady, I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“Security found the guy with the rose. Saints took him.”
“Alive?” I ask.
Nico hesitates.
“Mostly.”
Fine.
Darling meets me at the bottom of the stairs and wraps an arm around my waist. “You were terrifying.”
“I was hot.”
“You were both.”
“Put that on my tombstone.”
“Not funny.”
“A little funny.”
She looks like she might cry again, so I kiss her cheek and send her toward Diablo with a gentle shove. “Go tell your biker not to murder the owner unless we get paid.”
“I heard that,” Diablo says.
“You were meant to.”
Shady waits at the end of the hallway.
Still exactly where I told him.
Far enough.
Listening.
That should not undo me.
It almost does.
I walk toward him because apparently I have learned nothing from fire except that it is pretty.
The hallway to the greenroom is darker than the club, narrow and painted black, with old flyers peeling at the corners. The bass is muffled here, more heartbeat than thunder. Shady falls into step beside me, not touching.
“Your mouth gets you in trouble,” he says.
I glance over. “Yours got me kidnapped.”
He takes that without flinching.
“Wow. No comeback?”
“I’m trying growth. Hate it.”
I snort.
He looks at me like the tiny sound is a gift, and my chest hates him for it.
We reach the greenroom door. I should go inside. Shut it. Let Darling come in. Let Diablo post guards and Alpha trace screens and every man in this building do something useful far away from my skin.
Instead, I stop.
Shady stops too.
The hall hums around us.
“You listened,” I say.
His eyes hold mine. “Yeah.”
“Even when that shit went on the screens.”
“Wanted to break every screen in the building.”
“I know.”
“Wanted to carry you out.”
“I know.”
“Wanted to kiss you in front of every camera so nobody could ask who I choose ever again.”
My breath catches.
“Why didn’t you?”
His gaze drops to my mouth.
“Because you told me where I stand.”
Heat rolls through me, low and mean.
I step closer.
He doesn’t move.
Smart man.
I touch his cut with two fingers. Just leather. Just a patch. Still, his whole body goes tight like I put my hand somewhere indecent.
“Blanquito,” I whisper, “you have any idea how annoying it is that listening looks good on you?”
His voice roughens. “You have any idea how fucked I am watching you walk around bruised and beautiful and not touching you?”
My thighs clench.
Traitorous body.
“Poor biker,” I say. “So tragic.”
“Mean woman.”
“Accurate woman.”
He leans one shoulder against the wall, putting his hands behind his back like he doesn’t trust them.
The move is so deliberate, so controlled, it lights me up worse than if he grabbed me.
Because I know what those hands feel like when they stop behaving.
I know how rough he can be when I say yes, and how much worse it feels now that he is waiting for it.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Keeping my hands where they won’t get me killed.”
“By who?”
“You. Darling. Diablo. That fucking bird somehow.”
I laugh.
Then he smiles.
Not big.
Not safe.
That smartass, dirty, dangerous curve I have felt against my skin.
I should walk away.
Instead I close the last inch between us and press my mouth to his.
It is a mistake.
It is also the first time all night I feel alive in a way that has nothing to do with surviving.
Shady makes a sound low in his throat, but he doesn’t touch me.
Not at first. His mouth opens under mine, hot and hungry, and I taste smoke, mint, and all the words he has not earned yet.
My hands fist in his cut. Pain flares through my wrists.
I don’t care. I want to climb him right there in the hallway, bruises, cameras, rumors, and all, just to prove my body still belongs to me.
Then his hands come off the wall.
Slow.
Giving me time.
I let them settle at my hips.
Just there.
Firm. Possessive. Waiting.
The first squeeze nearly takes my knees. His thumbs dig into my hips like a promise he is not allowed to keep yet.
He pulls back half an inch. “Tell me no.”
I breathe against his mouth. “No.”
His hands freeze.
I smile, cruel because I need to be. “Not like that, gringo. No, you don’t get more.”
His eyes burn.
“Lady.”
“Say it.”
His jaw flexes. “I don’t get more.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t earned it.”
The words hit me straight between the ribs.
I step back before they can turn into forgiveness.
He lets me.
That is the second thing he gives me tonight.
The greenroom door opens behind me, and Darling pokes her head out. “Lady?”
I don’t look away from Shady. “I’m good.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Okay, but I’m stylish.”
Her gaze flicks to Shady’s hands, now back at his sides. Then to my mouth. She says nothing, but her eyebrows say plenty.
Before I can answer, Nico comes running down the hall with a white face and a sealed black box in both hands.
“Lady,” he says. “This came to the front desk. They said it was for you.”
Every nerve in my body goes cold.
Shady steps forward.
This time I don’t tell him to stop.
Nico sets the box on the narrow hall table like it might explode. Maybe it will. In Miami, drama likes accessories.
Shady opens it with a knife from his boot, because of course he has a knife in his boot.
Inside are white roses.
Fresh.
Perfect.
Too clean.
On top is a cream card with red lettering.
CHOSEN WOMEN BLEED PRETTIEST.
For a second, nobody moves.
Then my phone buzzes in my hand.
Unknown number.
One photo.
Carmen Solano, sitting in a private booth somewhere that isn’t Eclipse, champagne in hand, smiling at the camera like she already won.
Under the photo is one line.
Enjoy your spotlight, Lady.
My hand tightens around the phone.
Shady’s voice drops beside me, dark enough to chill the hall.
“Give me the word.”
I look at the roses.
Then at him.
Then back at Carmen’s smiling face.
“No,” I say.
His eyes cut to mine.
I lift my chin.
“She wants blood. We’re giving her a show.”