Chapter 8
Darling
By the time we leave Eclipse, Miami is wearing our blood like perfume.
Cameras flash against the curb. Bass thumps through the walls behind us. The white roses are sealed in an evidence bag in Diablo’s hand, and every time I look at them, I feel Lady’s voice in my chest.
She wants blood. We’re giving her a show.
That is Lady. Bruised wrists wrapped in leather cuffs, split lip painted red again, chin up like the whole city is a stage built under her heels.
I watch her stand beside Shady near the black SUV, not touching him, not letting him touch her, but somehow making the space between them feel dirtier than a kiss.
He stands exactly where she told him to stand.
Close enough to kill for her. Far enough to prove he can listen.
His jaw is locked, his eyes are on every rooftop, every photographer, every valet who looks too long.
Lady tilts her head toward him.
“You following me, blanquito?”
His mouth twitches. “I was thinking about it.”
“Try again.”
“I’m driving behind you at a respectful distance while silently hating every second of it.”
She points at him with one black-painted nail. “Better.”
“Still sounds like bullshit.”
“It is, but prettier.”
“Story of Miami.”
I almost smile.
Almost.
Then Lady glances back at me, and the smile dies before it can make it to my face.
She looks alive.
She also looks like if somebody breathes wrong near her, she will either break or burn the building down. Maybe both. Probably both.
“You okay?” I ask.
Her expression softens for half a second. Just for me.
“No,” she says. “But I’m going home.”
“With me behind her,” Shady says.
Lady’s eyes cut to him.
He lifts both hands. “Behind. Not inside. Not unless you say.”
She studies him.
He lets her.
That part matters. It matters so much I feel it in my bruised bones. Shady, road captain, smartass, too pretty for his own damn sins, standing there with all that violence chained behind his teeth because Lady told him no and he listened.
“Fine,” she says. “You can be my shadow, gringo. But shadows don’t talk.”
Shady nods solemnly. “Tragic. My best feature is my mouth.”
Lady’s gaze drops there.
Heat flickers between them so fast and dark I feel like I should look away.
“Debatable,” she says.
Then she gets into the SUV.
Shady watches the door shut like he is being punished by a god with perfect aim.
Diablo’s hand settles at my lower back. Not pushing. Not guiding. Just there.
“We go back to Vice Ink,” he says.
I look up at him. “Do we?”
His eyes are still on the road, on the cars, on the men, on the threats his mind keeps turning into maps. “Alpha has something on Reyes. Disco is in my office trying to eat a pen. We need to regroup.”
“Disco eats pens when he is emotionally neglected.”
“Disco eats pens because he is a terrorist in feathers.”
“He learned from your club.”
Diablo finally looks at me.
The hard line of his mouth softens for one breath.
Then another camera flash hits us, and his expression closes again.
“Get in the car, amor.”
I hate that the word still moves through me.
I also hate that tonight, love feels too close to ownership.
Vice Ink is awake when we return.
Not loud. Awake.
There is a difference. Loud means drunk brothers, music, smoke, women laughing too sharp, dice rolling at the bar, someone yelling from the back hall because Magic started trouble and decided to make it communal.
Awake means guns on tables, men posted at every entrance, laptop glow across old wood, and the kind of silence that listens for engines.
The old church looks less like a clubhouse tonight and more like a war room with stained glass.
Disco screams the second we step inside.
“Diablo! Pendejo!”
Diablo stops under the balcony, eyes closing.
I press my lips together.
“Don’t laugh,” he says.
“I would never.”
“You’re laughing inside.”
“I’m a woman of faith. I’m praying for your patience.”
Disco flaps from his perch inside Diablo’s office, loud enough to rattle the door. “Pretty Lady! ?No roses!”
My throat tightens.
My ridiculous bird. My little white chaos demon who somehow understands more than half the men in this building. I start toward the office, but Diablo catches my wrist.
Lightly.
Still, I stop.
He lets go immediately.
Good.
He sees my face and learns fast.
“We need to talk first,” he says.
“No, you need to talk. I need to check on my bird.”
“Darling.”
That voice.
The president voice. The man who gives orders and expects the whole room to bend around them.
My body remembers a time I bent too much. Not for him. Not really. For Rico. For fear. For every version of love that taught me quiet women survived longer.
I turn fully toward Diablo.
“Careful,” I say.
His jaw flexes.
Behind him, Alpha looks up from the altar table but pretends not to. Crypt suddenly finds his laptop very interesting. Key Rat walks by, hears the tone in my voice, and reverses direction like a rat with survival instincts.
Diablo lowers his voice. “Carmen sent roses to Eclipse with a threat aimed at Lady. She leaked Shady’s past. She has Mutherfukers moving through a flower business tied to old Solano money. She knows where we are weak.”
“Yes,” I say.
“And you’re her real target.”
The words land cold.
Not because I don’t know.
Because I do.
I knew it when Lady was tied to a chair. I knew it when Carmen smiled at me in the hospital. I knew it when Diablo said he ended the engagement and Carmen looked at me like a debt that needed collecting.
I’m not the queen.
I’m the insult.
Diablo chose the bartender.
In Carmen’s world, that is worse than betrayal. It is humiliation.
“She already had Lady taken,” he says. “She will come for you again.”
“She never stopped coming for me.”
His eyes darken. “Then I lock you down.”
The ugly little word.
Lock.
My spine goes straight. “No.”
His nostrils flare. “I’m not asking.”
“That is exactly your problem.”
“Darling.”
“No.” I step closer, because fear wants me back and I refuse to go. “I didn’t survive Rico, your engagement, Carmen’s little hospital performance, and my best friend being kidnapped so you can put me in a pretty cage.”
His eyes flash. “You think I want you caged? I want you alive.”
“I think you’re scared enough to forget the difference.”
The words hit him.
“I want you alive,” he repeats.
“I want to be alive too. Not stored.”
“This isn’t the time to fight me.”
“Then stop making me.”
He laughs once, but there is no humor in it. “You have any idea what it does to me seeing that card? Chosen women bleed prettiest. That was for you as much as Lady.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
I slap my palm against his chest. Not hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to stop him.
“I know exactly,” I say. “Being chosen publicly didn’t end the danger. It changed the target. You finally stopped lying for Carmen in front of everyone, and now she is punishing the women who make that truth real. Lady. Me. Anyone close enough to prove Carmen lost.”
His face tightens.
“I’m not locking down because Carmen hates the truth,” I say. “And if you try to make me, Diablo Vargas, I will leave.”
The whole room freezes.
There is a special silence after a woman says she will leave a powerful man in front of his club. It tastes like gasoline. Every brother hears it. Every ghost in the old church hears it. Even Disco goes quiet behind the office door, which is how I know the universe is paying attention.
Diablo’s eyes go black.
For one awful second, I see the war in him. The man who wants to haul me upstairs and put his body against the door. The president who thinks losing me is unacceptable. The lover who knows if he grabs, he proves me right.
Then the front doors open.
Magic’s voice booms from the entry. “Prez.”
Every gun in the room lifts.
Diablo turns, putting himself halfway in front of me before he can stop the instinct. I move beside him, not behind him.
Carmen Solano steps into Vice Ink like she still owns the floor.
She wears white. A fitted white suit, red mouth, black hair pinned sleek as a blade. Diamonds at her ears. No ring on her finger. She looks expensive, untouched, polished down to the cruelty.
On either side of her stand two men in white denim cuts.
Miami Mutherfukers.
The room changes.
Magic has a gun up. Six appears from the side hall like he was born there. Vice moves to Diablo’s left. Dune and Tubbs come in from the back. Key Rat vanishes behind a pillar with a phone already at his ear. Alpha stays at the table, but his eyes sharpen.
Diablo’s voice drops to death. “You brought them into my house.”
Carmen smiles.
Not big.
Enough.
“I brought witnesses.”
Magic laughs. “Witnesses usually dress less stupid.”
One Mutherfuker steps forward.
Six’s shotgun clicks.
The man stops.
Smart.
Carmen’s gaze slides around the room, taking in every patch, every weapon, every man who used to lower his voice when Rafael Solano entered. Then she looks at me.
The real reason she came.
“You look tired, Darling.”
I smile back. “You look desperate, Carmen.”
Her eyes flash.
Tiny. Fast. Perfect.
“You always did confuse cheap courage with class.”
“And you always did confuse your father’s shadow with a personality.”
Magic makes a choking sound that might be joy.
Diablo doesn’t move, but I feel him beside me, hot and dangerous.
Carmen’s smile hardens. “Still playing bartender turned queen? How charming. You pour drinks for bikers, spread your legs for one, and suddenly you think you sit where my family bled.”
Diablo moves.
I catch his wrist.
He stops.
Barely.
I keep my eyes on Carmen. “Don’t be mad at me because Diablo finally got tired of renting the club.”
Her face goes colder.
“The Saints existed because my father allowed them space,” Carmen says. “Diablo has forgotten what Rafael gave him.”
“No,” I say. “Diablo remembers exactly what Rafael gave him. Blood. Debt. A chair with a corpse still warm beside it. And you, standing there with a ring like a leash.”
She steps closer.
The Mutherfukers shift with her.
The Saints shift back.
The whole church tightens around us.
Carmen’s voice drops. “You stole what was mine.”