Chapter 9
Lady
Shady shows up at my tower with a clean shirt, cafecito in one hand, and a white bakery box in the other like carbs can keep me from murdering him.
It is almost insulting how well he knows me.
After my revenge set at Eclipse, he followed me home and promised the patched men he left to watch me wouldn’t bother me. They haven’t. He hasn’t either. The space has been both refreshing and devastating. I’ve had almost a whole week to think, and I still don’t know how I feel.
I watch him through the peephole for a full minute before I open the door.
He doesn’t knock again. He doesn’t text.
He doesn’t lean on the bell like a macho pendejo with a death wish.
He just stands there in the hallway, boots planted, cut on, blond hair damp from Miami humidity, mouth set in that rough line that usually means he is deciding whether to say something smartass or violent.
His eyes lift to the peephole.
“I know you’re looking, baby.”
I stay silent.
He lifts the coffee. “Brought peace offerings.”
“Did you bring roses?”
“Fuck no.”
“Smart.”
“I have my fucking moments.”
“Rare, but cute.”
His mouth twitches.
I unlock the door because I’m weak, angry, horny, exhausted, and curious. Dangerous combination. The kind Miami builds entire nightlife economies around.
The second I open it, his eyes run over me.
Not slow enough to be dirty.
Not fast enough to be polite.
He takes in the oversized silk robe, the bruises along my cheek, the leather cuffs still hiding the worst of my wrists, my bare legs, my swollen lip, my hair piled messy on top of my head. His jaw tightens at every mark.
I lift one brow. “If your face keeps doing that, I’m closing the door.”
His eyes snap to mine. “Doing what?”
“Look like you don’t like the marks you didn’t put on me.”
“I don’t.”
“You have two expressions. Murder and annoying.”
“Annoying is my charm.”
I roll my eyes.
He holds out the coffee and bakery box. “Guava pastelitos. No flowers. No bullshit. No touching unless you say.”
My heart does something stupid.
I blame the sugar.
I take the coffee first. “You may enter, blanquito.”
He steps inside.
My tower apartment is all glass, city lights, and expensive silence. Biscayne Bay glitters beyond the windows. The balcony doors are locked. The curtains are half open because I refuse to hide but not so a drone can get a clean look, because I’m brave, not idiota.
Shady notices. His gaze skims the locks, the corners, the elevator camera feed pulled up on my wall tablet, the knife on the entry table, the chair I dragged near the hallway because the scrape marks on the floor remind me I’m the one who moved it there.
“Nice setup,” he says.
“Don’t sound proud. I’ve been kidnapped once this week. I’m allowed to become security-conscious.”
“Baby, if you start making exit maps, I’m proposing.”
I glare at him.
He clears his throat. “Too soon?”
“Considering my best friend just got proposed to mid-dick by your president, apparently not in this club.”
His brows shoot up. “Diablo proposed during sex?”
“Darling texted me a ring emoji, a devil emoji, and a desk emoji. I filled in the trauma.”
Shady looks toward the ceiling. “That man’s office has seen too much.”
“Your clubhouse bird witnessed it.”
His mouth curves. “I’m afraid of what that bird will start saying.”
“Disco probably yelled pendejo at the exact right time.”
“He usually does.”
The laugh that slips out of me is small.
Shady hears it like a starving man hears a dinner bell.
His face softens for one second.
I hate it.
I walk away before he can see it landed. “Put the box on the counter.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Don’t yes ma’am me unless you plan to behave.”
“Those two things don’t usually go together.”
“That’s why you’re on thin ice.”
“Miami doesn’t have ice.”
“I was in a flower freezer, gringo. Don’t test me on ice.”
His smile dies.
Too fast.
The room changes.
I hate that too. I hate that every joke has a trapdoor under it now. Every bit of banter can drop us straight into concrete, white roses, and blood. I put the coffee down untouched.
Shady stays by the counter.
He doesn’t move closer.
That is new.
The distance feels like a hand on my throat and air in my lungs at the same time.
“I saw the post,” he says.
“The one about me calling out Carmen at Eclipse?”
“Yeah.”
“The promoters are on my side.”
“You looked mean as hell.”
“I looked correct.”
“Yeah.” His mouth twitches again. “Mean and correct. Terrifying combo.”
“Carmen’s been quiet since.” I lean against the island and fold my arms. “Did you come here to compliment my social media strategy?”
“No.”
“Did Diablo send you?”
“No.”
“Did Darling?”
“She told me if I hurt you again, she’d feed my ear to Disco.”
“She loves me.”
“She scares me.”
“She should.”
He looks at me, and the smartass fades. “I came because you told me to bring better answers next time.”
My pulse moves in my wrists, under the bandages. My body is tired, bruised, and still somehow aware of him in the worst way. The man fills space like a threat and a promise. He should not look good in my apartment. He should look wrong against all the glass and polished stone.
He doesn’t.
He looks like the shadow I invited in and now have to decide whether to fear or use.
I take the lid off the coffee and breathe in sweet, dark caffeine. “Then talk.”
He drags a hand over his jaw. “Ask.”
“Cherry first.”
His eyes flick once. Pain. Guilt. Control. Then he nods. “Okay.”
“Was the baby yours?”
He doesn’t freeze this time.
“I believed it was mine,” he says.
Not what I expect.
My eyes narrow. “That isn’t what you said at Vice Ink.”
“I know.”
“Try again before I throw this coffee at you.”
“The timing made sense. She said it was mine. I had no reason to call her a liar while she was bleeding on a clinic bed.” His voice roughens.
“There was no test, Lady. No proof. So if you’re asking blood and science, then the honest answer is maybe.
If you’re asking what I did with it, I claimed it.
In my head. In that room. In the only way I had time to before it was gone. ”
The answer cuts different.
Sharper, somehow.
“For a minute I thought there was a whole hidden family story.”
“There was a hidden grief story.”
“Don’t get poetic. I’m Latina and pissed. I can out-drama you.”
His mouth almost moves.
He stops it.
Smart.
“I would’ve claimed the child,” he says. “If she had carried. If she had handed me a baby and said it was mine, I would have stood there. No matter what. Maybe I would’ve been a shit father. Maybe I would’ve learned. But I wouldn’t have run.”
That hurts.
It should make me feel better.
It doesn’t.
“Would you have claimed Cherry too?”
“No.”
The answer is immediate.
I wait.
He understands now. Fast isn’t enough.
“No,” he says again. “I would’ve done right by the baby. Money. Name. Protection. Time. Whatever was needed. But I would not have made Cherry my woman because that would’ve been another lie.”
“But you let her think maybe.”
“Yes.”
I hate how much I like that he doesn’t dodge.
My fingers tighten around the coffee. “Why?”
“Because I’m a selfish bastard.”
“Boring answer.”
His eyes cut to mine.
“Do better.”
He exhales through his nose and looks toward the windows. Miami glitters behind him, all false gold and black water.
“I grew up with men who left before breakfast,” he says. “My old man ran freight, women, and lies up and down highways from Georgia to Texas. My mother stopped asking where he was by the time I was ten. I learned early that men could ruin a house just by being almost there.”
I say nothing.
He keeps going.
“I swore I would not be that. Then I joined a club and got real good at being everywhere except where feelings are. Routes, runs, problems, blood. Easy shit. Diablo named me Shady because I knew every back way through Miami and enough secrets to make honest men nervous. Truth is, I liked being useful where nobody asked me to be anything honest.”
The city hums against the glass.
“And Cherry?”
“You know the club women. Easy pickings. I was lonely. She was there. It was easy until it wasn’t.”
My mouth twists. “Men love that word.”
“What word?”
“Easy.”
He takes the hit. “Yeah.”
“I was easy too?”
His head snaps back to me. “No.”
“You sure?”
“You were never easy. You were loud, expensive trouble with a smart mouth and legs I still haven’t recovered from.”
Heat flickers in my stomach.
I point at him. “Careful.”
“I’m answering honestly.”
“You’re flirting honestly.”
“Also a growth area.”
I hate him.
I want him closer.
I take a sip of coffee so I don’t say either.
He watches my mouth on the lid, and the air changes again. Darker. Warmer. Stupid.
“Keep talking,” I say.
His gaze lifts. “Cherry lost the baby. I stayed with her through it. Then I did what I thought was mercy. I paid bills. Checked in. Made sure nobody treated her like disposable clubhouse pussy.”
“That part sounds decent.”
“It wasn’t enough.”
“No.”
“It also was not right. I gave her enough of me to make myself feel less cruel. Not enough to give her truth or options.” His voice drops. “I failed her before I ever failed you.”
I look away.
That one lands in a place I didn’t expect.
Because it is true.
Because if he had been honest with Cherry, she would not have been standing in the garage with sorry on her lips and another woman’s rage in her hands. If he had closed that door, Carmen’s people would have found a different weapon. Maybe. Maybe not. But this one was sharp because he left it out.
“You fucked her after that night at Eclipse,” I say. “That night you told me you didn’t want me with another man.”
“Yes.”
“Because I left with a promoter.”
“Because I was jealous and had no right to be.”
“And because Cherry was there when you got back to the club.”
“Yes.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Lady.”
“Answer.”
His jaw flexes. “I was drunk enough to be stupid, not drunk enough to blame the whiskey. She wanted me. I wanted to stop feeling jealous. So, yeah, some ugly part of me enjoyed being wanted.”
My stomach turns anyway.
“Congratulations on being honest.”
He flinches. “I deserve that.”
“You deserve worse.”