Chapter 2
Darling
The first thing I notice is the silence.
Not the good kind. Not the peaceful finally-alone quiet that comes after a long shift when the world finally stops demanding pieces of me. This silence feels wrong. It sits in the room like something watching, something crouched just outside the door waiting for the moment it decides to step in.
Miami is never quiet. Even at dawn there’s always something leaking through the cracks of the city.
Sirens echo through alleyways. Reggaeton bass rattles thin apartment walls.
Someone down the block is always yelling into a phone while a motorcycle screams down Calle Ocho like the rider has something to prove.
But this morning my apartment is still.
The silence presses in around me like the whole building is holding its breath.
I lie here staring at the cracked ceiling above the bed while pale gray dawn light filters through broken blinds and dust floats through the air like tiny ghosts.
Somewhere outside a truck rattles past, but even that sound feels distant.
What unsettles me most is what I don’t hear.
Every morning usually starts the same way. Rico stomps across the tile floor in his heavy boots while digging through the kitchen like the cabinets personally offended him. Doors slam. Bottles clink. Then his voice starts up, already sharp with accusation before the day has even begun.
But none of that happens.
The apartment stays quiet long enough for a knot of unease to form in my stomach.
I sit up slowly, careful not to move too fast. My ribs protest immediately, a dull ache tightening across my side as I shift my weight. The bruise there pulls when I breathe, blooming under my skin like something alive.
Memories from last night flicker through my mind in ugly flashes.
All I did was ask a question about the money.
I wanted to know how Rico suddenly had enough cash to buy a new motorcycle when I’m the one bartending double shifts just to keep the lights on in this miserable apartment. I asked once. Calm. Careful.
He never answered with words.
His elbow slammed into my ribs when I tried to walk away.
His fist caught my shoulder next, followed by the sharp crack of his knuckles against my jaw.
The fight ended the way it always does, with me curled against the wall while he stands over me breathing hard like I somehow caused the whole thing.
I never even mentioned the clubs he disappears into every night. Or how the fridge always stays stocked with beer while I count tips to make rent.
But when I said I wanted to send some money to my sister in Tampa, he called me selfish.
Then he hit me again.
The apartment smells stale now. Old beer and sweat cling to the air along with the cheap cologne Rico uses to hide the sour rot underneath. The smell makes my stomach twist as I swing my legs off the bed, and my bare feet touch the cold concrete floor.
That’s when I notice something else.
His phone is gone.
The cracked-screen piece of crap he never lets out of his sight isn’t sitting on the nightstand where it should be. A second glance around the room reveals something worse when I realize his backpack is missing too.
The one he guards like it holds the secrets of his entire life.
That bag never leaves his reach.
Except now it has.
A slow chill crawls down my spine as I scan the apartment again.
“Rico?” I call softly.
My voice sounds small in the empty room.
No answer.
I check the rest of the apartment anyway. The bathroom is empty. The sink is dry. Rico isn’t in the shower and there’s no damp towel tossed on the floor the way he usually leaves it.
When I reach the front door I notice it hanging slightly open, the chain dangling loose against the frame.
It looks like he left fast.
Like he didn’t even bother locking up.
That realization shifts something inside my chest.
Rico didn’t just leave.
He ran.
For one tiny second something bright sparks in my chest. Hope flickers there, dangerous and fragile enough to steal my breath. Maybe he’s gone for good. Maybe this time the nightmare finally ended.
But I don’t trust the feeling.
I’ve spent three years learning not to believe in freedom.
Three years since Diablo threw me out of Vice Ink like I meant nothing. Three years since I walked away from the only man I ever loved with a bag of clothes and a pocket full of money he told me to use to disappear.
Three years of Rico’s promises slowly turning into fists.
A colder thought crawls into my mind as I stare at the open door.
What could scare Rico enough to run?
My hands shake while I get dressed. Jeans. Tank top. Worn sneakers. I skip makeup because there’s no point trying to hide bruises that refuse to fade.
The mirror catches me anyway.
Purple bruises bloom across my collarbone. A shadow darkens my jaw while yellow fingerprints fade slowly across my ribs. I look like a warning sign painted in abuse.
Around here nobody even flinches at a black eye.
It’s practically neighborhood uniform.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I realize I look exactly like the kind of girl people shake their heads about.
The girl who didn’t learn the lesson fast enough.
Don’t date bikers.
Never.
No matter how sweet the promises sound when the music is loud and the night feels endless.
I tiptoe through the quiet. Even Disco, my cockatoo, is asleep in his cage, one foot tucked up like a little old man, feathers fluffed. He’s breathing slow like the world finally stopped trying to hurt us.
I grab my keys and step outside into the humid Miami morning.
The walk to work takes eight blocks through Little Havana where the heat already presses down thick as soup. Cafeterías spill the smell of Cuban coffee onto the sidewalks while old men slap dominoes against folding tables and argue about baseball like the fate of the world depends on it.
Someone shouts about the Marlins. Someone else calls him an idiot.
A woman leans out of a window yelling at her nephew in Spanish.
Miami never stops moving.
When I turn the corner, I see it.
Vice Ink.
The tattoo shop sits across the street inside an old church building with stained glass windows and a neon sign buzzing behind them. Red light spills onto the sidewalk like a warning.
A cathedral for sinners.
I turn my head quickly and keep walking.
It’s been three years since I stepped inside that building. Three years since I walked out with nothing but a broken heart and a bag of clothes.
Three years since I promised myself I would never get tangled up with bikers again.
And somehow I still chose the wrong man.
That thought lingers longer than I want it to.
Diablo gave me enough money to disappear. More money than I’d ever seen in my life. I used it exactly the way he told me to.
I disappeared from everyone who knew me.
Just not from Miami.
My mamá is buried in Hialeah. My papá went back to Cuba years ago and never looked back. My abuela raised me until her heart finally gave out.
After that it was just me.
No cousins who answer the phone. No brothers who come running. My sister in Tampa.
Just me and this city.
I changed everything I could about myself.
I stopped dressing like the girl who once stood beside a club enforcer. Heels turned into sneakers. Dresses into jeans. I even lightened my hair so I wouldn’t look the same anymore.
Now I go by Ana.
Rico didn’t care about any of that.
All he ever cared about was money.
The bar where I work sits three streets over. It’s a dive locals barely notice anymore with sticky floors, flickering lights, and a jukebox that only works when it feels like it.
By noon the regulars start drifting in.
“Morning, princesa,” Manny calls from his usual stool.
Manny’s pushing sixty with a belly that probably arrived sometime in the nineties and never left. He wears the same faded Marlins cap every day and tips like he once won the lottery and never forgot what generosity feels like.
“Afternoon,” I correct while sliding a cold beer across the counter.
He launches into a long explanation about traffic even though he lives two blocks away. I smile and shake my head because Manny lies the same way people breathe.
He studies my face a moment longer than usual.
“You look tired,” he says.
“Life,” I answer.
He nods slowly like that explains everything.
The door creaks open behind him and a skinny kid slips inside.
Luis.
He can’t be more than twelve and he always looks hungry.
I grab a paper plate and slide a burger onto it from the kitchen window before calling him over. He approaches carefully like he expects to get thrown out, but I set the plate in front of him and nod toward the stool.
“Eat.”
“I don’t have money.”
“I didn’t ask.”
He hesitates before digging into the burger like he hasn’t eaten all day. Manny watches the exchange and mutters something about me going broke feeding the neighborhood.
Maybe he’s right.
The bar door opens again.
This time everything changes.
Two bikers walk inside wearing leather cuts with the Saints Outlaws patch stitched across their backs like a warning. They don’t sit. They don’t order drinks.
They just stand there watching the room.
Predators already sure which animal they came to hunt.
The regulars sense it immediately.
Manny freezes with his beer halfway to his mouth. Luis stops chewing and stares with wide eyes. Conversations fade into uneasy silence.
I keep pouring drinks like my hands aren’t shaking.
An hour passes.
They never leave.
Eventually Fernán leans close behind the bar and lowers his voice.
“They asking about you.”
My stomach drops.
Then he says the name I buried three years ago.
“Darling.”
I swallow hard.
“You in trouble, Ana… Darling?”
Always.
I shake my head. “No, Tío.”
The lie doesn’t land. It never does. Fernán is like an uncle to me. He let me work here when I was thirteen and my mamá was sick. He knows my tells. But he also convinces the bikers I’m not who they’re looking for. They leave.
I think I’m safe. But I don’t head home. I linger. I can feel in my gut that as soon as I walk out of here, I’m in trouble.
The door opens again just after sunset, and this time there’s no pretending.
This time more bikers step inside.
Leather. Ink. Violence barely contained.
The room goes quiet as one man steps forward, tall and hard with a scar splitting his eyebrow.
“Darling Rivera.”
Every muscle in my body locks.
“Yes.”
“Come with us.”
“I haven’t done anything.”
“That’s not what this is about.”
My eyes search the bar for Rico even though I already know the truth.
He isn’t here. The realization lands like a punch to the chest. The motorcycle. Rico stole from them. And left me behind to pay for it.
When I weakly say I need to close out my tabs, the scarred biker almost smiles.
“You won’t have this job come morning.”
Hands close around my arms. Not rough. Not gentle either.
Final.
Patrons watch with wide frightened eyes while Fernan half rises from his stool like he might say something.
Then he sees the Saints Outlaws patch.
Slowly he sits back down.
Nobody stops them.
They guide me outside into the thick Miami heat where a black SUV waits with its door open. I’m pushed inside and when I ask what Rico stole, no one answers.
The city flashes past the windows in neon streaks as we drive through clubs, churches, and rows of palm trees. Miami wraps itself around the night like a beautiful lie hiding a rotten core.
Then I see it.
Vice Ink.
The SUV stops.
They pull me inside.
And there he is.
Diablo Vargas stands in the center of the room like the devil himself, dark eyes locked on me like I never left at all.
My knees almost give out.
Because whatever Rico stole…
Whatever debt he ran from…
Whatever mess he left behind…
Diablo always collects.
And I don’t know if I’ll survive the price.