Chapter 3 #2
Magic holds my gaze for a beat, reading the line I just drew. Then he nods once. “Copy.”
The Saints Outlaws don’t forgive.
They collect.
Thirty minutes later, the door opens.
Every head turns.
The front bell jingles like it doesn’t know it just rang a dinner bell for wolves.
Darling steps inside like she’s walking into a storm she already knows will drown her.
She’s thinner than I remember. Hair lighter, shorter, pulled back tight like she doesn’t trust herself to let it fall.
She wears jeans and a plain tank, nothing flashy, nothing that belongs in my world.
No heels. No glitter. No Miami nightclub armor.
Her eyes sweep the room fast, taking inventory the way girls who grow up around danger learn to do, the way girls from Little Havana learn to count exits and threats and men who smile too much.
Then they land on me.
And everything else disappears.
God help me, she’s still beautiful. Still that quiet kind of fire that doesn’t need to scream to burn. The sight of her hits me low and hard, a memory and a promise and a threat all wrapped in skin. I have to hold myself back from saying her name like it's a prayer and from reaching for her.
She doesn’t smile. Doesn’t flinch.
She lifts her chin like she’s daring me to be what she remembers. Like she’s daring me to prove I’m still the man who threw her out, or the man who wanted to follow her.
Two of my guys stop short when they see her face. One of them mutters, “Cono,” under his breath like he just saw a ghost.
A prospect shifts by the door, nervous as hell, not sure if he’s supposed to block her or bow.
I step forward before anyone else can speak.
“Darling,” I say, her name tasting like regret. I let my eyes drag over her, let my voice drop the way it does when I’m trying not to show emotion. “Mi carino.”
Her mouth tightens. The sound she makes is almost a laugh, but it dies in her throat. “Let me guess. My boyfriend stole from you?”
“Stole from my club,” I correct, because words matter. They always have. This is an MC. We don’t do personal when business is on the table, even when it is personal enough to cut bone.
“And ran,” she says quietly. “Left me behind.”
I circle her slowly, every instinct screaming possession, protection, fury. The room watches. My brothers watch. Carmen watches. In a clubhouse, everybody reads body language like scripture. I catch the scent of fear under Darling’s skin, sharp and real.
Not the fear of me.
Something else.
“You know how this works,” I say. “Debts don’t vanish just because the thief does.”
She nods, throat bobbing like she’s swallowing pain. “I’ll work it off. I’ll pay it back. I just need time.”
“Time is a luxury Saints Outlaws don’t give. We charge interest.”
I stop in front of her, near enough to feel the heat of her body, near enough to see the faint yellow shadow at the edge of her collarbone. The hair on my arms rises. Something cold slides through me.
My fingers curl before I realize what I’m doing.
“What happened to your neck?” I ask.
Her eyes flick away. Just for a second.
“Nothing.”
The lie is automatic. Too smooth. Practiced. A Miami lie. The kind you tell so you can make it home.
I reach out before she can stop me, thumb brushing the strap of her tank aside.
The room goes silent.
Even the reggaeton outside feels like it dips, like the whole city holds its breath to hear what I’m about to do.
A bruise blooms under my touch. Purple and yellow, old enough to ache, fresh enough to still be angry. I see another fresh one on her cheek when she inhales sharply. Finger-shaped. Deliberate.
The devil in me goes cold.
“Who did this to you?” I ask, my voice dangerous and low. The words come out rough, vicious, like a threat that doesn’t need to be shouted. “Dime, carino. Who the fuck put their hands on you?”
Her breath shakes. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
She looks up then, really looks at me, eyes bright with something that might be relief or might be resignation. Like she already knows how this ends and she’s too tired to fight it.
“Rico said if I left,” she whispers, “he’d make sure to finish the job.”
The room erupts.
Chairs scrape back. Voices rise. Somebody kicks a stool like they want to kick a skull.
I hear my brothers curse, feel the air crackle with violence ready to spill.
Somebody spits a promise of blood. Somebody laughs like they’re excited, because outlaw boys get mean when they smell a man who hurt a woman and thought he’d get away with it.
Magic’s hand goes to the knife on his belt like it’s muscle memory.
A few of the patched men start talking over each other, fast and ugly.
“Find him.”
“Cut his hands off.”
“Drag him through Wynwood.”
“Throw him in the bay with blocks.”
Carmen stands slowly, eyes glittering, lips pressed tight like she’s about to say something about control, about optics, about keeping heat off the club.
I don’t hear any of it.
All I see is Darling standing in my clubhouse, wearing bruises meant for me.
And in that moment, I know something terrible.
The deal with Carmen.
The patch on my chest.
The city watching for weakness.
None of it matters anymore.
Because Darling Rivera never left my world.
Whoever put his hands on mi carino just signed his death warrant.