Chapter 4
Diablo
The roar of the clubhouse swells around us the moment my fingers close around her wrist. Someone shouts, “Cono,” like the word is a match struck in a gas leak.
Vice is already barking orders about finding Rico before the bastard disappears into the sprawl of Miami’s night streets.
Magic has his phone to his ear, voice low and mean, the kind of tone that makes men start praying even if they don’t believe.
Six is posted near the back like a guard dog, eyes scanning exits, already halfway to violence.
None of it registers the way it should.
All I can see is the bruise blooming beneath my thumb where I touched her arm. The purple edge spreads against her skin like a stain I want to rip out of the world.
I tighten my grip without thinking and pull her through the chaos of Vice Ink.
Darling stumbles once on the concrete but catches herself before she falls.
She doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t ask for help.
She hasn’t been that girl for a long time, and the realization hits somewhere deep in my chest where regret lives and never shuts up.
We move past tattoo booths where machines hum like agitated bugs and the air tastes sharp with antiseptic, ink, and sweat.
Cigarette smoke curls under the rafters.
The speaker by the bar thumps reggaeton and Latin trap so hard the bass shakes the glass.
Outside, a car worth half a million rolls past with music even louder, the kind of Miami flex that says I’m here, look at me, and nobody better touch me.
Tourists laugh near the front like they’re on vacation. Locals don’t. Locals watch.
My brothers are shouting over it, blood already up, already ready for war. Cuts on backs. Patches catching neon. A prospect freezes when I drag her by, then snaps into motion, clearing a path like his life depends on it.
It does.
None of my patched men try to stop me.
They know better than to get between their president and whatever just lit the fuse in my chest.
The hallway behind the shop is narrow and dim, lit by a single flickering bulb. We take the winding stairs, and I shove open my office door and pull her inside, then slam it shut hard enough that the stained-glass saint in the window rattles like even God is nervous.
For a second the room is quiet except for the distant music and the sound of our breathing.
She jerks her wrist free the moment the door closes.
“Don’t manhandle me,” she snaps.
The word lands hard. Manhandle. Like I’m just another man who thinks he can put hands on her because he’s bigger, because he’s louder, because he wants something.
I turn slowly, letting the anger settle into something colder. Something sharper.
“You think I sent you away because I didn’t love you?” I ask.
Her chest rises fast like she’s been running instead of standing still. She laughs under her breath, but there isn’t a drop of humor in it.
“You don’t get to rewrite history,” she says.
I take a step toward her.
She moves back on instinct, only one step before catching herself and planting her feet like she refuses to give ground again. That’s Darling. Always braver than the situation deserves. Brave enough to stand up to a man who could end her with a word in this world. Brave enough to stand up to me.
“I did it to keep you alive,” I say quietly. My voice is steady now, controlled in the way my brothers recognize as dangerous. “You think I wanted that ring on Carmen’s finger? You think I wanted to watch you walk out that door?”
“You made me,” she fires back.
Outside these walls, the Saints don’t sit with tension. They drink through it, laugh through it, drown it in liquor and bad decisions. In MC life, when the air turns sharp, you either party harder or you spill blood. Nobody does quiet.
But inside this office there’s nowhere to hide from what we are.
“You’re Rico’s woman? How long?”
Darling folds her arms over her chest, shoulders tight, chin lifted in that stubborn way I remember too well.
Her hair is messy from being dragged here by my men.
Her skin smells faintly like coconut shampoo and Miami humidity, like she passed a ventanita on Calle Ocho and the sweet cafecito air clung to her, like the night stuck its hands in her hair and didn’t let go.
It hits me with memory so sharp I have to clench my teeth to keep from reaching for her again.
Then she says it.
“He hits me.”
The words aren’t loud.
They don’t need to be.
Every muscle in my body goes still.
Her eyes meet mine like she’s daring me to look away from the truth she just dropped in the middle of the room.
“He hits me,” she repeats, quieter this time, meaner, like she’s spitting it at my feet. “Happy?”
“How long?”
“Three years. Since you tossed me out like trash.”
Something inside my chest caves in.
My teeth grind together until the metallic taste coats my tongue. I drag a breath through my nose and keep my voice steady by force.
“Don’t.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Like what?” she snaps. “Like it’s real?”
She turns away from me and walks toward the window where the balcony overlooks the main floor of Vice Ink.
Neon from the street filters through the glass, painting the office in flickers of pink and blue.
Below us, the club’s laughter punches up through the floorboards.
A chant starts and dies. A bottle pops. Someone hollers for shots like they’re trying to drown the air.
“You asked,” she says.
I follow her halfway across the room, then stop myself from grabbing her again. My hands hover useless at my sides, the way a man’s hands do when he wants to touch and knows he shouldn’t.
“He’s done this the whole time?” I ask.
She keeps her eyes on the party like the noise is safer than my stare.
“Mostly.”
My hand curls into a fist so tight my knuckles crack.
“I will kill him,” I say.
The promise comes out calm.
Absolute.
She shakes her head slowly without turning around.
“That’s the problem,” she says. “You think killing everyone fixes everything.”
“It fixes him.”
She spins back toward me, eyes blazing.
“And then what?” she demands. “You going to kill every man who looks at me wrong?”
“Yes.”
The word leaves my mouth before I even think about it.
“You were supposed to leave Miami.”
She lets out a frustrated breath that sounds halfway between a laugh and a groan.
“I’m not leaving Miami,” she says.
“You’re not safe here.”
“I wasn’t safe anywhere.”
That stops me.
For a moment the only sound is muffled music and the distant roar of my brothers celebrating something downstairs. I catch fragments through the walls. Vice’s voice. Magic’s low murmur. Rico name shouted like a threat.
I step closer until the edge of the desk presses against the back of her thighs. She doesn’t move away. Not really.
My hands land on either side of her hips, trapping her without touching her.
Not yet.
The space between us hums with want, memory, and everything I denied myself for three years.
“I fucking love you, carino,” I say.
Her breath catches.
I don’t soften it. I don’t dress it up with excuses. I don’t make it pretty.
“I never stopped.”
For a second something in her face cracks. A flash of the girl she used to be. The one who believed me when I said things like that.
Then she shoves her hands against my chest.
“You don’t get to say that while you’re engaged.”
“Engaged ain’t married,” I say, the words rougher now, more Diablo, less polite.
“Why aren’t you married, yet?”
“She ain’t you.”
“Engaged is enough,” Darling says, and her voice fractures like it cost her blood to say it.
I should step back.
I don’t.
I catch her wrists and pin them to the desk on either side of her hips, not hard enough to hurt, just firm enough to make her feel the truth of me. My body crowds hers. My thigh slides between her legs and she sucks in a breath like her body hates her for reacting.
Her eyes flare. Angry. Hurt. Wanting.
“Say stop,” I murmur. “And I stop.”
Her lips part. Her throat works. Her wrists flex, not trying to get away, just testing the hold.
She doesn’t say it.
That is permission, the only kind I will take from her.
I lower my mouth to her neck, not the bruise yet, just below her jaw where I remember she likes it, where she used to melt like she didn’t have bones. My lips brush her skin, soft and slow, and her whole body jerks like she’s been struck.
“Diablo,” she breathes, and it sounds like a plea and a warning.
I make a low vibration in my throat and bite down gently, just enough to make her gasp, just enough to remind her that I can be careful and cruel in the same breath if I want to be.
Her knees go weak. She tries to hide it.
I feel it anyway as she moves against my hardness straining against my jeans.
I lift my head and look at her. Her pupils are blown. Her mouth is parted. Her face is furious with itself.
“You still taste like Miami,” I say, voice rough. “Like coconut and sin.”
“Don’t,” she whispers, and it is not a stop. It is a please. It is a don’t make me feel this.
I slide one hand from her wrist to her waist and drag my palm up her side, slow, claiming. My fingers skim beneath the edge of her tank, heat to heat, and she trembles so hard the desk squeaks under her.
My other hand stays on her wrist, pinning, anchoring.
“You want to fight me?” I ask, mouth at her ear, my breath wet on her skin. “Fight.”
Then I move against her, just once, just enough to show her I know exactly where I’m hard, she’s soft and exactly how fast she’s getting slick.
Her head tips back before she can stop it. A sound slips out of her, sharp and broken.
I smile against her throat like a devil.
“You hate me,” I murmur.
She glares at me, breathing hard. “I hate what you did.”
“And you still want me,” I say.
Her cheeks flush. Her eyes go bright, angry, wounded.
“I don’t,” she lies.