Chapter 7
Diablo
Magic’s knock still echoes in my bones when I step back out into the noise.
Rico’s moving.
The words chase me out of my office with Darling’s taste on my mouth and her scent still on my hands, and now the club is a furnace again.
Reggaeton pounds through the speakers so hard the bass rattles the stained-glass windows.
Chrome from the bikes along the wall catches flashes of neon pink and electric blue.
I don’t let Darling walk behind me.
That’s not about pride.
That’s about the way eyes follow a woman in this room, the way rumors sharpen into weapons, the way a pretty face and a fresh bruise can turn into a story somebody uses for leverage.
Mi carino is stubborn. She didn’t listen.
She wouldn’t stay behind. So I keep her at my side, hand on her wrist. My claim reads loud without me saying a word.
The Saints clock it immediately. Patches shift.
Prospects look down and move fast. Women whisper behind their hands like they’re placing bets. Nobody steps in our path.
Carmen’s laugh floats across the room above it all, smooth and confident, like she’s already celebrating a victory nobody else has noticed yet.
Darling tries to pull free the second my grip tightens.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say, and the second the words leave my mouth, I know I’ve crossed a line. Darling doesn’t like to be told what to do. She aims to do the opposite.
The sentence hangs between us like a dare, sharp and impossible to pull back.
Her eyes flash hot and furious, the kind of fire that used to make grown men twice her size shut their mouths on Calle Ocho.
For a heartbeat I see her standing in the middle of 8th Street with a bottle in her hand and zero fear in her voice.
She’s not scared of me.
Not really.
She’s hurt.
And somehow that feels worse than if she’d slapped me.
I lean closer so my words disappear into the music instead of the crowd.
“Come with me,” I say quietly. “Dale.”
Her chin lifts in defiance. “I’m not hiding.”
“You’re not hiding,” I reply, keeping my voice low and steady. “You’re staying where I can see you. Where my men can cover you.”
Her mouth tightens like she wants to argue. For a second I expect her to cause a scene right here in front of everyone, to make the whole room watch our blood spill in public. Instead she hesitates, and that hesitation is enough.
I take her hand.
The contact hits harder than I expect. Heat sparks up my arm the moment our palms meet, a familiar shape fitting into my grip like three years never happened.
I’d forgotten how small her hand feels inside mine, how easily my fingers wrap around it.
I’d forgotten how fast my body reacts to her, like it doesn’t care about rings or deals or optics.
She doesn’t pull away this time.
I guide her past the throng toward the corridor behind the shop. The music dulls slightly as we move away from the center of the party. The smell of tequila and sweat fades into something quieter, tinged with ink, whiskey, and old wood.
The Saints glance up as we pass, but nobody stops us. Nobody questions it.
They know better.
In an MC, you don’t challenge the president in front of the room unless you want blood on the floor. You don’t touch what he’s moving unless you want your hands broken.
The hallway is dim and narrow, concrete walls vibrating with distant bass. Doors line one side, crash rooms the club uses when someone’s too drunk to ride, too paranoid to go home, or too valuable to leave exposed. A place to lock down a problem until you can handle it right.
Darling notices the doors. Her gaze skims them like she’s counting the ways out.
I push open the farthest one and step aside so she enters first.
The room is simple but clean. Dark wood furniture. A narrow bed with crisp sheets. A small window that looks out over the alley where Vice Ink’s neon sign bleeds red and blue light across wet pavement. The glow slides over Darling’s skin in shifting color that almost looks like bruises.
“This is yours,” I tell her.
She walks inside slowly, gaze sweeping the space like she’s cataloging every corner. The caution in her posture makes something twist inside my chest.
“I didn’t ask for a cage,” she says.
“It’s not a cage.”
“It’s behind a locked door.”
I close the door behind us, not all the way, and lean against it automatically, blocking the exit before I even realize I’m doing it.
Her eyes flash.
“You don’t get to define safe for me.”
The words land harder than any insult.
I push off the door before I can say something defensive and step back into the hallway.
Vice is halfway down the corridor, moving toward the party again with a bottle in his hand, grin sharp like he’s enjoying the chaos.
I grab his arm before he disappears.
“She’s off-limits,” I say quietly.
He raises an eyebrow. “To who?”
“To everyone,” I answer. “Club-wide. Patched, prospect, hang-around. Everybody.”
Vice studies my face for half a second. No questions. Just a nod. That’s why he’s my right hand. He can read the room and the rules without me spelling them out.
“I’ll put Dusty outside the door,” he says.
“Good.”
He starts to move again but pauses, eyes narrowing.
“And Carmen?”
I don’t hesitate.
“Especially Carmen.”
The corner of his mouth twitches like he almost smiles. Then he nods once and heads back toward the music.
When I step back into the room, Darling is standing at the window with her arms folded across her chest. Neon washes her in red and blue. Her jaw is tight like she’s chewing rage.
“I have a pet bird,” she says suddenly.
The sentence is so unexpected I blink.
“What?”
“A cockatoo,” she continues, still staring out the window. “White. His name’s Disco.”
She turns slightly, watching me like she’s daring me to laugh.
“I have to feed him.”
The image hits me out of nowhere.
Darling in some small apartment with a bird chirping at sunrise while she pours cafecito into a chipped mug. A life that kept moving while I stayed here building an empire out of blood and steel. Something normal. Something soft.
Something I told myself she could have if I pushed her away hard enough. I just refused to think that it might include an abusive piece of shit boyfriend.
Something tight twists in my chest.
“I’ll have someone go,” I say immediately.
Her head snaps toward me. “Go where?”
“Your apartment,” I answer. “Pack what you need. Bring the bird. Bring everything.”
Her eyes narrow.
“You think I’m moving in?”
“I think you’re not sleeping in a place Rico knows about,” I say. “And I think you’re not walking the street alone while my enemies are watching.”
Her chin juts out, fight rising in her eyes again.
She hates when I’m right.
I pull out my phone and send a quick message.
Get her stuff. Bird too. Now.
Magic’s reply comes almost instantly.
On it, Prez.
When I look up again, Darling is watching me like she’s trying to decide if she knows this version of me at all.
“You don’t get to buy me,” she says quietly.
“I’m not.”
“You’re sending men to pack my life into boxes.”
“I’m protecting it,” I say, and I hate how true it is that protection and control live in the same damn house for bikers like me.
Her throat moves as she swallows. The anger in her face flickers for a second, replaced by something softer that almost looks like exhaustion.
“You can’t protect me from everything,” she murmurs.
I step closer before I realize I’m moving.
“I can try.”
The air in the room shifts.
The bass from the party feels distant now, like it’s underwater somewhere far away. All I can hear is the rhythm of her breathing and the faint hum of neon outside. She smells like coconut shampoo and Miami heat, like she walked through a ventanita line on Calle Ocho and the night clung to her.
The scent drags memories out of me I thought I buried.
Five years ago. It’s just me, my Harley, and her pretending she isn’t smiling.
I pick her up off Calle Ocho like it’s nothing, like the whole city isn’t watching, and she climbs on behind me in cutoffs and a thin little tank, hair up, hoop earrings catching the streetlight. She taps the back of my helmet. “Don’t drive like a psycho.”
I laugh into the wind. “That’s my whole brand.”
We stop at a ventanita and she orders for both of us like she owns the block. Two cafecitos, one pastelito, extra napkins. She feeds me a bite on the curb and rolls her eyes when sugar flakes onto my beard. “You’re a mess.”
“Yeah?” I wipe my mouth with my thumb, then smear the smallest dot of guava on the corner of her lip just to be a dick. “Now you match me.”
She shoves my shoulder hard enough to rock the bike and I catch her wrist, pull her in, forehead to forehead, our laughs mixing with salsa drifting out of somebody’s open door. For a second it feels stupidly normal. We’re just a man and a woman with sticky fingers like we’ve got nowhere to be.
“Miami’s gonna chew you up,” she says, trying to sound tough.
I kiss the guava off her mouth, slow.
“Behave.”
“I am,” I say, and she rolls her eyes like she doesn’t believe in miracles.
I tuck her in closer with my arm anyway, simple and stupidly good. She kisses the scar on my knuckle like always. The one I got as a dumb kid fighting in the streets. When she leans her head on my shoulder, I hear myself promise it like it’s easy.
“Always, carino.”
I lift my hand slowly, giving her time to stop me.
She doesn’t.
My fingers brush along her jaw. This time I’m careful, gentle in a way I rarely am with anyone. The fading bruise near her collarbone catches my eye again and my vision flashes red.
“Never again,” I say quietly.
Her gaze flickers. “Don’t.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Diablo.”
“I will.”
She exhales sharply, frustration flooding her expression.
“You think that fixes what he did?”
“It fixes him breathing.”
Her lips part slightly. My eyes drop to them before I can stop myself.
Three years.
Three years of imagining this moment. Of remembering the taste of her mouth and the way her body goes soft when I get close, the way she fights and melts in the same breath.
I lean in slowly.
Close enough that I feel her breath on my skin.
Her hand comes up to my chest, fingers curling into my shirt. For one reckless second I think she’s pulling me closer.
Instead she pushes.
Not hard.
Just enough.
“You can’t say you love me,” she whispers, voice shaking, “and then crawl into bed with her.”
The words stop me cold.
“I didn’t crawl into bed with her tonight,” I say.
“But you do,” she shoots back.
The truth sits there between us, heavy and complicated.
“She’s part of the deal,” I admit.
“I’m not.”
I lean closer anyway, stubborn and tired of pretending distance solves anything.
“You were never part of a deal,” I murmur. “You were the reason.”
Her breath trembles against my lips.
“I won’t be your secret,” she whispers.
I’m tired of everything staying the same.
I close the distance and take her lips.
A knock slams against the door.
I step back like I’ve been shot.
The door opens before I can respond.
Carmen stands in the doorway.
She doesn’t look angry.
She looks composed.
Calculated.
Her gaze sweeps the room once, taking in the narrow space between us, the way Darling’s lips are still slightly parted. She notices Darling’s flushed cheeks. The way Darling’s hands are clenched like she’s holding herself together.
And Carmen’s eyes flick, fast and satisfied, to my mouth.
Like she knows exactly where I’ve been.
“How intimate,” she says lightly.
Darling straightens beside me. “Wrong room.”
Carmen ignores her completely and focuses on me.
“Investors are here,” she says calmly. “You disappearing into the back with your ex isn’t the message we need tonight.”
“This isn’t about optics,” I reply flatly.
Carmen’s smile turns sharper. “It’s always about optics. My father understood that.”
Her fingers lift to her hair again, slow, deliberate. The ring catches neon and throws it back in the room like a reminder.
Her eyes flick briefly toward Darling.
“That’s why he built alliances.”
Darling stiffens beside me.
“Is that what this is?” Darling asks softly. “Public?”
Carmen’s smile doesn’t waver. “This is survival.”
She turns back toward me, voice lowering just enough to sound almost personal.
“If this engagement collapses publicly, we lose more than a club. We lose brothers. We lose lives.”
There it is.
Not jealousy.
Leverage.
She isn’t fighting for love.
She’s fighting for power.
And she’s doing it in front of Darling on purpose.
I step slightly in front of Darling without thinking. My body makes the decision before my brain can.
“I’ll handle it,” I say.
“With what?” Carmen asks, calm. “Emotion?”
“With authority.”
She studies me in silence for several long seconds, calculating something I can’t quite see. Then her gaze shifts to Darling again, and the polite cruelty returns.
“You should consider how much chaos follows you,” she says gently. “First my father. Now this Rico. Both times our rivals getting the best of you.”
My stomach twists.
Darling’s eyes flicker for half a second.
Doubt.
Carmen catches it like blood in the water.
“Don’t,” I warn.
Carmen lifts her hands slightly in mock surrender. “I’m protecting what my father built. You’re risking everything. For what? A Calle Ocho stray?”
“And I’m protecting what’s mine,” I snap.
Silence drops in the room, thick and sudden.
Carmen’s gaze sharpens. “Mine?” she repeats, slow.
I hold her stare.
“She stays.”
The words land like a gunshot.
For the first time tonight, Carmen’s composure cracks at the edges. It’s small. A flicker. But it’s there.
“For how long?” she asks.
“As long as I say.”
Her eyes narrow.
The bass from the party swells again in the distance. Miami roaring beyond the walls. The city always hungry. Always listening.
Carmen nods once.
“Then understand,” she says quietly, “that every move you make from here on out has consequences.”
She turns and walks out without slamming the door.
That’s how I know she’s more dangerous than anyone in this building.
I exhale slowly and turn back toward Darling.
She’s staring at me like I just pulled a trigger.
“You just declared war,” she says.
“No,” I reply.
I step closer again, careful now, like she might bolt, like she might break.
My hand settles at her waist, light, asking more than taking. Her body goes still under my touch. Not rejecting. Not surrendering. Just feeling.
“I chose you,” I say.
Outside the walls of Vice Ink, Miami roars with music and neon and midnight heat.
And somewhere beneath all of it, I can feel the city shifting.
Blood always follows choices.
And I just made one.