Chapter 14
Darling
Diablo doesn’t fight me when I say I’m going home.
He doesn’t touch me either. Of course not.
Cameras are rolling. I walk away with my bracelet still on and my throat burning with words I refused to say.
He just watches me get into an Uber. His enforcer follows the whole time and makes the driver so nervous I have to explain.
By the time I reach my building, the whole Miami dream date already feels like a fever that finally broke. I wave the biker away when I get out of the car and stand long enough to watch his taillights disappear before I go inside.
My hair smells like salt and expensive food and a man who thinks yachts and jazz can erase three years of silence. My heels click against the cracked hallway tile as I head toward my apartment, every step echoing louder than it should.
I tell myself I’m fine.
I tell myself I did the right thing.
He’ll never change.
The words repeat in my head like a prayer meant to keep my heart from betraying me.
My key slides toward the lock.
That’s when the first wrong thing happens.
Usually the lock sticks. The building is old and crooked, like everything else around here. Usually I have to jiggle it, swear under my breath, shove my shoulder into the door like I’m wrestling the place open.
Tonight the key slides in smooth.
Too smooth.
The knob turns easily.
The door swings inward like it has been waiting for me.
My stomach drops hard enough to make me pause in the doorway.
The air coming from my apartment feels wrong. Thick. Stale. Too warm. Like the AC has been off on purpose so the heat can sit in the corners and make everything feel sticky. I paid the electric bill, right?
I don’t step in right away.
Instead I stand there listening, pulse hammering against my ribs.
No footsteps.
No voices.
No Rico.
Just the distant hum of Miami traffic drifting through open windows and the faint scrape of something shifting somewhere inside.
Open windows?
My mouth goes dry.
“Disco,” I whisper.
Normally he’d answer. He’d shout in Spanish, whistle, call me mami, demand attention like he owns the world and I’m his audience.
Silence answers me.
My throat tightens.
I step inside.
And the world tilts sideways.
My living room looks like a hurricane tore through it and then came back for a second round just to be cruel.
Couch cushions are ripped open, white stuffing spilling across the floor like dirty snow.
One lamp lies on its side. Broken glass glitters across the tile like ice.
The closet door hangs crooked on a single hinge.
I take a slow step forward, brain struggling to catch up with what my eyes are seeing.
The garment bags are gone.
The designer shopping bags are gone.
The jewelry box sits open on the kitchen counter, the satin ribbon tossed aside like trash.
My new refrigerator stands open, light glowing inside while shelves are half empty and the rest of the food has been scattered on the ground like someone got angry at the idea of groceries. Cheese smashed under a heel. Fruit rolling into corners. Coffee spilled in a dark stain across the tile.
They didn’t just steal.
They wrecked.
They wanted me to see it.
My chest tightens as I turn toward Disco’s new cage.
“No,” I breathe.
The chrome mansion Diablo bought sits tipped sideways on the floor. One perch is snapped clean in half. Toys dangle loose like someone tore them down for fun. The door hangs open.
Empty.
My throat closes so fast it hurts.
“Disco?” My voice cracks as panic rises in my chest. “Baby, come here. Come on. Disco.”
Nothing.
Fear floods me so fast my hands start shaking.
I rush toward the bedroom.
The mattress has been flipped halfway off the frame. Sheets twisted and dragged across the floor like someone searched every inch. My phone charger dangles from the wall where it was ripped out. The closet stands open.
Empty.
Hangers scattered across the floor like bones.
I spin in a slow circle, breathing too fast, trying to think through the panic.
Who would do this?
Rico.
The thought hits instantly. Familiar. Ugly. He ran, but that never stopped him before. Rico always comes back when he thinks he can get something from me. Rico always returns to prove he still can.
Then I see it.
On the kitchen counter, right where the jewelry box was sitting, rests a single white rose.
No card.
No note.
Just the flower.
Perfect and clean in a room full of destruction.
Cold spreads through my veins.
White rose.
Carmen.
Because Carmen always smells like white florals and expensive perfume. Fucking funeral lilies. Because Carmen walks around Vice Ink like innocence wrapped in silk. Because she smiles like a saint and cuts like a knife.
Because she’s been watching me since the moment I stepped back into that building.
My eyes burn as I stare at the rose.
My hands shake when I pull my phone from my clutch.
I almost call Diablo.
My thumb hovers over his number, the contact sitting there like a loaded weapon. If I call him, he will come. Not with flowers. Not with apologies. With motorcycles in the alley and men in cuts and the kind of retaliation that makes Miami quieter for weeks.
If he comes, he will tear this city apart looking for answers.
And Carmen will stand somewhere behind him smiling, wearing that ring like a crown, letting the whole club whisper that I caused it.
My throat tightens.
A mean little part of my body remembers his hands at my waist on the yacht, his mouth near my ear, the way his control felt like safety when it wasn’t aimed at me.
The memory is hot and wrong and useless.
I swallow hard.
“Think,” I whisper to myself. “Think, Darling.”
Lady Nyx.
She told me last week she had my back. She told me she didn’t care who Diablo was. She said she would still drag me out of the fire if I asked.
I dial her number.
She answers on the second ring.
Music pounds in the background, bass heavy and loud enough that I know she’s in a club somewhere. Miami doesn’t sleep. It just changes outfits.
“Talk to me, baby,” she says.
My voice breaks immediately.
“Lady. I need you.”
The music cuts out like she waved a hand and killed it.
“Where are you?”
“At my apartment,” I force out between breaths. “It’s trashed. Everything’s gone. Disco’s gone.”
There’s a long pause.
Then her voice drops into something cold and dangerous.
“Don’t touch anything else,” she says. “Don’t cry yet. Just get out. I’m sending a car.”
“I can’t leave him,” I whisper, and my throat hurts around the words.
“You can and you will,” she snaps. “That bird is alive. You hear me? We’re gonna get him back. But you are not staying in that apartment another second.”
I don’t argue.
I don’t have the strength.
I step into the hallway with nothing but my clutch and the clothes on my back. Out of habit I lock the door behind me even though it feels pointless.
Like locking a barn after the horses are already gone.
My knees wobble as I make my way down the stairwell.
Outside, the Miami night slams into me like a wall. Thick humid air wraps around my skin. Salt and car exhaust and the faint smell of fried food from somewhere nearby. A car rolls past with the windows down, reggaeton rattling the street like the city is mocking me.
Somewhere down the block someone laughs loudly, like nothing bad ever happens here. I stand under the streetlight with my arms wrapped around myself, trying not to fall apart. Ten minutes later a black SUV glides to the curb.
The passenger window rolls down.
Lady Nyx leans across the seat wearing oversized sunglasses even though it’s nearly midnight. Her lips shine with gloss. Long black curls spill over her shoulders like liquid ink.
Her whole presence screams confidence.
But when she looks at me, something softer flashes in her eyes.
“Oh, bebé,” she murmurs. “Come here.”
I slide into the backseat.
Cold air from the AC blasts across my overheated skin and makes me shiver. My breathing comes out uneven.
“Tell me everything,” she says.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know who did it. But there was… there was a white rose.”
Lady’s mouth tightens.
“White rose,” she repeats like she’s tasting poison.
“You think Carmen?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer right away.
That silence scares me more than anything.
“I think Carmen is the type to cut with a smile,” Lady finally says. “And I think you just got sliced.”
For a moment we pass within sight of Vice Ink.
The old church facade glows bruised pink and blue. Neon buzzing in the stained glass. A couple motorcycles out front. Shadows moving inside like the building is breathing.
My stomach twists.
I don’t tell Lady to stop.
I don’t tell her I want to run inside and scream at Diablo until he understands what happened.
Because I don’t want to admit how badly I still want him.
The SUV glides through Miami’s streets, past neon signs, palm trees and nightclubs blasting music onto crowded sidewalks. South Beach glitter. Downtown glass. The city pretending it’s all just a party. It finally turns into her condo’s garage.
Everything inside Lady’s place is sleek and spotless reminding me of the mess I left. Even though I’ve been here, I am out of place the second I step in. Lady hands me a glass of water. My fingers tremble around it.
“Sit,” she orders.
I sink onto the white couch.
She starts pacing immediately, phone in hand, firing off texts and making calls like she’s moving chess pieces across a board.
“You’re staying here.”
“I don’t want to be a burden.”
Lady stops pacing and fixes me with a sharp look.
“Girl, you think you’re a burden?” she says. “You’re a headline waiting to happen. Not on my watch.”
My throat tightens. I turn toward the window and stare out at the skyline.
Somewhere out there Diablo is breathing the same thick Miami air.
Somewhere out there Carmen is calm and smiling, wearing his ring.
Lady drops onto the couch beside me.
“You wanna know the crazy part?” she asks.
“What?”
“That man looks at you like you’re oxygen.”
I swallow hard.
“He also looks at me like I’m property.”
Lady snorts.
“Welcome to Miami.”
Exhaustion finally crashes over me like a wave.
I barely sleep that night.
Every time I close my eyes I see Disco’s empty cage.
Every time I hear a noise I imagine Rico standing outside the door.
Or Diablo.
Or Carmen.
Days blur together.
Lady keeps me busy on purpose. She drags me to lunches with people whose names trend online. She sits me in glam chairs while stylists curl my hair and paint my face like I’m someone who has her life together.
She calls it confidence.
I know it’s survival.
We don’t talk about Diablo unless I bring him up.
I never bring him up.
But sometimes I see him anyway.
A black Harley at a stoplight.
A shadow near a club entrance.
A presence I feel even when I refuse to look.
And Carmen.
Carmen appears everywhere too.
Not in person.
Online.
Her face shows up in photos from charity events and club fundraisers. Her smile beside captions about loyalty and legacy. The Solano name dressed up in community work like it washes blood clean.
One blurry picture shows her hand resting lightly on Diablo’s arm outside Vice Ink.
The ring flashes in the camera light.
Like a warning.
Two weeks after the break-in, Lady opens her front door one afternoon and stops dead in the hallway.
I sit on the couch scrolling through my phone, trying not to spiral.
She turns slowly toward me.
“Your neighbor,” she says.
“What neighbor?”
“The one I told you about. The famous one.”
I sit up slightly.
Lady smirks. “He’s doing a photoshoot in the hallway like he owns the whole floor.”
“That’s insane.”
“Miami is insane,” she says. “Now hush. I’m not getting dragged into celebrity drama today.”
A laugh almost escapes me.
Almost.
My phone buzzes.
Unknown number.
My body goes cold.
Lady’s eyes flick toward the screen.
“You expecting someone?”
“No.”
My thumb hovers over decline.
Something tight twists in my chest anyway, like my body knows this number.
I answer.
“Hello?”
Silence fills the line for a second.
Then a voice slides through the speaker like a bruise being pressed.
Soft.
Smug.
Familiar in the worst way.
“Hola, Darling.”
Ice floods my veins.
Rico.
Lady straightens across the room the moment she sees my face.
“You miss me?” Rico asks with amusement.
My throat tightens.
“Where’s my bird?” I force out.
He chuckles.
“Relax. He’s fine.”
I grip the phone until my fingers ache.
Lady mouths hang up, but I can’t. My whole body is locked in place, trapped by the sound of his voice like it’s a hand around my throat.
Rico lowers his voice as though we’re sharing a private joke.
“I’ve got something that belongs to you,” he says. “And I’ve got something I want.”
My stomach drops.
“Don’t you fucking—”
He cuts me off sharply.
“You’re gonna do what I say, mami. Or Disco’s gonna learn how to fly without wings.”
The room spins.
Lady grabs her keys, already moving like she’s preparing for war.
Rico’s tone softens again, almost playful.
“I’ll text you an address,” he says. “Come alone.”
The line goes dead.
A second later my phone buzzes again.
A message appears.
One location pin.
My hands shake so badly I nearly drop the phone.