Chapter 17
Diablo
Darling makes a sound under her breath that’s half laugh, half ache, and I hate that Carmen hears it. I hate that Carmen sees any crack in Darling’s armor like it’s a weakness to exploit.
I look back at Darling and keep my voice even.
“Go to my office,” I tell her. “Lock the door. Vice stays with you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter.” Darling’s shoulders square like she’s ready to fight everyone in the building.
“You do,” I say, colder than I feel. “And you’re going to take it because I said so.”
Her eyes go glossy with anger and history, with the memory of me telling her to leave Miami and never look back. She swallows it down like she’s swallowing rocks.
Fine.
If she hates me, she stays alive.
I turn to my brothers, letting command settle on my voice.
“Prospects. Doors,” I snap. “Nobody in. Nobody out.”
A couple of the younger ones move instantly, hustling to the entrances, posting up like they’ve been waiting for permission to turn the building into a fortress.
Then I point at the men who matter.
“Magic. Six. Shady,” I say. “Bring me Rico.”
Magic nods once, already moving.
Six spits to the side like he’s itching for it. “Alive?” he asks, and the room leans in for my answer without meaning to.
I pause a beat, not for drama. For control.
“Yes,” I say, and the word tastes like poison because it isn’t mercy for Rico.
It’s for Darling.
Shady grins like it’s Christmas, eyes bright with the kind of excitement that makes decent people nervous.
“Copy,” he says, and then they’re gone, boots thudding, door swinging, motorcycles firing up in the alley.
Engines roar like thunder rolling down Calle Ocho, loud enough to wake the dead and warn the living.
I watch them leave and feel time start ticking in my bones.
Then I turn back toward the clubhouse, and Carmen is still there, still planted like she thinks she can block a hurricane with a smile.
She steps closer, voice low so only I can hear. “You’re going to start a war over her,” she says, and there’s no jealousy in it. Just calculation. Just the count of consequences.
I lean down, my face close to hers, voice even because control is power.
“We’re already in a war,” I tell her. “You just don’t like which side I’m willing to bleed for.”
Her eyes flick to my mouth for half a second. Not desire. Never desire. Measurement, like she’s weighing my bite radius.
“You made a deal,” she whispers. “You made promises.”
“And I kept them,” I say, and the truth tastes like ash. “For three years.”
Her lip curls slightly. “And now she walks in and you forget your place.”
My grin has no humor in it. “My place is as president of my brothers,” I say softly. “Not in your pocket.”
Her gaze sharpens. “Do not embarrass me.”
I straighten, gaze sliding past her to the stairs and my office door like I can feel Darling up there even when I can’t see her.
“You embarrass yourself,” I tell Carmen. “When you think you can control me.”
She leans in, words like perfume hiding poison. “If you do something stupid, I will make sure Miami hears about it first.”
There it is.
Not jealousy.
Not romance.
Infrastructure.
Media.
City hall.
The kind of power that doesn’t bleed when you cut it.
I don’t flinch and I don’t raise my voice, because loud men lose and quiet men win.
“If you ever use my club’s name as a weapon against me,” I say softly, “you’ll find out what kind of king you helped make.”
Her breath hitches once, a tiny crack, then she smooths her blouse and turns away like she didn’t blink. Carmen can take a punch and keep her hair perfect, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel fear.
It just means she stores it for later.
I climb the stairs two at a time, boots heavy on wood, neon from downstairs flickering up the walls like the building is alive.
Vice stands outside my office door like a statue, arms crossed, expression blank. He looks at my face and knows. He doesn’t ask. He just opens the door and lets me in like he’s guarding a throne room.
Darling is inside, standing by my desk like she’s trying not to touch anything that belongs to me. Like she’s trying not to remember what it used to feel like when she was in my bed and my shirt was on her skin and she believed I’d never let her go.
Her eyes flick to mine, anger bright enough to almost hide the fear underneath.
“Are you going to kill him?” she asks, voice steady but thin.
I shut the door behind me and lock it, the click too final in the quiet.
“I’m going to bring him here,” I say, because honesty is the only thing that keeps her from bolting.
“And then?” Her chin lifts like she’s daring me.
I walk closer, not too close. I don’t corner her the way Rico did. Near enough to feel the heat of her anger and the tremor of her fear, near enough to smell the salt on her skin and the blood on her lip, and it takes effort not to reach for her.
“And then I’m going to make him tell me everything.”
Her throat bobs. “He’s going to lie.”
A small, cold smile touches my mouth. “Not for long.”
She wipes at her mouth, sees blood on her knuckles, and her eyes go distant for a second like she’s remembering too much.
“Disco’s all I have,” she says quietly.
The words hit me harder than a threat.
Because she’s right.
Miami didn’t hug her. It chewed her up and taught her to pretend she liked the taste. She built a tiny life in a city that eats women alive, and Rico reached into that life and stole the one soft thing she had left.
My hand lifts, then stops in midair.
Touching her feels like both comfort and sin. Sorry won’t fix anything and tenderness won’t bring her bird back. So I choose action over apology.
“I’m getting your bird back,” I tell her. “I swear it.”
Her eyes lift to mine, wet but furious. “You swear a lot of shit, Diablo.”
Yeah. I do.
I’ve sworn loyalty. I’ve sworn strategy. I’ve sworn to keep men alive who didn’t deserve it. I’ve sworn to keep a deal I hated because it kept the club breathing.
Downstairs, the clubhouse shifts and stirs, restless energy rolling through it like thunder you can’t see yet.
Thirty minutes feels like a lifetime. Especially when I’m keeping Darling at a distance. Fighting not to hold her.
Then sound hits.
Engines outside.
Boots pounding the stairs like the building is shaking itself awake.
Vice’s posture changes, the same way a gun shifts when you cock it. He glances at me, then at Darling, and I nod once.
He unlocks the door.
Magic walks in first, sweat on his forehead, a smear of grime across his cheek.
Six is behind him, dragging a man by the back of his shirt like he’s hauling trash to the curb. The man stumbles, breath ragged, and I recognize him instantly.
Rico.
He’s thinner than I remember, scruff uneven, eyes too bright. Still pretty in the way that makes women underestimate what he is until he’s already inside their skin. A bruise blooms under his eye. His knuckles are split. He’s smiling anyway.
Men like Rico smile when they’re scared.
It makes them feel in control.
Then I see it.
A small travel cage swinging gently from Magic’s hand. Bright yellow feathers pressed against the bars. Furious eyes glaring like the bird is ready to start a war of his own.
Disco.
Darling makes a sound that cracks something in my chest, not a sob and not a scream, just a breath that turns into relief and rage at the same time.
Magic sets the cage down gently on my desk like it’s something sacred.
Disco tilts his head, sees Darling, and lets out a sharp squawk that sounds like an insult.
“?Mami!” he screams, then follows it with a furious whistle like he’s cussing her out for leaving him.
Darling rushes forward, hands shaking as she touches the cage. “Baby,” she whispers, voice breaking. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
Disco flutters his wings, then presses his beak to the bars like he’s trying to climb into her heartbeat. Darling’s fingers slide through the metal, soft and careful, and for a second the room feels too small to hold the love in that motion.
Rico laughs, loud and ugly.
“Aw,” Rico says, voice thick with sarcasm. “Look at that. Family reunion.”
Six slams him into the wall hard enough to rattle the framed Saints photo behind him, the one that’s been cracked before.
Rico grunts, but he keeps smiling through it, spitting blood like it’s a joke.
“Watch your hands,” he spits. “I bruise easy.”
Darling whips around, eyes blazing. “You sick piece of shit,” she snaps. “You threatened to eat him.”
Rico shrugs like it’s nothing. “Worked, didn’t it? Got you moving.”
Darling’s body tenses like she wants to tear him apart, but she stops herself, breathing hard through her nose. Controlled. Dangerous. Rico doesn’t understand that kind of control because he’s never had it.
I step forward and the air shifts with me, the way it always does when I decide something.
Six releases Rico just enough for him to stand, but not enough to run.
Rico’s gaze flicks to me, then to Darling, then back to me, and I swear he looks pleased like he did something clever.
“Prez,” he says, voice hoarse. “Long time.”
Now, I realize this Rico is the Rico who was a Saints Outlaws’ prospect once, way before I was president. We threw him out. Should’ve killed him.
I don’t answer. I stare at him until his smile starts to falter, until he feels the quiet and remembers quiet men don’t bluff.
“Did you hit her?” I ask.
My voice is calm in a way that should scare him more than shouting.
Rico chuckles like he’s flirting. “What, you’re playing hero now?”
Darling’s breath catches, and that sound makes my blood go colder.
I keep my gaze on Rico. “Answer the fucking question.”
His eyes glitter, and he chooses the worst possible path.
“She runs her mouth,” he says. “You know how it is. Girls like her act tough until you remind them they’re not.”
The room turns razor sharp.
Magic shifts.
Vice’s jaw tightens.
Six looks like he’s ready to tear Rico’s arm off and beat him with it.
Darling stands very still, one hand on Disco’s cage like she’s anchoring herself.