Chapter 17 #2
I take one slow step toward Rico, then another, until I’m close enough to smell him. Cheap cologne. Sweat. Fear.
I lean in close, voice a whisper meant only for him.
“Say it again,” I murmur. “Say one more fucking thing about touching her.”
Rico’s smile trembles. “You gonna kill me in front of her?” he taunts, but his voice shakes. “You think that makes you different?”
It’s a trap. He thinks I’m stupid enough to jump.
I’m not.
I straighten and look at my brothers.
“Out,” I say.
Magic hesitates, eyes flicking to Darling, to the blood, to Rico’s smug face. “Prez, you sure?”
“Out,” I repeat, and my tone leaves no room for debate.
Vice and Magic move first, pulling Six back with them. Six fights it for half a second, then obeys because he’s loyal even when he’s feral.
The door shuts.
The office goes quiet except for Disco’s angry chirps and Darling’s breathing turning shallow.
Rico watches the door like he’s suddenly remembering he’s alone with the devil.
Darling’s voice is quiet behind me.
“Don’t.”
I glance at her, and the plea in her eyes hits me harder than her anger ever has.
“Don’t do it for me,” she says. “Don’t make me the reason you cross a line you can’t uncross.”
I almost laugh because I crossed that line a long time ago, just not where she had to see it.
I turn back to Rico, and he finds courage in the space she gave him.
“He wants you to stop me,” Rico says to Darling, voice smug. “He wants you soft. He wants you begging.”
Darling’s eyes harden, and she takes a step forward, Disco’s cage between us like a fragile hostage.
“You don’t know him,” she says. “But you sure as hell don’t know me.”
Rico tries to smile bigger. “You think you’re special? You think he’ll pick you over his little princess downstairs?” His gaze flicks toward the door like Carmen is his shield. “You’re a consolation prize.”
I move fast and controlled, pinning Rico back to the wall with my forearm at his throat. His breath cuts off, eyes going wide, bravado draining like blood.
I lean in close, voice soft and deadly.
“You don’t get to speak to her,” I tell him. “You don’t get to breathe her air.”
Darling steps forward, voice shaking. “Stop.”
I hold Rico there another beat, long enough for him to understand the only reason he’s still alive is standing right behind me.
Then I loosen my grip just enough for him to gasp and cough.
I turn my head toward Darling.
“Tell me,” I say, and the words hurt on the way out. “Tell me to kill him.”
Her eyes go wide, wet and furious. “Diablo.”
“Tell me,” I press, because part of me wants permission, wants to make it clean in her eyes, wants to tie my violence to her survival.
Rico coughs out a laugh, still choking. “He wants you dirty too,” he rasps. “He wants you to say it.”
Darling’s gaze snaps to Rico, sharp and cruel.
“You’re not winning,” she tells him. “You’re just still breathing.”
Then she looks at me again, voice dropping into something steady and sure.
“No,” she says.
I freeze, breath catching.
She steps closer, not scared of me, not backing down.
“Don’t,” she repeats. “I don’t want his blood on me.”
My jaw flexes. “He’ll do it again.”
“He’ll do it anyway,” she snaps back. “He’s Rico. He’s a cockroach. You kill him and you don’t fix what he did. You just make me the girl who got someone murdered.”
Rico tries to smile like he thinks this means he wins.
Darling’s eyes slice into him. “You should be thanking me,” she says quietly, and the contempt in her voice is worse than a slap.
Love hits me like a sickness because she’s choosing herself, her soul, her line. She’s choosing not to let him stain her, not even indirectly.
It makes me ache in places I didn’t know could ache.
I release Rico fully and step back.
I yank the door open.
Magic, Vice, Six, and Carmen are right there, like they’ve been listening the whole damn time.
Carmen’s eyes are bright, furious and sharp, and she steps forward like she has the right.
“What are you doing?” she snaps.
I don’t look at her first. I point at Rico.
“Get him out,” I order. “And if any of you touch him, you answer to me.”
Six’s face twists like he swallowed gasoline. “Prez, he stole from us.”
“I know,” I say.
Carmen moves in, voice cutting. “He threatened the club.”
“I know,” I repeat.
“And you’re letting him walk?” she demands, outraged because I’m not acting like she expects.
I finally look at her, voice flat.
“I’m letting him go.”
Carmen laughs once, cold. “That makes us look weak.”
“No,” I say. “It makes us look controlled.”
Her eyes narrow. “Controlled,” she spits. “You mean controlled by her.”
Darling stiffens behind me, and I feel her like heat against my back. I shift without thinking, blocking Carmen’s line of sight to Darling, and Carmen sees the instinct in it. Her mouth tightens.
Rico clears his throat, rubbing it, eyes bouncing between Carmen and me like he’s trying to figure out which one will finish him later.
“Real generous,” he says hoarsely. “Guess I’ll be on my way.”
Six leans in close to Rico, voice low and poisonous. “You run your mouth again, I’ll cut your tongue out.”
Rico swallows hard and nods too fast.
Magic grabs Rico by the shirt and hauls him toward the stairs.
Rico stumbles, then looks back over his shoulder at Darling with a small ugly smile.
“See you soon, baby,” he says.
Darling’s face hardens. Her voice goes calm in the way that means she’s done being afraid.
“Go to hell,” she replies.
Rico laughs like it’s a joke and disappears down the stairs, swallowed by neon and bad decisions and a city that’s about to bite him back.
Carmen steps closer to me, eyes burning.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she says. “You can’t make decisions based on feelings.”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” I reply low. “I’m the president.”
Her gaze flashes. “You’re the president because of me.”
Darling shifts behind me, and Carmen’s eyes slide past my shoulder to her. The look she gives Darling isn’t anger now. It’s something colder. A promise the next hit won’t be a fist.
“You’re going to get him killed,” Carmen tells her.
Darling laughs soft and brutal. “He’s already dead inside,” she says. “That’s on you.”
Carmen’s mouth tightens. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve done for this club.”
“You mean what you’ve taken,” Darling answers, steady even with blood on her lip.
Carmen steps forward, but I lift my hand and stop her without touching her.
“Enough,” I say, and the word is a threat.
Carmen holds my gaze for a long beat, then turns on her heel and walks away, heels clicking like gunshots on concrete. The room resumes breathing, but the air stays sharp, like Miami is waiting for the next explosion.
I turn toward Darling.
She stands beside Disco’s cage, fingers resting on the bars, chest still rising too fast. Disco chirps, small and furious, like he’s complaining to the universe.
Darling’s eyes lift to mine, and for a second the rage in her softens into something that cuts deeper.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
My throat tightens. “Don’t thank me for not murdering someone in front of you.”
“That was for me,” she replies. “Not for him.”
I nod once, because she’s right.
She leans closer to Disco’s cage and whispers, “You okay, baby? You’re okay,” then she looks at me again and the softness disappears like a light going out.
“We’re done,” she says.
The words punch clean through my ribs.
I take a step toward her. “No.”
“Yes,” she says, steady. “You brought him here. You let him go. Now he’s going to come for me again.”
“I’ll protect you,” I say too fast, too raw.
She laughs sharp and wounded. “You can’t even protect yourself from your own choices.”
“Don’t do this,” I push, because I can feel her slipping through my fingers and panic is an ugly thing.
“I’m doing it,” she says.
She opens the latch on Disco’s cage carefully. Disco hops onto her finger and puffs up, then settles against her palm like he belongs there. Darling lifts him to her shoulder, and he presses into her hair like he’s claiming home.
Then she looks at me, eyes bright and furious.
“You want to keep me safe?” she asks. “Stop making me collateral in your war with Carmen. Stop making me the reason the club whispers. Stop telling me where I’m allowed to breathe.”
My hand lifts, then stops in the air like a confession.
“Carino,” I start.
She shakes her head. “No. You listen. I’m not staying here while you play king and pretend you don’t have a queen in your bed.”
Heat flashes up my spine.
“I haven’t touched her,” I say too quick, and it isn’t a lie, but the mess is still there. “Not since you saw.”
Darling’s eyes flicker like she doesn’t know if she believes me, like she doesn’t want to. “Doesn’t matter,” she whispers. “You’re still hers on paper. She’s still standing there like she owns you. And you let her.”
My chest burns with words I can’t say in front of these walls. I can’t tell her she’s the only reason I ever wanted anything beyond survival.
She takes a step back.
Disco chirps sharp, warning, as if he knows danger when it’s close.
Darling’s voice cracks just a little, and that crack breaks something in me.
“You told me you loved me,” she says. “Then you sent me away. Then you dragged me back. Then you let me get hurt again. I’m done riding your rollercoaster, Diablo.”
“Don’t leave,” I say, raw.
Darling stares at me like she’s fighting something inside herself, like she wants to fall into me and hates herself for it.
Then she swallows and turns away.
“Watch me,” she says.
She walks out, Disco on her shoulder, spine straight, face set like stone.
Vice moves to block her path on instinct, then freezes when I lift my hand.
I don’t stop her.
I already did that once, and it destroyed her.
I follow to the balcony overlooking the clubhouse and watch her cross the room while Saints turn to stare and the air shifts around her like she’s a storm. She doesn’t look at anyone. She doesn’t look at Carmen. She doesn’t look at me.
She walks out the front door into the Miami night, neon and heat swallowing her whole.
And the second she’s gone, I know one thing for certain.
Letting Rico walk was mercy for Darling, not for him. Because now that Darling’s out there alone again, Rico just became a problem I cannot afford to leave breathing.
Miami can look pretty all it wants.
I know what it does when you turn your back on a threat.
I’m done turning my back.
I’m done being merciful.