Chapter 18 #2
“Why do you think that is?” I ask, and my voice shakes but it doesn’t break.
Rico’s eyes narrow, suspicious.
“I think,” I say, breathing hard, “it’s because he doesn’t let people control him. Not you. Not me. Not Carmen.”
Rico’s hand snaps back.
Pain blooms across my face, hot and immediate. My vision blurs. I taste blood.
“Don’t say her name,” he snarls. “Don’t say his name like you know him.”
I breathe through it. I stare at him anyway because looking away is surrender and I’m done surrendering.
Rico paces, running his hands through his hair like his skin doesn’t fit right.
“This is what you’re gonna do,” he says, voice rushing. “You’re gonna call him. You’re gonna tell him you want him. You’re gonna bring him here.”
My heart drops.
“No.”
He whips around.
“Yes.”
“You’re insane,” I spit, and it splits my lip again.
Rico crouches close, face right in mine. “Maybe,” he whispers. “But I’m still breathing, aren’t I?”
He pulls a small gun from his pocket.
My stomach turns to ice.
He taps it against my cheek lightly, like he’s petting me with it, like my skin belongs to him.
“I’m not gonna run anymore,” he murmurs. “I’m not gonna hide from bikers. I’m not gonna hide from Carmen’s daddy’s club. I’m not gonna hide from anybody.”
He points the gun at Disco’s cage.
Disco freezes, eyes wide, feathers tight to his body.
My voice breaks on the word I never want to beg again.
“Don’t.”
Rico smiles. “Then do what I say.”
My brain scrambles, hunting angles, tricks, exits that don’t exist.
Then a sound hits from outside.
Low at first, like thunder rolling in from the ocean.
Engines.
A lot of them.
Rico pauses, head tilting, and his smile falters.
My whole body goes tight because Miami doesn’t make that sound unless something bad is about to happen.
Rico’s eyes widen.
“No,” he whispers, and for the first time he looks scared.
The engines get louder fast, closing in, and then the slam comes like the city just kicked in a door.
My front door hits the wall so hard the frame rattles.
Boots flood my apartment.
Men shout, sharp and clipped.
“Clear!”
“Kitchen!”
“Back room!”
Rico spins, gun lifting, panic exploding in his face.
“Shit,” he snarls. “No, no, no.”
A shadow fills the doorway.
Leather. Ink. A cut with SAINTS OUTLAWS across the back like a warning label.
Diablo stands there for half a second, taking in the scene with one glance.
Me on the couch, wrists bound, ankles bound, blood on my mouth.
Disco’s cage shaking.
Rico with a gun.
Diablo’s expression goes dead cold.
Not anger.
Not loud.
Just empty of mercy.
“Step away from her,” he says, voice low and calm, the kind of calm that makes men die.
Rico’s hand shakes. “She’s mine,” he spits like he’s trying to convince himself. “You don’t get to just take what’s mine.”
Diablo takes one step into the room, then another, slow and inevitable.
Rico points the gun at me and my breath catches hard.
Diablo doesn’t stop walking.
“Diablo,” I whisper, and my voice cracks.
His eyes flick to me for a second, and in that second I see pure wreckage and pure possession, a man holding himself together by violence and will.
“I got you,” he says soft enough it feels like it’s only for me. “I got you, carino.”
Rico screams, “Stop,” and his finger tightens.
Everything slows.
The air turns thick and electric.
My heartbeat becomes a drum in my ears.
This is where people die.
Diablo moves.
Fast.
A shot cracks through the apartment, loud enough to fracture the night inside my tiny living room.
Rico jerks.
His gun clatters to the floor.
He staggers back, eyes wide, mouth open like he can’t believe consequences exist.
He crumples, clutching his side, blood darkening his shirt.
My stomach flips. I gasp, shaking so hard my teeth chatter.
Diablo is on him in a second, gun trained on Rico’s head, his whole body a controlled storm.
Rico wheezes. “You can’t,” he gurgles. “You can’t kill me.”
Diablo’s voice is flat.
“Watch me.”
I choke out his name again, smaller this time.
“Diablo.”
His shoulders tense and he looks at me, eyes wild but leashed, like he’s holding the devil by the throat.
Tears spill because my body can’t keep pretending it’s iron.
“Please,” I whisper.
Rico coughs, trying to laugh, but it turns into pain. “See?” he wheezes. “She don’t want you to. She don’t want you dirty.”
Saints fill my apartment behind Diablo, moving like a machine.
Magic.
Vice.
Six.
Shady.
Faces hard.
Hands steady.
They look like they’d finish this without blinking.
Diablo doesn’t move for a beat. The gun stays pointed, jaw flexing like he’s grinding a decision down to dust.
Then he lowers the barrel just slightly and takes a step away from Rico.
Not because Rico deserves it. Because I asked. Rico tries to crawl, smearing blood across my tile. He looks like a worm.
Diablo doesn’t look at him again.
He crosses the room in two strides and drops to his knees in front of me like I’m the only thing that matters.
His hands are gentle as he cuts the zip ties, careful like he’s terrified of hurting me worse. Plastic snaps. Blood rushes back into my fingers with pins-and-needles pain sharp enough to make me gasp.
He frees my ankles next.
The second I’m loose my body folds forward like my bones forgot how to hold me up.
Diablo catches me.
Hard.
Possessive.
Shaking like he’s the one who got shot.
I bury my face in his cut and inhale leather and smoke and salt air.
I’m sobbing before I can stop it, whole body trembling like it’s finally allowed to feel what it’s been holding back.
Disco screams again and I jerk, trying to turn.
“I got him,” Magic says, voice calmer than it should be.
I hear the cage lift. Magic is holding Disco now, moving him away from Rico, away from blood, away from the gun.
“How did you?” My voice breaks.
Vice answers without looking up from the room.
“AirTag,” he says. “Prez had it tucked in the travel cage after the first time Rico took him.”
Disco flaps once, rattles the bars, then locks eyes on me and starts yelling like he’s filing a complaint with God.
“?Mami! ?Mami!” he screeches. “?No!”
“My baby,” I choke.
“He’s good,” Magic says. “He’s good, nina.”
Diablo presses his mouth to my hair. When he speaks his voice is rough, like he’s forcing every word through clenched teeth.
“Look at me.”
I lift my face.
His eyes are black fire, and he’s trying so hard to keep it contained that it scares me more than if he screamed.
“Did he hurt you?” he asks, and each word sounds like broken glass.
I swallow hard. “He tied me up.”
His arms tighten. A tremor runs through him.
“He hit me,” I whisper.
Diablo’s gaze snaps past me toward Rico and his face goes dead again.
Six steps forward automatically, blocking Diablo’s line of sight like he knows exactly what happens when Diablo looks too long.
Vice’s voice cuts in, business-calm. “Ambulance?”
Diablo doesn’t answer right away. He keeps his eyes on mine like he’s making sure I’m real, like he’s counting breaths.
“You shouldn’t have been alone,” he says, low and furious. “You shouldn’t have been here.”
I laugh through tears, bitter.
“This is my home.”
His jaw flexes.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and the admission lands heavy because Diablo doesn’t say that out loud. “Because I’m your home.”
My adrenaline drains so fast I feel dizzy, like I’m falling off a cliff.
Diablo gathers me up, lifting me like I weigh nothing. I clutch his cut with shaking hands, fingers digging into leather like it’s the only solid thing left.
Rico groans from the floor, trying to turn his head, trying to be a problem even while bleeding out.
“She’ll leave you too,” Rico wheezes. “She always runs.”
Diablo doesn’t look at him.
His voice is pure threat.
“She’s not going anywhere.”
Miami night hits my face as Diablo carries me out, salt air and distant sirens and neon buzzing from a corner store sign like a warning. I blink against tears and feel my cheek throb, my wrists burn, my heart ache in a way that doesn’t make sense.
I look up at Diablo and my voice comes out small.
“You shot him.”
His gaze drops to mine and for a second his voice softens, just a little.
“I’d do worse,” he says. “For you. Hopefully he dies.”
The words sink in deeper than they should.
It would be almost romantic if it wasn’t true in the most terrifying way.
As we hit the sidewalk, the streetlight makes everything look too bright, too exposed, like the world wants witnesses.
That’s when I see it.
Across the street, half-hidden in shadow, a sleek black car parked too still for this neighborhood. The window is cracked just enough to show the glint of a face inside.
Watching like she’s taking notes.
Carmen.
My stomach turns cold. My fingers tighten in Diablo’s cut.
He doesn’t look over there, or maybe he does and refuses to give her the satisfaction, but I see her, and she sees me.
Miami hums around us, cars passing, music drifting, a neighbor’s TV blaring some late-night telenovela like the world isn’t on fire.
It’s not.
Rico wasn’t the only one waiting for me tonight.
And I understand it in a sick clear flash as Diablo carries me toward the motorcycles.
This isn’t just a love story.
It’s not just a breakup.
It’s not just a bird and a bruised cheek.
It’s territory.
And Carmen just drew a line in blood.