Chapter 19
Darling
The hospital is too bright and too cold, like somebody decided pain should come with fluorescent punishment.
Every sound bounces. Sneakers squeak on waxed floors.
A monitor beeps somewhere down the hall like a heartbeat that is not mine.
The TV in the corner plays local news with the volume low, but the anchors’ perfect smiles still crawl under my skin, the way Miami pretends blood is just another weather report.
I am wrapped in a thin blanket that does not do a damn thing, sitting on a plastic chair that feels designed to punish you for surviving.
My wrists are bandaged where the zip ties bit into skin, and my cheek is swollen, warm and sore every time I breathe too deep.
They made me rinse my mouth because I had blood in it, and they asked questions like I was not still shaking, like my body did not just learn a new definition of trapped.
Name. Date of birth. Do you feel safe at home?
I almost laugh when they say home, but it comes out as a trembly breath instead. Home is a door that swings open too easily, a couch that remembers fear, and a man in your living room smiling like he owns you.
Yet across the room is a man, a biker, who always felt like home to me.
Diablo stands with his back to the wall like he is guarding it, like the wall needs protecting from the world.
He’s still in his cut, still wearing his colors in a place that smells like bleach, coffee and prayers that never get answered on time.
His hair is a little messy, his eyes too dark and too awake.
Even with all that leather, you can still see the truth of him.
Ink climbing his throat. Scars at his knuckles and the side of his jaw like history tried to kill him and failed.
A sliver of old damage at his collar where the shirt gapes under the cut.
You can put a man like him in a suit, you can wipe the blood off his hands, but you cannot hide what he is.
And there is blood on one of his knuckles that is not his. The nurse offered him wipes. He did not take them, like he wants everyone to see what happens when men touch what he calls, mine.
He has not sat down once since they brought me back here. He has not taken his eyes off me for more than two seconds. He looks calm, but I can tell the truth by the way his jaw keeps clenching and unclenching, by the way his fingers flex at his sides like he is fighting the urge to break something.
Every time a stranger walks past the door, his gaze flicks up, scanning the hall, tracking movement, hunting even inside this sterile little box.
Magic and Vice are posted outside the door like bouncers at a club, big shoulders filling the frame, faces set in hard neutrality.
There is another man in the hallway too, one of Diablo’s enforcers in his leather, cut on, quiet eyes that don’t blink too often.
He doesn’t come in. He just stands there like a warning sign with a pulse, making sure nobody gets too curious.
Nobody looks casual in a hospital when the president of a one percenter club is standing in the room like the law is a suggestion. Even the nurses do that polite glance-away thing, the one you do when you feel danger and pretend you don’t.
I keep seeing it when I blink. The flash. The sound. Rico’s body jerking like he could not believe the universe finally chose him.
Part of me feels sick about it, stomach still rolling when I think of blood spreading across my tile. Part of me feels something uglier, something I do not want to admit out loud because it makes me feel like a monster too.
Relief.
Because Rico is not in my apartment anymore. Rico is not in my bed. Rico is not in my skin. Rico may not survive his gunshot wound. If he lives, he’ll end up in a cell or a grave. Miami doesn’t do in-between.
And that relief makes me want to puke, because what kind of life teaches you to feel grateful for gunshots.
A doctor comes in with a clipboard and kind eyes that look tired, like she has seen too much and stopped letting it stick.
She talks to me gently, like I am a scared animal that might bite if she moves wrong.
Her voice stays soft while she checks my cheek and my wrists and asks if I have dizziness, nausea, headache, all the normal words for a night that was anything but.
“No fractures,” she says finally. “Soft tissue bruising. The swelling on your cheek will go down. We’ll give you something for pain. You’re lucky.”
Lucky is a word that feels wrong in my mouth, too sweet for what happened, too clean.
I nod anyway because I do not have the energy to argue, and because if I open my mouth to fight the word I might start crying again.
The doctor gives Diablo a look too, not scared exactly, but cautious, like she is checking the temperature of a storm.
“Make sure she follows up with her primary care,” the doctor says, and then her eyes meet mine again. “And if you don’t feel safe, we can connect you with resources.”
Resources. Like a pamphlet can stop a man with a gun. Like a hotline can keep a predator out of your living room.
I nod again because it is easier than explaining Miami.
When the doctor leaves, the door clicks shut and the room goes quiet again, except for the TV and the faint murmur of nurses in the hall. The blanket scratches my skin. My fingers keep twitching like my body still expects plastic biting into it.
I stare at my hands because looking at Diablo makes my heart do stupid things, and I do not trust anything stupid right now.
Diablo crosses the room like the air belongs to him. Boots heavy. Presence swallowing space. He stops in front of me, then crouches low, bringing his face close enough that I can see the red veins in the white of his eyes.
He looks like he has not slept in weeks.
Like he has been carrying rage in his chest and it finally got a target.
“Look at me,” he says.
I do, because my body remembers his voice. Remembers obeying it. Remembers how safe it can feel to give in when you are exhausted.
His gaze drags over my cheek, my wrists, the tremble in my hands, and his mouth tightens like he is swallowing something sharp.
“You need anything?” he asks.
I want to say I need my life back. Peace. Therapy. A lock that cannot be picked by a man who thinks my body is his property.
Instead my mouth betrays me and I say the only thing my heart can handle.
“Disco?”
Magic’s voice carries from the hallway, warm and steady like he is trying to soften the edge of it. “Bird’s good. He’s in Vice’s truck with the AC. Your cockatoo’s been cussing us out in Spanish.”
Vice mutters something under his breath like a reluctant confession. “That bird called me cabrón.”
A cracked sound slips out of me that might be a laugh if my throat was not trying to close. Relief hits so hard my vision blurs.
“Of course he did,” I whisper.
“Loud little demon,” Magic says, like he is almost proud. “Keeps yelling, ‘Dale’ every time somebody walks by.”
My chest aches with it. With the stupid love I feel for a bird that thinks he is ten feet tall. With the fact that he is alive.
“Thank you,” I say, and my throat hurts around the words.
Diablo’s eyes flick to my mouth like he wants to touch the corner where I bit it, but he does not. He keeps his hands to himself like he is terrified I will flinch.
That fact hits me harder than the bruise.
Rico never worried about me flinching. Rico loved it.
Diablo’s control is different. It is not gentleness.
It is restraint with teeth.
“You’re staying with me,” he says.
It is not a question. Not a suggestion. It lands like a command with a hand around its throat.
I blink, pulse spiking. “Diablo.”
His gaze does not move, like he nailed himself in place. “You’re staying with me.”
My throat goes dry. “You don’t get to,” I start, because I have to say it, because if I do not then I am already sliding back into old patterns where men decide and I survive.
“Don’t,” he cuts in, voice low and dangerous. “Not today.”
Anger flares hot and bright even through the exhaustion. “You don’t get to make decisions for me.”
His eyes flare, and then he forces them softer like he is physically dragging himself back from the edge. He breathes out through his nose like he is counting, like he knows his temper is a loaded gun.
“I’m not doing this to control you,” he says, each word heavy.
“I’m doing this because your home isn’t safe.
Rico was working for my enemies. It’s club business, but you need to know something, white roses aren’t Carmen.
They’re the Miami Mutherfukers MC’s calling card.
They’d love to run the Saints Outlaws out of Miami.
They’re the ones we’ve always suspected in Rafael’s death. ”
“White rose isn’t her. It’s Mutherfukers. A calling card?”
“A rival MC,” he explains.
“So, you don’t think Carmen is working with them?” I ask.
“Hard to tell. She’s a bitch, but she loved her father. I used to think she loved this club. But none of that matters. You matter, Darling. To me. I’m not letting you end up in a body bag because you wanted to prove something.”
My chest tightens anyway, the old reflex. “Stop acting like you’re my savior,” I snap. “You’re engaged.”
His nostrils flare. “I know.”
“You locked me in a room,” I push, voice rising despite myself. “You told me to get out of your life once, and you…”
My voice cracks on the memory of Carmen’s hair on his pillow, her body in his bed, the way it felt like someone poured acid in my chest.
Diablo’s expression tightens, but he doesn’t look away. He takes it like he deserves it.
“I was wrong,” he says again.
It should not matter.
It does.
“What happens when you decide I’m wrong again?” I ask, and it comes out quieter than I meant it to, like a bruise you did not know you had until someone touched it.
His eyes go black. “I won’t.”
Too confident. Too male. Too biker. It makes my stomach twist and my heart do something stupid.