Chapter 1 #3
“Before me?” Her eyes flash. “That sounds official. Did I get a ceremony? A patch? A memo? Because from where I’m standing, I’m just the glitter girl you screw above the city while some clubhouse sweetheart thinks you still owe her.”
“She doesn’t matter.”
“Then why is she so comfortable?”
That shuts me up because it’s a good question.
Cherry is comfortable because I let old mess stay old mess. Because I never cared enough to sweep it clean. Because when a woman wants to think I might come back around, and I don’t say yes or no, the silence becomes a leash she makes for herself.
I didn’t owe Cherry forever.
But I should’ve cut the rope.
Fuck.
Lady turns away and starts dressing fast. Black bodysuit. Torn jeans that probably cost more because they’re torn. Gold hoops. Rings. Armor, piece by piece.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
She doesn’t look at me. “My noon set.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“I’ve been going alone since before you knew how to get into my building.”
“Lady.”
She whirls on me, one heel in her hand. “No. You don’t get the growly voice right now.”
“I’m sending a prospect with you.”
“You send a prospect to babysit me, and I’ll make him cry on livestream.”
“You think I’m playing?”
“I think you’re late for church.”
Her phone pings. She snatches it off the dresser and checks the screen.
For a second, all the attitude drains from her face.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
Now she’s the liar.
I cross the room before she can tuck the phone away. She moves fast, but I’m faster. I catch her wrist and turn the screen just enough to read it.
Unknown number. Pretty girls should stay out of biker wars.
Below it is a photo.
Not of Darling. Not Diablo.
Lady.
Last night.
Leaving Vice Ink with me, my hand at the small of her back, her head turned toward me like she was laughing at something only I said. A red circle drawn around her face. Another around mine.
And in the corner of the photo, placed on the curb near my bike, one white rose. White roses ain’t flowers in Miami anymore. They’re receipts. Warnings. Pretty little death threats with stems.
My blood goes cold in a way heat can’t touch.
Lady stares at the screen, face perfectly still.
Too still.
“Is that Carmen?” she asks.
“No.”
“But the rose?”
“Mutherfukers.”
The name lands between us like a body.
Her throat moves. “The rival MC?”
“Yeah.”
“The ones tied to Rafael?”
“Yeah.”
She inhales, slow and careful, like she’s trying not to let fear show up in her lungs.
I take the phone from her and forward the photo to Vice, Magic, and Diablo.
Then I call Magic.
He answers on the first ring. “What now?”
“Lady got a text. Unknown number. Photo from last night. White rose in frame.”
Silence.
Then Magic’s voice changes. “Where are you?”
“Her place.”
“Stay there.”
“That was the plan.”
Lady snatches the phone out of my hand and hangs up.
I stare at her.
She stares back.
“You didn’t just hang up on my sergeant-at-arms.”
“I did. Felt amazing.”
“You’re in danger.”
“I noticed.”
“Then act like it.”
Her face hardens. “I’m acting like it. I’m not letting them trap me in my own house before they even touch me.”
“That’s pride talking.”
“No, baby. That’s survival.”
Baby.
She says it like a slap.
I grab my cut, pull it on, and feel the weight settle over my shoulders. Leather. Patch. Rank. Responsibility. My phone is already buzzing again, but I ignore it for one more second because Lady is looking at me like she’s trying to decide if I’m a man or just another locked door.
I don’t want to be that to her.
I don’t know how not to.
“Listen to me,” I say. “I’m not telling you to hide because you’re weak.
I’m telling you because they won’t hit the president straight if they can hit the woman standing close enough to make him bleed.
Darling is exposed. Diablo is exposed. But they’re at Vice Ink, protected.
You’re Darling’s best friend, and you’re mine, but we’re alone. ”
Her eyes flicker at the word. Mine. Too soon. Too late. Too much. Not enough.
“Am I?” she asks quietly.
The question slips under my ribs.
Before I can answer, another text lights up her screen.
Same unknown number.
Ask Shady who Cherry is.
Lady’s face closes.
My temper unhooks.
Not because of Cherry. Not even because Lady saw the name.
Because the enemy knows it.
That means someone is watching closer than I thought. Close enough to know who sends texts to my phone. Close enough to know what words will put distance between me and Lady.
Close enough to touch her life.
Carmen is behind it.
“Pack a bag,” I say.
She laughs, but her eyes shine now, angry and scared, but refusing to let either win. “There he is.”
“I’m taking your ass to Vice Ink.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a question.”
“Then here’s an answer anyway. No.”
“Lady.”
She steps into her heels and grabs a cropped leather jacket from the closet. “I’m going to Eclipse. I’m doing my set. I’m not running because some asshole sent a picture of a flower.”
“You’re not hearing me.”
“I hear you fine.” She points at the door. “You want to protect me? Clean up your little whore problem. Handle your club shit. Figure out who’s watching me. But don’t stand in my bedroom with another woman texting you and expect me to climb obediently onto the back of your Harley.”
I swallow the first answer because it’s ugly.
The second one ain’t much better.
“Cherry ain’t my woman.”
Lady’s smile is pure Miami. Beautiful enough to get a man robbed.
“Neither am I, remember? You couldn’t even answer me.”
Then she walks out.
For three seconds, I let her.
Three.
That’s all the space my pride gives her before my brain comes back online.
I follow her through the condo, past the kitchen island with untouched coffee cups, past the framed magazine covers, past a wall of photos where Lady stands beside celebrities, DJs, models.
At the private elevator, she stabs the button.
I reach past her and press my thumb to the panel, cancelling the call.
She turns slowly. “Move.”
“No.”
Her nostrils flare. “You’re making a mistake.”
“Probably.”
“I’ll scream.”
“I’ve heard you.”
Her lips part in outrage, and despite everything, heat flashes through her eyes.
Wrong time.
My phone rings again.
Diablo.
I answer without looking away from Lady.
“Yeah.”
“Vice said Lady got a rose.”
Diablo’s voice sounds like gravel dragged through blood. He didn’t sleep. None of us have much. Not after what Rico did to Darling.
“She got a photo and texts,” I say.
“Bring her in.”
“She’s resisting.”
Lady mouths something filthy at me.
Diablo exhales hard. “Put her on.”
“No.”
Lady grabs for the phone. I lift it out of reach.
“She’s Darling’s best friend,” Diablo says. “Darling wants her safe.”
That lands.
Lady hears enough to still.
I lower the phone a little.
“Darling’s worried?” she asks.
I nod.
Her anger shifts shape. For Darling, Lady softens in a way she will not soften for herself.
“I’ll go see Darling,” she says. “Not because you ordered me.”
“Fine.”
“And I’m still doing my set after.”
“The hell you are.”
“Fight me later.”
Diablo’s voice comes through the phone. “Shady.”
“I heard.”
“Don’t let her out of your sight.”
I look at Lady.
Too late for promises I can’t keep cleanly.
“She won’t be.”
I hang up.
The elevator opens with a soft chime.
Empty.
I step in first, check the corners like a psycho because that’s what living long enough in this world teaches you. Lady follows, arms crossed, chin up, smelling like expensive shampoo and fury.
The doors slide shut.
For forty floors, neither of us speaks.
That’s fine.
Silence has always made more sense to me than words.
But Lady uses silence like a blade, and by the twentieth floor I can feel every inch of it.
“You should’ve told me about Cherry,” she says finally.
I stare at the steel doors. “Yeah.”
That makes her look at me.
“You’re agreeing?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Debatable.”
“I should’ve told her there was no chance.”
Lady’s throat moves.
“Why didn’t you?”
I could say because it didn’t matter. Because club whores flirt, text, pout, rotate through men and drama like it’s part of the furniture. Because Cherry has always liked thinking she knows things about me nobody else does. Because I never promised her shit.
All true.
None good enough.
“Because I didn’t think anything I did before you counted,” I say.
The elevator hums.
Lady’s voice drops. “That sounds dangerously close to romantic, and you don’t do romance.”
“Don’t tell anybody.”
“I might. For leverage.”
“Of course you would.”
The doors open into the private garage.
The smell hits first. Concrete, oil, heat trapped low beneath luxury. My Harley sits in the guest spot beside a row of polished cars that never see bad neighborhoods unless the driver’s lost. Lady’s SUV is three spaces over, black and clean and too easy to track.
My whole body tightens.
The garage is wrong.
Not obvious. Not enough for a civilian to notice. But wrong.
A maintenance cart sits near the far wall with no worker attached. A black sedan idles by the exit with windows too dark. There’s a white van parked two rows down that wasn’t there when I came in last night.
And then I see it. On Lady’s windshield is a white rose.
Fresh.
Perfect.
Waiting.
I grab her arm and pull her behind me.
This time she doesn’t fight.
“Shady,” she whispers.
“Stay behind me.”
The sedan’s reverse lights flare.
I draw before the first door opens.
Two men get out of the van. One from the passenger side, one sliding from the back. Not civilians. Shoulders too set. Hands too low. No cuts, but that doesn’t mean shit. Men do dirt without patches all the time.
The sedan blocks the exit.
I push Lady backward toward a concrete pillar.
“Get down.”
“I can help.”
“Get down.”
She crouches, finally reading my tone for what it is. Not control. Not ego.
Survival.
The first man lifts his gun.
I fire.
The shot cracks through the garage, loud enough to shake dust from the ceiling. The man drops behind the van, cursing. The second fires back. Concrete pops near my shoulder. Lady screams, then clamps her own hand over her mouth like she’s furious she gave them the sound.
Good girl.