Chapter 2 #2
“I’m not much of a screamer,” I say.
His gaze drops to my throat, then lower to the marks Shady left above the edge of my bodysuit. Bite. Kiss. Teeth. His expression changes, just barely.
“Road captain seems to like your screams.”
Something ugly rolls through me.
Not shame.
Rage.
Those marks were mine before they were his. My choice. My skin. My night. My mistake if I wanted one. These men looking at them makes me feel like somebody opened a bedroom door they had no right touching.
“Keep staring,” I say. “It’ll give him a reason to start with your eyes.”
Toro smiles faintly. “You believe that gringo will save you?”
I don’t answer.
Not because I don’t know.
Because sí, I do. I believe that stubborn gringo knows roads better than prayers, and I hate how much of me is already waiting for the sound of his bike.
Toro lets go of my jaw.
“That’s good,” he says. “Belief makes the fall hurt more.”
Boca walks to a table set up near the roses. Burner phones. A laptop. Camera. A folded Saints Outlaws shirt. A woman’s compact. A roll of silver duct tape. A knife.
My attention sticks on the knife, but Toro sees it and moves it farther back.
Smart bastard.
“Where’s Carmen?” I ask.
Boca laughs too fast.
Toro’s eyes do not move.
Interesting.
“Your boy in the garage said to tell Diablo you got his girl’s girl,” I say. “So where does Carmen fit in?”
“That’s right,” Toro says.
“Then where is she?”
“Women like Carmen don’t come to places like this.”
“Too dirty?”
“Too real.”
I laugh before I can stop myself, and it hurts my lip.
He studies me for a beat too long. “I can see why he likes you.”
“Who?”
“Shady.”
My heart trips, but my face doesn’t.
Toro notices anyway because men like him live off tells.
“He’s a smartass,” he says. “Like you.”
“When he finds us, he’s going to kill you.”
“Maybe.” Toro shrugs. “Maybe not fast enough.”
That lands.
I hate that it lands.
Because I saw Shady bleeding. I saw the van doors close. I saw distance swallow him. For one tiny, traitorous second, I wonder if this is how Darling felt in Rico’s apartment, waiting for a door to open and not knowing whether rescue was real or just something women invented to survive long nights.
Darling.
My throat tightens hard enough to hurt. She is going to blame herself. My sweet, stubborn, too-soft-for-her-own-good Darling will hear they took me because of her and fold the guilt into herself like another bruise. She will look at Diablo with those big hurt eyes and think loving him cost me.
No.
That can’t happen.
I straighten in the chair.
Toro arches a brow. “You ready?”
“What do you want?”
“Now you ask the right question.”
“I’m bored.”
Boca grabs a white rose from a bucket and twirls it between his fingers. “Honestly, what will it hurt to tell you? We want your boyfriend to lose his fucking mind.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
The words taste bitter.
Boca grins. “Tell him that.”
Toro’s gaze sharpens. “We want Diablo reckless. Darling hysterical. The Saints looking weak while Miami watches. We want everyone asking who really runs this city.”
“And Carmen?”
“She wants what was stolen from her. The Saints Outlaws.”
“Did she pay you?”
He doesn’t answer.
That is almost an answer by itself.
Boca leans close, rose in hand. “Maybe she did. Maybe she didn’t. Maybe she cried into her champagne and said awful things about Little Havana bartenders and shiny DJs who don’t know their place.”
I look at Toro, not Boca. “He talks too much.”
Toro’s mouth twitches.
Then he backhands Boca so fast I barely see it.
Boca stumbles, hand flying to his mouth. “Jefe.”
“She’s right,” Toro says. “You talk too much.”
I file that away too.
Toro is in charge. Boca resents it. Carmen’s name is bait. The Mutherfukers want confusion and chaos so they look like they are in charge.
And Cherry?
I didn’t ask about her.
That wound opens again before I can stop it.
Cherry knew enough to show up in my garage. Knew enough to act sorry after the trap was already sprung. Maybe they threatened her. Maybe she helped because jealousy makes stupid women useful to smart men. Maybe both.
A clubhouse sweetheart who thinks Shady owes her.
Shady’s old mess came right into my life wearing mascara and an apology.
With my literal life on the line, my eyes burn over Cherry, and I hate myself for it, but I refuse to cry in front of these men.
I don’t even know what I am to Shady. That is the stupid part. I’m tied to a chair because men decided I belong to him, and I don’t even know if he would have called me his in daylight if guns had not forced the word out of him.
In bed, he looked at me like I was dangerous.
In the garage, he looked at me like I was necessary.
Those are not the same thing.
Toro walks to the table and picks up a phone. “We’re going to make a video.”
“No.”
He looks amused. “That wasn’t a request.”
“Neither was my answer.”
Boca laughs again, softer now because his lip is bleeding.
Toro turns the phone in his hand. “You’re going to tell Darling you’re alive. You’re going to tell Diablo that if he wants you back, he returns what he stole from Carmen.”
“What did he steal?”
Toro smiles.
“The throne. Rule over the Saints.”
“And Shady?” I ask.
Toro watches me closely. “You’ll tell Shady he chose wrong.”
My stomach turns. “Chose wrong?”
“Tell him he should’ve chosen Cherry.”
They want him angry.
No. Not just angry. Distracted. Men like Shady are dangerous because they organize rage.
If they can make his rage personal enough, dirty enough, jealous enough, maybe he misses a turn.
Maybe he stops thinking like road captain and starts thinking like a man whose woman was dragged away after another woman betrayed him.
They don’t know him if they think he will stop thinking.
But they might know me. Because the words hit where they are supposed to.
He chose wrong.
Cherry’s text glows in my memory.
You still owe me.
The old hurt tries to speak. The part of me raised by Miami, by men who want the shine and not the woman under it, whispers that I’m the shiny mistake. Fun in a fancy condo. Good for a night. Too proud for the clubhouse. Too famous to keep. Too much glitter, not enough grit.
I close my eyes once.
Then I hear Shady’s voice.
You don’t have a brand with me.
I open my eyes.
“Fine,” I say.
Toro tilts his head.
“I’ll make your little video.”
Boca grins. “Good girl.”
I look at him. “Call me that again and I’ll bite your face when Shady cuts me loose.”
His grin falters.
Toro chuckles once. “Set it up.”
Boca drags the table closer. Another man brings a small ring light because apparently kidnapping has production values now.
That almost makes me hysterical. I perform for cameras every week.
Clubs, charity sets, livestreams, brand deals, glossy interviews where men ask what it is like being a woman in the nightlife and expect me to answer like I’m grateful for the microphone.
Now I’m tied to a chair in a flower warehouse while a rival MC films me with a ring light.
They fix my hair first. Boca steps behind me with his hands in my curls, arranging them over one shoulder like I’m about to take a promo shot. His fingers snag on tangles. I grit my teeth. His knuckles brush the mark Shady left on my neck.
“Pretty,” he murmurs.
I turn my head enough to look at him from the corner of my eye.
“Dead,” I whisper.
He steps back.
Toro places a white rose across my lap. The bloom is cold through my jeans. Another goes on the table near the camera. He sets a phone where I can see myself on the screen.
I look like hell. Lip split. Cheek red. Hair wild. Eyes wet but still sharp. Shady’s bite peeks above my collar like evidence. I don’t look fragile.
I look furious.
Perfect.
Toro studies the screen. “Say exactly what I tell you.”
“Sure.”
He smiles like he doesn’t believe me.
Smart.
He presses record.
A little red dot appears.
For one second, all I see is myself.
Then I imagine Darling seeing this.
My chest cracks.
I picture her at Vice Ink, probably wrapped in Diablo’s arms and fighting him because she will want to come herself.
She will cry my name. She will remember every hallway we ran down in high school, every bathroom floor where we hid from mean girls and worse men, every night she vanished into survival and I didn’t know how bad it had gotten.
The guilt flashes hot enough to make my voice rough when I speak.
“Darling,” I say, ignoring Toro’s script immediately. “Don’t do the thing where you make this your fault. I swear to God, I will come back just to yell at you.”
Boca curses. “That ain’t what we said.”
Toro holds up a hand.
I keep my eyes on the camera.
“I’m alive. I’m mad. My lip looks worse than it feels, and if Disco is watching this somehow, mijo, don’t learn any new words from Diablo right now.”
My smile hurts.
Behind the camera, one of the men snorts.
Good.
Let them think I’m performing.
I am.
Just not for them.
I shift slightly in the chair, letting the rose roll in my lap. My bound foot taps once against the concrete. Then again. Then a pattern.
One, two. Pause. One, two, three.
A beat.
A route.
Shady watched my hands on decks once at Eclipse, eyes narrowed like he was trying to understand how I could control a room without touching anybody. I told him music is just directions people don’t know they are following.
Let’s see if he remembers.
Toro’s gaze drops to my foot.
I stop.
“Tell Diablo,” Toro says quietly.
I look back at the camera.
“Diablo,” I say, letting my voice flatten. “They said if you want me back, you give Carmen what you stole.”
Toro nods.
“Tell Shady,” Toro says.
My heart hits harder.
For the first time since the camera came on, I almost lose the mask.
I see Shady in the elevator, jaw tight, looking at me like the word mine had scared him too.
I see him grabbing my phone. I see his hand at my throat in bed, gentle enough to ask, cruel enough to make me want.
I see him in the garage, gun raised, blood spreading at his side, the whole city narrowing to the sound of my name in his mouth.