Chapter 6 #2
I sit back, and the chair creaks under me. “If the baby was mine. I should’ve done right by that grief. I should’ve done right by you after. I left you half-open because I was too much of a selfish prick to close the wound I helped make.”
Her tears spill silently now.
“If?” she asks.
“Cherry. I know you. You weren’t only with me.”
Drying her eyes, she lifts her chin. There’s no use denying it. “But…” she starts.
“And you were not my woman,” I say. “You didn’t owe me that.”
She flinches.
“You were not my woman when I fucked you. You were not my woman when you walked into that garage. You’re not my woman now. And if I ever let you think different because I was too guilty to be cruel, that ends right here.”
Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
I need it to hurt.
I need it settled.
“I will make sure your sister and niece are protected,” I say.
“Not because you earned it. Because they didn’t hand Lady to anybody.
After that, you don’t call me unless a club officer tells you to.
You don’t text me. You don’t show up where Lady is.
You don’t say her name unless you’re answering a question. You understand?”
Cherry wraps both arms around herself.
“I loved you.”
“No,” I say, and my voice finally roughens.
“You loved the man who picked you up off a bathroom floor because you needed him to mean more than the blood. I let you keep loving that version because it made me feel less like the bastard who may have put some of the blood there. That is on me. What you did with it is on you.”
Her face folds.
Vice watches me with something like approval, which makes me want to punch him on principle.
Diablo leans forward. “Who contacted you?”
Cherry wipes her face with shaking fingers. “A woman first. Private number. She sounded expensive.”
“Carmen,” Magic says.
“Maybe. I don’t know. She said I was being replaced by a whore who liked bikers until they stopped being fun.”
My hand curls on the table.
Diablo’s voice cuts through before mine can. “Careful repeating words you don’t want to own.”
Cherry nods fast. “Then men started texting. Pictures of my sister. My niece. My apartment. They said they only needed access. They said they would leave a rose and scare her. They said if Lady ran back to her famous life, Shady would remember who stayed.”
Magic mutters, “Jesus.”
“Wrong building,” I say.
He looks at me.
“What?”
“We’re in a church. Jesus heard and declined to participate.”
Vice snorts despite himself.
Diablo’s mouth doesn’t move, but his eyes almost do.
Cherry stares at me like I’m insane. Fair. I feel insane. Lady is gone, Carmen’s name is all over the smoke, and the woman who may have lost my baby is crying across from me because she helped put the woman I want in chains.
If I don’t smart off, I might start screaming.
Alpha taps the tablet. “The text chain used phrasing connected to two known Mutherfuker hangarounds and one unknown female contact. C.S. also appears in metadata from the photo of Cherry’s niece. Not proof, but enough to assume Carmen’s orbit.”
“Carmen doesn’t get touched until we can make it stick,” Diablo says.
My head turns. “The fuck she doesn’t.”
His eyes cut to me. “You want her dead or useful?”
“Both.”
“Pick useful first.”
“Presidential bullshit.”
“Effective presidential bullshit. Half your brothers are still loyal to her. Maybe men outside these doors.”
Looking around, I hate him again.
“Fine,” I say. “But when useful is done, I get in line.”
“There is a line,” Magic says. “Darling’s probably first.”
“Lady might beat all of us,” Vice says.
The thought almost makes me smile.
Almost.
Lady would not shoot Carmen from a distance. She would get close enough to say something cutting first. Something in Spanish that would make Carmen’s face tighten before the blood hit.
God help me, I miss her.
It has been maybe twenty minutes.
I am pathetic.
Love makes fools of rough men. Nobody tells you that. They talk about claiming and putting your woman on the back of your bike. They don’t tell you about sitting in church with your ribs split open because the woman you want finally saw the rot you hid and had the good sense to walk away.
Key Rat opens the door without knocking. “We got a problem.”
Diablo’s head turns. “Only one?”
“Funny.” Key Rat holds up a phone. “Blind item just hit two Miami gossip pages and one nightlife account. It’s spreading fast.”
My body goes cold.
Alpha stands. “Put it on screen.”
“No,” I say.
Everybody looks at me.
I push back from the table. “Read it.”
Key Rat looks at Diablo.
Diablo nods.
Key Rat clears his throat. “Miami’s favorite Latina DJ might want to check the mileage on her white boy biker beau.
Sources say a certain Saints Outlaws road captain still has unfinished business with a clubhouse redhead, including a secret pregnancy and a tragic loss.
Did Lady Nyx skip out on a charity gig to cry over a man who was never fully hers? ”
My ears start ringing.
Cherry makes a wounded sound.
Magic says, “Motherfucker.”
Vice’s face goes flat in the way that means someone is going to lose teeth very soon.
Key Rat ain’t done. “There’s a photo.”
“Of what?” Diablo asks.
Key Rat’s eyes flick to me. “Old security still. Hallway outside Cherry’s room. Shady going in.”
I remember that night. I remember Lady leaving Eclipse with that promoter because I had no right to stop her and wanted to anyway.
I remember drinking too much, finding Cherry crying, letting grief and jealousy turn into the dumbest fuck of my life.
I remember leaving before it became worse and telling myself that made me decent.
The world loves receipts when they hurt the right woman.
Alpha’s phone pings.
Then Diablo’s.
Then mine.
Mine is from an unknown number.
A link.
Then a message.
SHE KNOWS NOW.
Under it, another line.
AND SO DOES EVERYONE.
My chair hits the floor behind me when I stand.
Diablo stands too. “Shady.”
I look at Cherry.
She is shaking her head. “I didn’t send that.”
“I know,” I say.
And I do.
This ain’t Cherry. Cherry is messy. Human. Wounded. This is polished cruelty with a Solano smile.
My phone buzzes again.
This time, it ain’t unknown.
It is Darling.
Three words.
She saw it.
The room tilts.
Lady saw it.