Like he didn’t even bother locking up.
That realization shifts something inside my chest.
Rico didn’t just leave.
He ran.
For one tiny second something bright sparks in my chest. Hope flickers there, dangerous and fragile enough to steal my breath. Maybe he’s gone for good. Maybe this time the nightmare finally ended.
But I don’t trust the feeling.
I’ve spent three years learning not to believe in freedom.
Three years since Diablo threw me out of Vice Ink like I meant nothing. Three years since I walked away from the only man I ever loved with a bag of clothes and a pocket full of money he told me to use to disappear.
Three years of Rico’s promises slowly turning into fists.
A colder thought crawls into my mind as I stare at the open door.
What could scare Rico enough to run?
My hands shake while I get dressed. Jeans. Tank top. Worn sneakers. I skip makeup because there’s no point trying to hide bruises that refuse to fade.
The mirror catches me anyway.
Purple bruises bloom across my collarbone. A shadow darkens my jaw while yellow fingerprints fade slowly across my ribs. I look like a warning sign painted in abuse.
Around here nobody even flinches at a black eye.
It’s practically neighborhood uniform.
Looking at myself in the mirror, I realize I look exactly like the kind of girl people shake their heads about.
The girl who didn’t learn the lesson fast enough.
Don’t date bikers.
Never.
No matter how sweet the promises sound when the music is loud and the night feels endless.
I tiptoe through the quiet. Even Disco, my cockatoo, is asleep in his cage, one foot tucked up like a little old man, feathers fluffed. He’s breathing slow like the world finally stopped trying to hurt us.
I grab my keys and step outside into the humid Miami morning.
The walk to work takes eight blocks through Little Havana where the heat already presses down thick as soup. Cafeterías spill the smell of Cuban coffee onto the sidewalks while old men slap dominoes against folding tables and argue about baseball like the fate of the world depends on it.
Someone shouts about the Marlins. Someone else calls him an idiot.
A woman leans out of a window yelling at her nephew in Spanish.
Miami never stops moving.
When I turn the corner, I see it.
Vice Ink.
The tattoo shop sits across the street inside an old church building with stained glass windows and a neon sign buzzing behind them. Red light spills onto the sidewalk like a warning.
