A cathedral for sinners.
I turn my head quickly and keep walking.
It’s been three years since I stepped inside that building. Three years since I walked out with nothing but a broken heart and a bag of clothes.
Three years since I promised myself I would never get tangled up with bikers again.
And somehow I still chose the wrong man.
That thought lingers longer than I want it to.
Diablo gave me enough money to disappear. More money than I’d ever seen in my life. I used it exactly the way he told me to.
I disappeared from everyone who knew me.
Just not from Miami.
My mamá is buried in Hialeah. My papá went back to Cuba years ago and never looked back. My abuela raised me until her heart finally gave out.
After that it was just me.
No cousins who answer the phone. No brothers who come running. My sister in Tampa.
Just me and this city.
I changed everything I could about myself.
I stopped dressing like the girl who once stood beside a club enforcer. Heels turned into sneakers. Dresses into jeans. I even lightened my hair so I wouldn’t look the same anymore.
Now I go by Ana.
Rico didn’t care about any of that.
All he ever cared about was money.
The bar where I work sits three streets over. It’s a dive locals barely notice anymore with sticky floors, flickering lights, and a jukebox that only works when it feels like it.
By noon the regulars start drifting in.
“Morning, princesa,” Manny calls from his usual stool.
Manny’s pushing sixty with a belly that probably arrived sometime in the nineties and never left. He wears the same faded Marlins cap every day and tips like he once won the lottery and never forgot what generosity feels like.
“Afternoon,” I correct while sliding a cold beer across the counter.
He launches into a long explanation about traffic even though he lives two blocks away. I smile and shake my head because Manny lies the same way people breathe.
He studies my face a moment longer than usual.
“You look tired,” he says.
“Life,” I answer.
He nods slowly like that explains everything.
The door creaks open behind him and a skinny kid slips inside.
Luis.
