Infrastructure.
Media.
City hall.
The kind of power that doesn’t bleed when you cut it.
I don’t flinch and I don’t raise my voice, because loud men lose and quiet men win.
“If you ever use my club’s name as a weapon against me,” I say softly, “you’ll find out what kind of king you helped make.”
Her breath hitches once, a tiny crack, then she smooths her blouse and turns away like she didn’t blink. Carmen can take a punch and keep her hair perfect, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel fear.
It just means she stores it for later.
I climb the stairs two at a time, boots heavy on wood, neon from downstairs flickering up the walls like the building is alive.
Vice stands outside my office door like a statue, arms crossed, expression blank. He looks at my face and knows. He doesn’t ask. He just opens the door and lets me in like he’s guarding a throne room.
Darling is inside, standing by my desk like she’s trying not to touch anything that belongs to me. Like she’s trying not to remember what it used to feel like when she was in my bed and my shirt was on her skin and she believed I’d never let her go.
Her eyes flick to mine, anger bright enough to almost hide the fear underneath.
“Are you going to kill him?” she asks, voice steady but thin.
I shut the door behind me and lock it, the click too final in the quiet.
“I’m going to bring him here,” I say, because honesty is the only thing that keeps her from bolting.
“And then?” Her chin lifts like she’s daring me.
I walk closer, not too close. I don’t corner her the way Rico did. Near enough to feel the heat of her anger and thetremor of her fear, near enough to smell the salt on her skin and the blood on her lip, and it takes effort not to reach for her.
“And then I’m going to make him tell me everything.”
Her throat bobs. “He’s going to lie.”
A small, cold smile touches my mouth. “Not for long.”
She wipes at her mouth, sees blood on her knuckles, and her eyes go distant for a second like she’s remembering too much.
“Disco’s all I have,” she says quietly.
The words hit me harder than a threat.
Because she’s right.
Miami didn’t hug her. It chewed her up and taught her to pretend she liked the taste. She built a tiny life in a city that eats women alive, and Rico reached into that life and stole the one soft thing she had left.
My hand lifts, then stops in midair.
Touching her feels like both comfort and sin. Sorry won’t fix anything and tenderness won’t bring her bird back. So I choose action over apology.
“I’m getting your bird back,” I tell her. “I swear it.”
Her eyes lift to mine, wet but furious. “You swear a lot of shit, Diablo.”
Yeah. I do.
