I’ve sworn loyalty. I’ve sworn strategy. I’ve sworn to keep men alive who didn’t deserve it. I’ve sworn to keep a deal I hated because it kept the club breathing.
Downstairs, the clubhouse shifts and stirs, restless energy rolling through it like thunder you can’t see yet.
Thirty minutes feels like a lifetime. Especially when I’m keeping Darling at a distance. Fighting not to hold her.
Then sound hits.
Engines outside.
Boots pounding the stairs like the building is shaking itself awake.
Vice’s posture changes, the same way a gun shifts when you cock it. He glances at me, then at Darling, and I nod once.
He unlocks the door.
Magic walks in first, sweat on his forehead, a smear of grime across his cheek.
Six is behind him, dragging a man by the back of his shirt like he’s hauling trash to the curb. The man stumbles, breath ragged, and I recognize him instantly.
Rico.
He’s thinner than I remember, scruff uneven, eyes too bright. Still pretty in the way that makes women underestimate what he is until he’s already inside their skin. A bruise blooms under his eye. His knuckles are split. He’s smiling anyway.
Men like Rico smile when they’re scared.
It makes them feel in control.
Then I see it.
A small travel cage swinging gently from Magic’s hand. Bright yellow feathers pressed against the bars. Furious eyes glaring like the bird is ready to start a war of his own.
Disco.
Darling makes a sound that cracks something in my chest, not a sob and not a scream, just a breath that turns into relief and rage at the same time.
Magic sets the cage down gently on my desk like it’s something sacred.
Disco tilts his head, sees Darling, and lets out a sharp squawk that sounds like an insult.
“¡Mami!” he screams, then follows it with a furious whistle like he’s cussing her out for leaving him.
Darling rushes forward, hands shaking as she touches the cage. “Baby,” she whispers, voice breaking. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”
Disco flutters his wings, then presses his beak to the bars like he’s trying to climb into her heartbeat. Darling’s fingers slide through the metal, soft and careful, and for a second the room feels too small to hold the love in that motion.
Rico laughs, loud and ugly.
“Aw,” Rico says, voice thick with sarcasm. “Look at that. Family reunion.”
Six slams him into the wall hard enough to rattle the framed Saints photo behind him, the one that’s been cracked before.
Rico grunts, but he keeps smiling through it, spitting blood like it’s a joke.
“Watch your hands,” he spits. “I bruise easy.”
Darling whips around, eyes blazing. “You sick piece of shit,” she snaps. “You threatened to eat him.”
Rico shrugs like it’s nothing. “Worked, didn’t it? Got you moving.”
