Rico stumbles, then looks back over his shoulder at Darling with a small ugly smile.
“See you soon, baby,” he says.
Darling’s face hardens. Her voice goes calm in the way that means she’s done being afraid.
“Go to hell,” she replies.
Rico laughs like it’s a joke and disappears down the stairs, swallowed by neon and bad decisions and a city that’s about to bite him back.
Carmen steps closer to me, eyes burning.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she says. “You can’t make decisions based on feelings.”
“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” I reply low. “I’m the president.”
Her gaze flashes. “You’re the president because of me.”
Darling shifts behind me, and Carmen’s eyes slide past my shoulder to her. The look she gives Darling isn’t anger now. It’s something colder. A promise the next hit won’t be a fist.
“You’re going to get him killed,” Carmen tells her.
Darling laughs soft and brutal. “He’s already dead inside,” she says. “That’s on you.”
Carmen’s mouth tightens. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve done for this club.”
“You mean what you’ve taken,” Darling answers, steady even with blood on her lip.
Carmen steps forward, but I lift my hand and stop her without touching her.
“Enough,” I say, and the word is a threat.
Carmen holds my gaze for a long beat, then turns on her heel and walks away, heels clicking like gunshots on concrete. The room resumes breathing, but the air stays sharp, like Miami is waiting for the next explosion.
I turn toward Darling.
She stands beside Disco’s cage, fingers resting on the bars, chest still rising too fast. Disco chirps, small and furious, like he’s complaining to the universe.
Darling’s eyes lift to mine, and for a second the rage in her softens into something that cuts deeper.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
My throat tightens. “Don’t thank me for not murdering someone in front of you.”
“That was for me,” she replies. “Not for him.”
I nod once, because she’s right.
She leans closer to Disco’s cage and whispers, “You okay, baby? You’re okay,” then she looks at me again and the softness disappears like a light going out.
“We’re done,” she says.
The words punch clean through my ribs.
I take a step toward her. “No.”
“Yes,” she says, steady. “You brought him here. You let him go. Now he’s going to come for me again.”
“I’ll protect you,” I say too fast, too raw.
