“Drag him through Wynwood.”
“Throw him in the bay with blocks.”
Carmen stands slowly, eyes glittering, lips pressed tight like she’s about to say something about control, about optics, about keeping heat off the club.
I don’t hear any of it.
All I see is Darling standing in my clubhouse, wearing bruises meant for me.
And in that moment, I know something terrible.
The deal with Carmen.
The patch on my chest.
The city watching for weakness.
None of it matters anymore.
Because Darling Rivera never left my world.
Whoever put his hands on mi cariño just signed his death warrant.
Chapter 4
Diablo
The roar of the clubhouse swells around us the moment my fingers close around her wrist. Someone shouts, “Coño,” like the word is a match struck in a gas leak. Vice is already barking orders about finding Rico before the bastard disappears into the sprawl of Miami’s night streets. Magic has his phone to his ear, voice low and mean, the kind of tone that makes men start praying even if they don’t believe. Six is posted near the back like a guard dog, eyes scanning exits, already halfway to violence.
None of it registers the way it should.
All I can see is the bruise blooming beneath my thumb where I touched her arm. The purple edge spreads against her skin like a stain I want to rip out of the world.
I tighten my grip without thinking and pull her through the chaos of Vice Ink. Darling stumbles once on the concrete but catches herself before she falls. She doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t ask for help. She hasn’t been that girl for a long time, and the realization hits somewhere deep in my chest where regret lives and never shuts up.
We move past tattoo booths where machines hum like agitated bugs and the air tastes sharp with antiseptic, ink, and sweat. Cigarette smoke curls under the rafters. The speaker by the bar thumps reggaeton and Latin trap so hard the bass shakesthe glass. Outside, a car worth half a million rolls past with music even louder, the kind of Miami flex that says I’m here, look at me, and nobody better touch me. Tourists laugh near the front like they’re on vacation. Locals don’t. Locals watch.
My brothers are shouting over it, blood already up, already ready for war. Cuts on backs. Patches catching neon. A prospect freezes when I drag her by, then snaps into motion, clearing a path like his life depends on it.
It does.
None of my patched men try to stop me.
They know better than to get between their president and whatever just lit the fuse in my chest.
The hallway behind the shop is narrow and dim, lit by a single flickering bulb. We take the winding stairs, and I shove open my office door and pull her inside, then slam it shut hard enough that the stained-glass saint in the window rattles like even God is nervous.
For a second the room is quiet except for the distant music and the sound of our breathing.
She jerks her wrist free the moment the door closes.
“Don’t manhandle me,” she snaps.
The word lands hard. Manhandle. Like I’m just another man who thinks he can put hands on her because he’s bigger, because he’s louder, because he wants something.
I turn slowly, letting the anger settle into something colder. Something sharper.
“You think I sent you away because I didn’t love you?” I ask.
