Good.
If this turns into war she won’t be a ghost.
Carmen starts descending the staircase slowly, her posture perfect, her expression calm and calculating, like she’s walking into a courtroom she already won.
She stops on the last step. Not close enough to touch me. Close enough to be seen.
Her eyes slide to Darling, and the smile she gives her is polite, pretty, and cruel.
“So,” Carmen says softly, like it’s nothing. Like it’s small talk. “She’s back.”
Darling’s spine goes straight.
My hands curl into fists at my sides.
Carmen tilts her head, studying Darling like a purchase, like a problem. Then she looks at me again, and her smile tightens.
“Club business,” she says, and the words are a gunshot. “Or are you too distracted to remember your duties tonight?”
Carmen’s shoulder brushes mine as she moves into the crowd.
I lean close enough that only Darling can hear me over the music, my mouth at her ear, my hand sliding to the small of her back in a way the whole club will understand.
“Stay put,” I say, not wanting her to slip out while I’m tending to Carmen.
“You don’t get to own me,” she mutters under her breath.
“Oficial o no,” I murmur, voice rough, “you’re under my protection. That means nobody touches you. That means nobody takes you. That means you don’t walk out of my sight.”
Her pulse jumps beneath my palm.
“And you?” she whispers, bitter and hot. “Do I get to decide what you do?”
I smile once, sharp.
“Dale,” I murmur. “Try.”
Her breath catches, and I feel her body betray her for half a second.
I lower my voice even more.
“You’re mine,” I tell her, simple and vicious. “Not because I say so. Because you already were, cariño.”
On the stairs, waiting for me to follow her, Carmen stops smiling.
And the whole damn room feels the temperature change.
Chapter 5
Darling
Miami doesn’t do quiet nights. Not in Little Havana, not in Wynwood, not anywhere the Saints Outlaws breathe. Even the air feels loud here, thick with humidity and music and the restless pulse of a city that refuses to sleep. By the time they drag me through the heavy doors of Vice Ink, the bass is already vibrating through the floorboards like the building itself has a heartbeat.
From the outside the place still looks like a church. Old stone. Tall stained-glass windows showing saints with halos and sorrowful eyes. But inside it’s something else entirely. Something darker. The music pounds so hard it rattles the bottles behind the bar, and neon lights bounce off chrome motorcycles parked along the walls like they belong there more than pews ever did.
Sweat and cigar smoke hang low under the rafters, thick enough that every breath also tastes. The humid Miami air sticks to skin like a second layer, carrying the scent of spilled tequila from salt air rolling in from the ocean a few blocks away. Someone laughs too loudly near the bar. A bottle clinks against another. The whole room moves like a wave, leather cuts shifting through the crowd, tattoos crawling across throats and knuckles.
Every night’s a party here. Diablo said that once like it was normal, like men break bones and spill blood, then still come home to drink like they’re immortal.
