The contact hits harder than I expect. Heat sparks up my arm the moment our palms meet, a familiar shape fitting into my grip like three years never happened. I’d forgotten how small her hand feels inside mine, how easily my fingers wrap around it. I’d forgotten how fast my body reacts to her, like it doesn’t care about rings or deals or optics.
She doesn’t pull away this time.
I guide her past the throng toward the corridor behind the shop. The music dulls slightly as we move away from the center of the party. The smell of tequila and sweat fades into something quieter, tinged with ink, whiskey, and old wood.
The Saints glance up as we pass, but nobody stops us. Nobody questions it.
They know better.
In an MC, you don’t challenge the president in front of the room unless you want blood on the floor. You don’t touch what he’s moving unless you want your hands broken.
The hallway is dim and narrow, concrete walls vibrating with distant bass. Doors line one side, crash rooms the club uses when someone’s too drunk to ride, too paranoid to go home, or too valuable to leave exposed. A place to lock down a problem until you can handle it right.
Darling notices the doors. Her gaze skims them like she’s counting the ways out.
I push open the farthest one and step aside so she enters first.
The room is simple but clean. Dark wood furniture. A narrow bed with crisp sheets. A small window that looks out over the alley where Vice Ink’s neon sign bleeds red and bluelight across wet pavement. The glow slides over Darling’s skin in shifting color that almost looks like bruises.
“This is yours,” I tell her.
She walks inside slowly, gaze sweeping the space like she’s cataloging every corner. The caution in her posture makes something twist inside my chest.
“I didn’t ask for a cage,” she says.
“It’s not a cage.”
“It’s behind a locked door.”
I close the door behind us, not all the way, and lean against it automatically, blocking the exit before I even realize I’m doing it.
Her eyes flash.
“You don’t get to define safe for me.”
The words land harder than any insult.
I push off the door before I can say something defensive and step back into the hallway.
Vice is halfway down the corridor, moving toward the party again with a bottle in his hand, grin sharp like he’s enjoying the chaos.
I grab his arm before he disappears.
“She’s off-limits,” I say quietly.
He raises an eyebrow. “To who?”
“To everyone,” I answer. “Club-wide. Patched, prospect, hang-around. Everybody.”
Vice studies my face for half a second. No questions. Just a nod. That’s why he’s my right hand. He can read the room and the rules without me spelling them out.
“I’ll put Dusty outside the door,” he says.
“Good.”
He starts to move again but pauses, eyes narrowing.
“And Carmen?”
