“I didn’t invite him,” I say quietly.
“I know you didn’t.”
The Saints spread out in slow, deliberate steps the way trained men do when they’re claiming ground. Two peel toward the pool edge, eyes on the crowd. One takes the stairwell door like it’s instinct. Vice drifts to the bar area, scanning faces. Another hangs back near the elevator, watching anyone who might try to leave fast.
Influencers glance up from their phones, laughter fading when they see the leather and the patches. A couple people keep filming anyway, because Miami will record anything as long as it looks expensive.
The atmosphere shifts.
The glitter fades.
Something sharper slips into the night air.
Diablo keeps walking toward me without breaking eye contact. The music deepens when Lady slides back into the booth, changing the beat to something heavier and darker like her hands can sense violence before it spills.
He stops a few feet away.
“You look good,” he says.
The words don’t sound like a compliment.
They sound like an accusation.
“You look out of place,” I reply.
His mouth twitches faintly. “This city is mine, mami.”
“And this rooftop isn’t.”
He steps closer anyway.
The wind off the ocean carries his scent with it. Leather. Smoke. Heat. That familiar dark warmth that hits the back of my throat like memory and makes my body do traitorous things.
“I told you to stay,” he says quietly.
“I don’t take orders.”
His gaze drifts down my shoulder where the strap of my dress leaves skin exposed. The makeup did its job. For once I don’t look like a battered woman. Heat spreads there instantly, like his eyes touch.
“You think this is safe?” he asks.
I lift my chin. “Safer than your clubhouse.”
His lips flatten. “Cariño, you don’t know what safe is.”
Before he can say more, the elevator dings again.
The sound cuts through the music.
Different cut. Different patch.
The tension shifts instantly from possessive to lethal.
A biker steps onto the rooftop wearing a white denim cut with a skull patch across the back. Miami Mutherfukers. His posture is relaxed in a way that suggests he enjoys trouble. He looks like the kind of man who would smile while he set a match to a house.
His eyes scan the crowd until they land on Diablo.
Then they flick to me.
