His smile widens.
“Well I’ll be damned,” the man calls out loudly.
The music doesn’t stop, but the people do. Conversations falter. Heads turn. Phones lift a little higher.
“Saints making South Beach the slums?” he calls again.
Diablo shifts half a step forward without making a show of it. The movement places him between me and the stranger in a way that looks casual unless you know exactly what you’re seeing.
“Wrong party,” Diablo says evenly.
The rival biker laughs softly. “Maybe I came for the view.”
His gaze drags across me slowly, hungry and disrespectful.
Something black moves through Diablo’s expression.
The rival reaches inside his cut.
Time doesn’t slow.
My body does.
My breath catches in my throat like it’s stuck on a hook.
The first gunshot cracks through the night like thunder.
Screams explode across the rooftop. Champagne flutes shatter against the tile. The bass cuts off mid-beat and the world fills with raw chaos. Influencers scatter, shrieking, clutching their phones like they’re clutching their souls. People dive for cover behind lounge chairs and marble tables.
Diablo moves before my brain catches up. His arm wraps around my waist and drags me down behind the concrete bar with brutal force.
“Stay down,” he snarls, voice pure command.
More gunshots erupt. Saints pull weapons from beneath their cuts, movements fast and practiced. Vice is already shouting orders, short and sharp. One of the Saints kicks over a table for cover. Another fires toward the elevator.
Champagne sprays across the white tile like glittering rain. My heart pounds so hard it feels like it’s shaking my whole body. Diablo’s chest presses against my back as he shields me completely, one arm tight around my waist, the other braced on the bar. His body is a wall.
“You okay?” he demands.
“I’m fine,” I choke out, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine.
He rises just enough to peer over the bar and fires twice. Controlled. Precise. Like he’s done this a hundred times and hated it every time.
Sirens start wailing somewhere in the distance, faint at first, then growing. The rival biker disappears toward the elevator, ducking behind fleeing bodies.
“Move,” Diablo orders.
He yanks me up and steers me toward the stairwell instead of the elevators. His hand clamps at my lower back, firm, guiding, a grip that tells anyone watching I’m under Saints protection. The concrete steps echo under our feet as we run down them two at a time.
On the stairs, I allow myself to feel panic. By the time we burst into the humid Miami night at street level, my legs feel like they might collapse. Motorcycles and a black SUV are already staged at the curb like they planned this outcome.
Of course they did.
Saints aren’t just on their Harleys. They planned to carry me out of there, gunshots or not.
Diablo shoves me into the back seat. Vice jumps into the front. The engine roars and the tires squeal against the pavement as they rip away from the curb flanked by bikes. Miami blurs past in neon, palm shadows, scooters, sirens, and cops not yet where they need to be.
Nobody speaks during the drive.
