My hands flex on her shoulders.
Heat spikes behind my eyes, vicious and immediate.
“Don’t you fucking compare me to him,” I growl. “No me compares a ese cabrón.”
Her chin lifts, stubborn as ever.
“What will you do? Hit me?” she snaps.
My heart feels like it’s being crushed.
“You think I’d ever lay a hand on you?” I ask.
“You’re laying hands on me right now.”
I let go immediately, like the words burned.
She steps back like I did burn her.
And that is what guts me.
I would rather she slapped me. I would rather she screamed. This fear is a knife to my throat.
“I would kill for you,” I say quietly.
“You already chose someone else.”
“Carmen is strategy.”
“She’s your fiancée.”
“She’s leverage.”
She laughs bitterly, shaking her head. “So you’re using her.”
I don’t answer.
Because she is not wrong.
And because the truth sounds ugly in my mouth.
“You’re using her and you used me,” Darling continues. “You pushed me out like trash when it suited you.”
“I pushed you out to keep you alive.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
I run a hand through my hair and pace away from her, forcing space between us so I don’t reach for her again. The Miami night presses through the windows, damp heat and distant sirens and a bass line from somewhere down the block that won’t die, reminding me of what’s outside these walls. No peace for a man like me.
“You think I wanted that deal?” I snap, turning back. “You think I wanted her in my bed?”
Her eyes flash.
“So she wasn’t supposed to be there?”
“She came in uninvited,” I say. “She was already here when we got back. Waiting. Because the council. Because investors. Because she never stops moving pieces.”
“And you didn’t stop her,” Darling says, voice like broken glass.
