Because she’s been watching me since the moment I stepped back into that building.
My eyes burn as I stare at the rose.
My hands shake when I pull my phone from my clutch.
I almost call Diablo.
My thumb hovers over his number, the contact sitting there like a loaded weapon. If I call him, he will come. Not with flowers. Not with apologies. With motorcycles in the alley and men in cuts and the kind of retaliation that makes Miami quieter for weeks.
If he comes, he will tear this city apart looking for answers.
And Carmen will stand somewhere behind him smiling, wearing that ring like a crown, letting the whole club whisper that I caused it.
My throat tightens.
A mean little part of my body remembers his hands at my waist on the yacht, his mouth near my ear, the way his control felt like safety when it wasn’t aimed at me.
The memory is hot and wrong and useless.
I swallow hard.
“Think,” I whisper to myself. “Think, Darling.”
Lady Nyx.
She told me last week she had my back. She told me she didn’t care who Diablo was. She said she would still drag me out of the fire if I asked.
I dial her number.
She answers on the second ring.
Music pounds in the background, bass heavy and loud enough that I know she’s in a club somewhere. Miami doesn’t sleep. It just changes outfits.
“Talk to me, baby,” she says.
My voice breaks immediately.
“Lady. I need you.”
The music cuts out like she waved a hand and killed it.
“Where are you?”
“At my apartment,” I force out between breaths. “It’s trashed. Everything’s gone. Disco’s gone.”
There’s a long pause.
Then her voice drops into something cold and dangerous.
“Don’t touch anything else,” she says. “Don’t cry yet. Just get out. I’m sending a car.”
“I can’t leave him,” I whisper, and my throat hurts around the words.
“You can and you will,” she snaps. “That bird is alive. You hear me? We’re gonna get him back. But you are not staying in that apartment another second.”
I don’t argue.
I don’t have the strength.
