“You hurt?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters if you bleed out before we find her.”
“I’m not dying today.”
The man under my knife starts praying in Spanish.
Too late for saints.
I lean closer until he can see exactly what kind of road he stepped onto when he touched what’s mine.
“Tell Vice to pull traffic cams,” I say. “Magic gets names. Six locks down Eclipse. Crypt follows money. Alpha scrubs the posts. Key Rat checks every burner tied to Cherry. Dune and Tubbs hit the garages. Prospects watch Darling and Disco. Nobody moves alone.”
Diablo exhales once, rough and furious.
“You giving orders now?”
I look toward the street where the van vanished.
I can still hear Lady saying my name.
“Hell, yeah,” I say. Then I hang up.
The Mutherfuker beneath me tries to speak.
I press the knife harder.
“You’re going to tell me where that van turns,” I say. “You’re going to tell me who paid you, who gave you Cherry, who sent that text, and who thought taking Lady Nyx out of my hands was a good idea.”
He swallows against the blade.
“And if I don’t?”
I smile. There’s nothing happy in it.
“You’re dead. Then I’ll find your friends.”
Miami thinks it knows roads.
It doesn’t.
Not like I do.
Every bridge, every alley, every service lane behind every glittering club and rotting motel. Every shortcut through Little Havana, every dock road near the river, every back way out of Brickell when cameras get hungry. I know how this city moves when it lies. I know where men hide women. I know where vans go when they don’t want God or traffic lights watching.
They took Lady to hurt Darling.
To punish Diablo.
To make the Saints look weak.
Diablo named me Shady because I knew too much to ever be completely honest and enough to be dangerous. Now, the name finally fits all the way down to the bone. I know where Miami hides its lies, I know the roads men take when they want a woman to disappear, and I’m going to use every shadow in me to bring Lady home.
Chapter 2
Lady
