I answer.
“Talk.”
“Church. Now.”
No greeting. No bullshit.
Vice only sounds like that when the room is already on fire.
I reach for my jeans. “How bad?”
“Carmen walked into Vice Ink with two Solano lawyers, a camera-ready smile, and no ring.”
I stop with one leg in my jeans.
Lady appears in the bathroom doorway wrapped in a towel. Her gaze is casual, but her body ain’t. She’s listening.
Vice keeps talking. “Diablo ended the engagement last night. Official enough for the officers. Not clean enough for Miami. She’s calling it betrayal. Says the Saints stole her father’s legacy.”
“Fuck.”
“That’s one word for it.”
My mind starts moving through routes and risk before emotion gets a vote. Carmen without a ring is still Carmen Solano. Maybe worse. A queen without a throne doesn’t stop being a royal pain in our asses. She just starts looking for heads to chop.
“Mutherfukers?” I ask.
“Quiet.”
“Quiet means moving.”
“Exactly. Carmen brought white roses. Not hers,” Vice says. “Theirs. Mutherfukers. She wanted us to know whose leash she’s holding.”
I grab my cut off the chair. “I’m twenty out.”
“Make it fifteen.”
He hangs up.
Lady leans against the doorway, towel tucked tight above her breasts. Her eyes flick over my face.
“Carmen took the ring off?”
“Diablo cut the engagement.”
Her brows lift. “About damn time.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Nothing with your club ever is.”
I pull on my shirt. “You need to stay your ass here.”
Her expression changes fast. “Excuse me?”
I hear it the second it leaves my mouth.
Wrong words.
