Barely.
I keep my eyes on Carmen. “Don’t be mad at me because Diablo finally got tired of renting the club.”
Her face goes colder.
“The Saints existed because my father allowed them space,” Carmen says. “Diablo has forgotten what Rafael gave him.”
“No,” I say. “Diablo remembers exactly what Rafael gave him. Blood. Debt. A chair with a corpse still warm beside it. And you, standing there with a ring like a leash.”
She steps closer.
The Mutherfukers shift with her.
The Saints shift back.
The whole church tightens around us.
Carmen’s voice drops. “You stole what was mine.”
“No.” My voice is soft now. Steadier than I feel. “He owed you a lie. He finally stopped paying it.”
The words hit her. No blood. No bullet.
They still wound.
For the first time since she walked in, Carmen’s mask cracks.
Just a hairline.
Enough.
I see the girl under it. The one raised beside power instead of love. The one taught that being chosen meant being crowned, not cherished. The one who watched a bartender walk into her story and ruin the ending.
Then the crack seals.
“You think this is about love,” Carmen says. “That is why you will lose.”
Diablo’s voice comes low beside me. “You’re done here.”
Carmen looks at him, and something venomous moves through her face. “No, Diablo. I’m finally beginning.”
His hand brushes the gun at his back.
“Careful,” she says. “Killing me in your little church with witnesses from the club you blame for everything? That would be messy. Even for you.”
One of the Mutherfukers grins.
Magic points his gun at the man’s crotch. “Smile again. I’ll make your mama cry twice.”
Carmen ignores him.
Her gaze returns to me.
“You should ask why the roses keep coming from Reyes. You should ask what Rafael buried before he died. You should ask why Amour Reyes inherited a business that never should have belonged to her.”
Alpha’s fingers pause on his keyboard.
I see it.