“I will.”
She leaves with her white-coated dogs.
The second the doors close, the room erupts.
Magic starts cursing. Vice gives orders. Six and Dune move to check the perimeter. Key Rat is already chasing feeds. Alpha is typing fast enough to make his keyboard sound like rain. The bird starts screaming from the office.
“¡Pendejo! ¡No roses! ¡Pendejo!”
I stand still, every inch of me shaking.
Diablo turns to me. “You should not have stepped in front of me.”
I laugh.
Wrong thing to say to a shaking woman.
His eyes narrow.
I step into his space. “And there it is.”
“Darling.”
“No. You don’t get to watch me stand up to Carmen, then scold me because I didn’t let you do the easy violent thing.”
His jaw works. “She threatened you in my house.”
“She threatened me in my face, and I handled it.”
“I should have handled it.”
“You did.” I jab a finger into his chest. “You stayed. That was handling it.”
His breathing changes.
Mine does too.
The room is still moving around us, but the air between us tightens, pulls, catches fire. We are too close. Too angry. Too alive after Carmen’s poison. Diablo’s eyes drop to my mouth, and my body answers before my mind can pretend it doesn’t want him.
“Office,” he says.
“Are you ordering me?”
His eyes lift.
“No,” he says, rough. “I’m begging before I forget where we are.”
Heat rolls through me.
That is how I end up in Diablo’s office with the door kicked shut behind us and Disco screaming betrayal from his perch.
“¡Pendejo!”
“Not now,” Diablo growls.
Disco fluffs up. “Pretty!”
“Yes, she is,” Diablo snaps, then looks at me like the words were ripped out of him.