“Disco gets a better security detail than I do.”
“He bites harder.”
“What’s that about? Diablo sent him with us like feathered security, and now you’re sending him back?”
Darling rolls her eyes. “Diablo thinks Disco is an early-warning system.”
“He is. He warns everyone they’re a pendejo.”
From the bedroom, Disco screams, “¡Dale! ¡Pendejo!”
Darling points toward the sound. “See? Reliable.”
An hour later, Eclipse looks like home. Neon spills purple and blue across the sidewalk. Valet lights flash over black cars, chrome bikes, fake smiles, and real weapons badly hidden under designer jackets. The line outside curls around the building, bodies pressed close, phones already raised. Miami heat clings to everyone, wet and sweet, perfume over sweat, ocean air over exhaust, money over rot.
Home.
Hell.
Same thing, depending on the night.
Darling steps out of the SUV first. Diablo is right behind her. He’s not touching her, but his body knows where hers is in a way that makes every inch of space between them feel chosen.
Sending Disco back must have ratted us out, because Diablo arrives with the expression of a man who found out his woman is walking into a fire and decided to bring gasoline and guns. Darling is not happy about him tagging along. I can’t afford to care. Tonight is about walking into Eclipse before Miami decides my career died in a flower warehouse.
Vice and Six stay back like shadows with guns. I can feel more Saints nearby, even if I can’t see them.
And then I see Shady.
Across the street, half in darkness beside a line of bikes.
Black cut. White-blond hair. Ice-blue eyes that find me like the rest of the city forgot how to exist. He stands with one boot on the curb, arms loose, mouth hard, blood probably still seeping under whatever fresh bandage Cosmo slapped on him. He looks rough, mean, and too damn beautiful for a man who has given me this much trouble.
He doesn’t come closer.
That is the first thing I notice.
The second is that he wants to.
Every line of him is a fight against motion.
Let him fight.
A camera flash pops.
“Lady! Is it true Shady had a baby with another woman?”
Another flash.
“Were you kidnapped because of the baby?”
“Did you accuse Carmen Solano of being behind it?”
“Lady, did you see her response? Are you ready for her lawyers?”
I pause at the entrance and put on my stage smile.
Sharp enough to cut a lens.