The caption reads: WHICH ONE DID HE CHOOSE FIRST?
My stomach twists.
I turn the phone face down.
Darling sees it anyway. “Lady.”
“I’m going to Eclipse.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“You were kidnapped yesterday.”
“Technically, early this morning.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“It makes me accurate.”
She plants both hands on the counter, glaring at me like she did in high school when I told her I could absolutely pierce my own ear with a safety pin. “You need rest.”
“I need Miami to see me walk into that club on my own legs before Carmen turns me into a sad little cautionary tale wrapped in white roses.”
“You don’t have to prove anything.”
“Yes, I do.” My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to, but I don’t soften it. Soft is a trap tonight. “Not to them. To me.”
Darling’s face changes.
She understands that.
She walked back into Vice Ink after Rico, after Carmen, after Diablo’s almost-marriage sat on her chest like a diamond-studded corpse. She knows what it means to be seen again before fear starts decorating your cage.
“Diablo will lose his mind,” she says.
“Good. He has extras.”
“Shady will be there.”
My pulse jumps like a stupid thing.
I hate that she notices.
I lift my chin. “Then he can practice not being in my way, pobrecito.”
Darling studies me for a long second, then sighs. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Yes. But you’re wearing something that hides the bruises enough that vultures don’t get a free meal, and shows enough skin that every gossip page remembers you’re not dead.”
I smile slow. “Mami, now you’re speaking my language.”
Disco screams from the bedroom. “¡No roses!”
“Also,” Darling says, pointing toward the door, “we are sending the bird back to Diablo’s office before we go.”
