Page 37 of Beautiful Savage
The apartment door opens. We step into the hallway. Her hand on my arm burns through the suit jacket, and I imagine that heat on my bare skin, imagine her nails dragging down my back. Tonight, Adrian will welcome her into the family's inner circle. The room will watch. Three hundred witnesses to a possession that goes deeper than they'll ever know.
Two flights down the back service stairs, her heels clicking against concrete like a countdown to something irreversible. At the landing, instead of turning toward the loading dock, I guideher left. The staff door behind the cabaret bar, where family enters when they want the room to notice.
My palm finds her bare lower back as I guide her, skin against skin, and fuck, she's soft. Warm. The contact shoots straight to my cock. She doesn't flinch, doesn't stiffen. If anything, she leans into it, and I spread my fingers wider, claim more of that exposed skin.
The door opens to golden light and the Siren's voice, low and smoky, filling the room. Three hundred of Miami's players at capacity on a Saturday night. Adrian works the floor in his perfect suit, moving between tables like he owns every soul in the room, which, in a way, he does. Logan and Wren at their corner table, Logan in a blazer that screams money, Wren in something black that makes her look like a beautiful weapon. They register our entrance with brief nods. Family acknowledging family.
Marisol sits near them, blood-red dress, golden hair loose, Nico at her side in midnight blue, soldier-still amid all that glitter. Her eyes find mine across the room and hold. Ice in that look. Then she turns back to her conversation with some politician who doesn't know he's being played. No approach, no acknowledgment beyond that frozen moment. She's been giving me the Delgado cold shoulder since Daphne arrived. Protecting me from myself, probably, or punishing me for forgetting what we are. What I am.
Adrian crosses to us, reading the room's energy shifting like only he can. That's his gift, making Miami's underworld dance to his rhythm without anyone noticing they're being led.
"Daphne." His voice carries that perfect pitch of welcome that makes you feel like royalty. "You look absolutely devastating. Let me show you to your table. Best view of our Siren in the house."
He leads her to prime real estate near the stage, the table we reserve for visiting capos and politicians we're buying. Pulls out her chair himself with that flourish that's pure Adrian, mentions something about champagne service, tonight's performance. I step back to the wall near the staff door. My position when I'm working security, except tonight I'm not working. Tonight I'm watching my woman become the center of gravity in a room full of predators.
The Siren continues her song, something sultry that makes couples press closer. Daphne sits alone at the front table in gold silk while heads turn at nearby tables. The regulars studying her, wondering who she belongs to. The men's eyes lingering too long, making my hands itch for violence. Every inappropriate glance is a debt I'm keeping track of.
Twenty minutes pass. Twenty minutes of watching her exist in my world, untouchable and mine.
That's when I spot him. Late forties, Italian suit that screams hedge fund money, hair slicked back with too much product. Probably launders for the Colombians. He's been at the bar for an hour, working through expensive scotch. His eyes have been on Daphne for the last fifteen minutes, and now he's making his move.
He stands. Adjusts his jacket. Walks toward her table like he has any fucking right.
I'm moving before the decision forms, crossing the room in seven seconds. Not running, never running, but fast enough that Adrian reads it, steps aside mid-conversation with some senator's wife. Through the gaps between tables, past the dance floor where couples worth billions sway together.
He's at her table now, leaning down slightly, that presumptuous smile men like him perfect in boardrooms and brothels. I catch fragments: "…noticed you from the bar… absolutely stunning… honor of a dance…"
I stop behind her chair, slightly to her right. My right hand grips the chairback hard enough that I hear wood creak in protest.
He looks up. Sees me.
The calculation happens in a quarter-second. My height, the scar bisecting my left eyebrow, the mass of me, the way I'm looking at him like I'm deciding whether to break his neck here or in the alley. His face changes. That primitive recognition when prey realizes it's been stalked by something apex.
I say nothing. Don't need to. My silence carries nine years of Delgado violence, bodies I've buried, men who've disappeared for less than what he's attempting. He sees it all in my face. How I'd take his reaching hand first, use his committed drink hand against him, four steps to the bar, Adrian six steps left, clear floor for what would take maybe thirty seconds.
"I… forgive me, I didn't realize…" He backs away without finishing, nearly tripping over his own expensive shoes. Heads to the bar, drops a hundred without waiting for change, exits through the back service door. The route of a man who knows he's touched what belongs to the Delgado family and wants to disappear before the bill comes due.
Adrian materializes beside us, smoothing everything with practiced warmth that masks steel. His hand touches my arm briefly. Brotherly, but also a signal. He reads what I'm about to do, knows the monster under my suit is about to handle family business. Pulls the chair beside Daphne closer, sits, continues talking to her about the Siren's performance like he's been there all evening, like violence isn't about to happen forty feet away.
I release the chairback. Walk away.
Seven seconds back across the floor. Logan's already standing by the time I reach the service door, positioning himself to block sightlines from the cabaret. He knows my face, knows what happens next. The family protects its own justice.
The corridor is narrow, stucco walls that have seen plenty of blood, single bulb overhead casting harsh shadows. Italian Suit is halfway down, walking fast but trying not to look like he's running.
I reach him in five strides, my left hand closing around his neck from behind before he knows I'm there. Drive him chest-first into the wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. His hands come up, palms flat against stucco, bracing. The glass he was still carrying, scotch he paid forty dollars for, shatters on the floor.
I drive three calculated punches into him. Right kidney, right ribs, left ribs. Each one precise enough to hurt for days but not hospitalize. He can't breathe through the third one, making sounds that aren't quite words. I don't let him fall.
Quick turn of his neck, face against the opposite wall now. My right knuckles connect once with the side of his mouth, splitting his lip like overripe fruit. Blood decorates the stucco. His knees buckle. I hold him up by the neck, feeling his pulse rabbit against my palm.
I lean close to his ear, my voice low enough that he has to strain to hear through the pain. "You looked at something that belongs to the Delgados. Come back, it gets worse. Tell anyone, the Miami canals get a new decoration."
He nods against the wall, blood from his mouth dripping onto his suit.
I let go. He slides down to a crouch, breathing in short gasps that probably feel like knives in his ribs. Not unconscious, not dying. But he'll remember this every time he breathes for the next week.
Back through the service door. Logan closes it behind me without a word. Two of our soldiers are already moving toward the corridor. Logan's signaled them. They'll get Italian Suitinto a cab, make sure he forgets La Sirena's address. Standard cleanup for family business. No questions, no traces.
