The noises from outside the shop grow louder. My stomach clenches, and I take a deep breath to tamp down the rising agitation. I don’t like crowds as a rule, but even if they come in, my actual studio space is walled off from the windows that look out onto Wilshire Boulevard.
Saturday nights on Wilshire are never peaceful. At least half a dozen different nightclubs and dive bars surround me within a mile radius, and despite my policy of not tattooing inebriated knuckleheads, they still gravitate to my doorstep.
Tonight, the bell over my door jingles and my spine prickles with tension. Loud howls carry through from outside. Soon the space is filled with Spanglish smack talk, though there’s less cursing than usual. If I had to guess from the voices, there are at least half a dozen people crowding in.
A knock sounds on the wall just outside the room we’re in, and Sam peeks through the bat-wing doors. “Hey, bro, you’ve got another client.” He looks agitated, and I narrow my eyes at him. His big gray eyes belie an innocence the eighteen-year-old lost years ago under our father’s fists.
I shake my head, opting to behave as if it’s business as usual and the right hand of LA’s most notorious crime lord didn’t just walk through my doors. “No fucking way there’s a man out there sober enough to sit tonight. Read them the rules and tell them to come back tomorrow, Sammy.”
“I think you should tell him yourself,” Sam says. “He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who takes no for an answer. But it’s not him I’m talking about. There’s a woman. Someone I think you know.”
Leo rolls onto his side. “Did you say there’s a woman with him? Curvy girl with big, pretty eyes?” Sam nods, and Leo curses. “That dick just came to fuck with me. Let me handle him.” His face turns grim, and he slips off the chair. He reaches for his shirt, and I stop him.
“We’re not done tonight, Leo. What happened to powering through?”
“I’m not leaving. He is.”
Shirt in hand, he strides through the doors, and I strip off my gloves and follow. Based on the hard set to Leo’s jaw and the way his knuckles turn white around his shirt, I’m about to witness a fight. I’ve never seen him this pissed and have a suspicion it’s less about Gustavo than whoever he brought with him.
When I round the corner, the posse of gangbangers is right where I expected them. Leo is eye to eye with a polished, forty-something man in a designer suit standing at the counter. Leo’s pointing in the man’s face, yelling in Spanish so vehemently my brain can’t translate fast enough. All I manage to pick up is what a reckless asshole Leo thinks the man is for bringing this mysterious woman into my shop.
I almost don’t recognize Gustavo Delgado. He’s aged well since the last time I saw him, but the shine on his cufflinks can’t disguise the rough edges underneath. A small pachuco cross on his left hand gives him away as another gangbanger, even if his clothing has elevated him to a stature not many men like him ever achieve. Gustavo is the man who carries out the will of his master with the brutal efficiency of a trained attack dog. His eyes are black and intense, and when I appear, he whistles sharply. The other men go silent, and a few of them slip back outside and disappear.
The real shock is the sight of the curvy goddess who stands a few feet away, staring daggers into Gustavo’s back.
Her gaze shifts to Leo, pausing long enough that I don't miss the way her expression softens and she almost smiles. Then she looks at me, the smile disappears, and her hazel eyes go wide. Her lips form my name without a sound. Still, I hear her voice in my head, and I mouth her name too: Celeste.
Gustavo sneers at Leo, turns, and grabs Celeste by the arm, yanking her toward the door. A split second later the room erupts into chaos as Leo lunges at Gustavo, fists flying.
2
Celeste
I think I’ve seen a ghost. I’m barely aware that Leo just punched Gustavo and has him pinned to the wall of the tattoo shop, because I can’t tear my eyes away from him. Maddox Santos is back. How long has he been back? He looks rougher than I remember—more rugged, with the same deep tan and dark brown hair, though his hair’s shorn close to his skull and his eyes carry a hint of darkness they didn’t have the last time I saw him. But it’s been more than a decade. People can change a lot in that time. I’ve changed, I know that much.
A crash and the sound of breaking glass rip me out of my shock. Gustavo throws Leo off-balance and they land on the floor. One of the photographs has fallen, the glass shattered into shards that scatter under Leo’s bare torso. Gustavo straddles his hips, fists swinging. Leo blocks with one bare arm, snagging Gustavo’s wrist and twisting. In a second, he turns the tables, lurching up and slamming Gustavo to the floor facedown, hand gripping one side of his head, pressing his face against the broken glass. Gustavo struggles and bucks, yelling in rage as blood wells beneath his face. The other two men who remained inside with us, Benny and Baz Quiñones, seem either too stunned or too entertained by the fight to react.
“You don’t deserve to touch her, you son of a bitch! You shouldn’t have even brought her here!”
Leo glances up at me once, his eyes lit with rage and his black curls flying. I’m stunned by how beautiful he is, how wild, until it hits me that he thinks he’s defending me. Instantly, my appreciation turns into
