Chapter Dominic Royal #3
I saw the first target and peeped that pistol shining before homie even clocked me.
Dude thought he had it on lock with his palm shut tight around that steel, but I moved on instinct and took two shots at his hand without blinking.
When I let my shit off, he caught a clean shot as his eyes got wide, but he didn’t holler, instead just grinned like he knew what time it was.
Most cats in this game already made peace with the dirt that came with it.
You played with burners long enough, it came back on you, real shit.
Wasn’t no fairy tales in the life; you either pull or get pulled, and the streets didn’t shed tears for nobody.
A second dude tried to get fancy behind a stack of wooden pallets, but Tone’s angle was better and quicker.
“Bout to send this muhfucka back to God.” Tone groaned.
He shaved wood off the pallet till the man believed in God again.
We found two with their hands up with fear in their eyes as we moved like trained snipers.
I didn’t like begging, but I like intel, so I let them keep the begging part and asked questions while they tried to hold their breath.
“Phones on the fuckin’ floor,” I growled. “Kick em’ slow and put yo’ hands back behind yo’ head. Where’s the back room?!”
They looked to the left, that’s where the real shit was hiding.
Men always check where the truth might jump out, so we slid left.
The back room was like a rundown booth in a church nobody prayed in.
There was a busted up table, a cheap ass safe, some hard case, and a loud ass fan just blowing air at the wall for no damn reason, just noisy and useless.
We quickly cracked the safe with a little tool.
Inside was three trap phones, a ledger with three names scratched out but one name circled, a fat stack of bills that smelled terrible like they’d been inside every funky pair of jeans all over the world, and a passport with a face that was faker than the name on it.
We snatched all that up and walked out of the room.
I focused back on the dudes with their hands still up.
“Who you call when you sneeze muhfucka?” I asked the one with the most fear in his eyes.
He swallowed hard. “The one with the scar. He texts; we don’t call.”
“Hector,” I said. “Where the fuck is he at?”
“In the wind,” he said in a shaky voice. “He floats around.”
I hated the answer, but the eyes told me what his mouth couldn’t, and I processed it.
I was patient with puzzle pieces. Without another word, I shot the second one in the foot just to cause pain while Tone whispered into his ear like a pastor did at the church or at a wedding.
The way he crumbled, and the blood gushed from his foot, he gave up a parking spot and a sticker on a car window nobody would notice except a man who noticed everything.
We stripped what mattered and left the room quietly but not before we riddled their bodies with bullets making sure they couldn’t talk no more.
Back in the trucks, I let my head rest against cool leather staring at the ceiling with my Glock in my hand. “Next stop,” I said to the driver.
Coconut Grove was one of those places one would think was soft with trees leaning over the street, small dogs with cute haircuts, and couples who never look behind them over their shoulders because they just knew they were safe.
We circled a rental property with a perfect landscape and a white iron gate.
A woman stood in the front watering nothing but was the perfect pretender.
A man stood in a window like a mannequin, but his hands betrayed him, because no matter the distance you could always read hands or catch a flaw somewhere.
All of this shit was staged. We didn’t stop though, instead, we passed through memorizing exits, and counting cameras, while learning every curve of the driveway.
Then we slid to Coral Gables, the mailbox house.
It had new clay tiles that weren’t really clay and a shadow behind a curtain like it was just a piece of furniture.
We didn’t knock there either, at least not yet ‘cause it wasn’t time.
I wanted the Dock to make a statement first.
I pulled out the burner and called the boys overseas. “You remember that rope?” I asked when the voice picked up.
“King, what a surprise, always,” the voice said.
“When I text you ‘July’, you cut that rope and get on one accord with your people here and let the ocean do what the ocean loves.”
“I got you.”
I hung up and we rolled back to the tower and back in the headquarters. I called Carmen again and this was the most I ever called her since I’d been knowing her. “You sleep?” I asked.
“I’m waiting for you, Dom,” she simply replied. “Did you eat?”
“I’m working on it,” I lied. Carmen never ask me if I ate and shit like that. The baby was making her softer… hell maybe me too.
“Don’t lie to me,” she said, smiling through the phone. “Drink that ginger tea and call me when you’re on your way…” she paused for a second. “Well, you never really call any damn way, you watch me on your little camera and let yourself in. I’m going to find that damn camera.”
“You don’t want that camera found ‘cause if you did, it would be gone by now. You like me watchin’ you and I’ma be watchin’ forever. I love you,” I said. I didn’t say that to nobody by accident either.
“I know,” she sighed but again, I could tell she was smiling before she hung up, and wanted to say more, but she didn’t.
Tone watched me with that quiet look as he pulled a chair and sat forward with his elbows on his knees. “You told her,” he said looking over his shoulders at everyone else moving around us before he turned back to me.
“She knew before I said it,” I told him, rubbing a hand down my face smelling the gunpower. “But yeah, she know and been knew. I told her the parts I’ve been tryin’ not to say out loud. Shit, we having a baby. She really ain’t going nowhere now.”
Tone nodded slowly and let his eyes linger on everything else before he looked back at me. “You still scared.” He asked.
“That fear will never leave, especially when I lay eyes on my baby.”
He chuckled flashing his gold teeth. “Nigga, you still Dom.”
“Always…”
“Just know, I’m yo bro for life and you not doin’ this alone.”
“I know, I never was,” I said thinking about Tone’s situation too.
We worked hard to build this empire, and we’d been building so long, we were accustomed to watching our own backs.
The thought of somebody targeting a baby in the Royal camp to get to us already had my trigger finger itching.
“You not in this shit alone either, you know that. We just got a lot of blood to wash before we get that peace.”
“Then let’s get to cleanin’ the tacos and shit then, so we can do bedtime stories without a chopper on the nightstand.”
I laughed and then coughed twice wishing this cold would leave me alone. “Bedtime stories gon’ be about logistics and money laundering.”
“Kids gon’ be a genius,” he said. “Or a fuckin’ menace.”
“Both,” I replied. “Like us.”
Tone’s phone started ringing as the screen lit up with SHONA in all caps and a little heart emoji. He grinned, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and answered. “Aye, bae, you good?” Before she could respond, he hit speaker, glancing at me with a half-smile. “Dom right here too.”
Shona’s voice filled the room, all bright and hyped.
“Ooh, both y’all together? Good. Y’all need to hear this!
Tone, the baby kicking for real now…like a whole salsa class in my belly.
I put on some music, and it started going crazy, like flutters for real.
I can’t wait to see what we having.” She laughed.
Tone’s eyes went glassy for a second, then he chuckled. “Told you, baby got rhythm. Probably got yo’ dancing ass feet and my attitude.”
“Mmhm. You talk big, but you better not forget what you promised. I want them flaming hot chips, the purple bag Doritos, some Little Debbie oatmeal pies, and don’t you come home with no off-brand snacks either, and stop at the corner store by Lisa’s, not the other one, the dude with the lopsided wig sells stale stuff. ”
I shook my head. Tone shot me a look like, See what I deal with?
Shona kept going, her list was rolling out like a grocery haul.
“And one of them big pickles in the plastic, the ones come with the pepper in it, and a blue freeze cup. And ooh, some Now & Laters. Grape or watermelon, I don’t care. You hear me?”
Tone grinned, letting her have her moment. “I got you, ma. I ain’t about to mess up and come home empty handed. Dom, you taking notes?” He winked at me.
I simply shrugged glad Carmen wasn’t at that point yet. Damn, Shona wasn’t fuckin’ around with Tone. After he ended the call, we gave each other that look, pushing the females aside and back in killer mode. It was time to go.
We strapped up for the Grove, and I left the long ass sawed off chopper chilling in the case while everything else was on me, tucked just right.
When we arrived, we slid up, parking a couple blocks away, moving like some mob bosses fresh out a dinner meeting at a steakhouse.
When we hit the gate, I banged my knuckles on it and heard the lock click, and the gate man opened it like it was nothing which was a big mistake because it showed that he was too comfortable and too trusting.
I rushed his ass, grabbed him by the throat, and slammed him back like I this was a residence I owned and had the right to.
Before he could even get a word out, the back of his head smacked tile, and he was on the ground seeing stars like he just caught a Mayweather hook.