Chapter 10
Me and Tone were in the back of the truck with the seats pushed back just enough for us to breathe.
Tone had the laptop open on his thigh and the footage from earlier played again in slow motion this time, because the other two times we watched it on regular speed.
Neither one of us spoke at first because sometimes you had to listen quietly in order to think and catch every detail.
Tone pointed with two fingers. “See how that car eased up the block? It ain’t coastin’. Whoever in that driver seat was watchin’ something specific.”
The tape showed the dark sedan rolling past one time and then looping back around like it was trying to get the angle or the timing right.
It pulled up again around the time Carmen and O’Shynn were stepping outside, but Stone had walked out right before that, and the timing overlapped so it was too close to call it.
“This ain’t cartel,” I said sure about it. “It’s no signatures, ain’t no patterns either. If somebody wanted to send a message to me? They would’ve made it loud enough that I heard it before the first shot.”
Tone nodded, agreeing. “Right, this wasn’t precision right here. This shit was too emotional and somebody doin’ too much, thinking they’re makin’ a point.”
I sat back with my wrist resting on my knee, my heavy chain out sitting on my chest, and my phone in my hand.
My mind was moving fast like it always did in situations like this.
“We don’t know who the shot was for yet,” I spoke again.
“Could’ve been Carmen, could’ve been O. Could’ve been that nigga, Stone.
Could’ve been Keondra just being at the wrong place, wrong time. Point is, we don’t know.”
“And that’s the fucked up part,” Tone groaned.
“Exactly.”
Uncertainty is how people get killed. Tone’s phone rang and he glanced at it before passing it to me.
The more I looked at it, the more it seemed like Stone was with them not just casually an ironic situation and if I had to bet my dollar I’s say he was with O’Shynn because Carmen was out the question and he was out of Keondra’s league, so maybe it was O he was either trying to talk to or get at.
Of course, I didn’t react out loud but inside I wasn’t fucking with that because it was about responsibility.
O’Shynn didn’t let men close. So, if he’s close, she let him be.
“Anybody who gets close to my sister gets vetted," I muttered. “I don’t care how many rings he got or what team he plays for. If his problems can bleed into my family, I need to know before it happens, not after.”
Tone leaned back with a low laugh. “Yeah, you gon’ have to ask her about that directly, ‘cause you know she ain’t volunteering shit.”
“That’s why we calling a sit down,” I replied. “And not the big table either, just the core, just us.”
“Carmen, O’, Dique,” Tone listed.
“And Keondra gonna be there by default. She was in the line of fire.”
Tone closed the laptop. “What about Stone?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. I’m not questioning him before I talk to my own. We get the story from inside first.”
Tone nodded slowly. “Yeah, I feel you.”
I looked out the window, but not at the scenery because I could care less about that.
I just had to let my thoughts settle. It had been quiet, maybe too fucking quiet.
Business was booming, my baby was growing, my marriage was flourishing, and I hadn’t had to kill nobody since El Blanca.
I even had eyes on Victoria watching her every move.
She’s taken her crown but that didn’t mean she fully accepted it.
“Somebody thought today was the day to test the perimeter,” I said. “I don’t give a fuck who they were aiming for. They put my family in their line of fire.”
Tone wore a hard expression on his face. “So now it’s our business.”
“Now,” I groaned in a lower tone, “it’s personal.” I told him.
He pulled his phone and started the encrypted sends with no questions. I rested my head back against the seat looking calm and controlled but very much awake inside. Somebody was about to lose something they couldn’t get back.
We rerouted to the penthouse instead of the Biscayne office because it just made more sense.
It was soundproof, bulletproof glass, the whole floor locked down with private elevator access.
The mansion was getting furnished and Carmen was taking her time because she was a perfectionist, but it seemed like every day the designers were doing something new.
It didn’t bother me at all watching her do her thing.
We were set to officially move in a few days so right now the penthouse was still home base and would still remain the place where decisions would be made and where I could get some peace and regain control when I needed to think.
The truck pulled into the private garage and the gate shut behind us closed the world out.
Tone walked ahead to clear the elevator while I checked my phone again.
Carmen’s text had already come through letting me know they were on the way.
No matter how hard I tried to fight it, every time she wasn’t in my presence I got a fucked up feeling in the pit of my stomach because she was vulnerable now carrying the Royal Heir and I couldn’t stomach getting a phone call that something happened to her or my child.
We rode the elevator up until the metal doors slid open to the penthouse back to the high ceilings, black marble floors, floor-to-ceiling glass, and the view stretching across the whole bay.
It was quiet in there, you could hear yourself thinking.
I’d chose it that way on purpose when I first purchased it.
A few minutes later we heard the levator again.
The doors opened and the whole crew stepped out together like they were walking out of a movie frame or some shit.
Dique came in first with his chains swinging, his fitted cap low, and shoulders squared like he was ready for whatever.
He stepped in like the world and everything in it was his.
I could see the anger and relief on his face and if I knew Dique he was gon’ try to make light out of the situation to stop himself from going on a killing spree.
“Aye,” he said, looking around. “I forgot how big this bitch was. I’m finna take a nap in the guest room and act like its mine. You won’t be here much longer any way.”
Tone shook his eyes but smirked. Keondra pushed past him with Amour on her hip. She looked good and not loud and not sloppy like she used to dress… just clean. Her attitude was still the same though.
“I swear if one more bullet fly at me,” she started, already breathing heavy like she’d been waiting to get this off her chest, “I’m suin’ somebody’s ancestors, da fuck! And I’m eatin’ my food inside the house from now on. I don’t trust outside no more.”
Dique looked at her like he wanted to laugh but didn’t because his daughter was holding onto her tight, with her head on her shoulder, still tired from crying earlier. He just reached out and rubbed Amour’s back real gentle once again trying to hide his anger in front of her.
O’Shynn came in right behind them. She didn’t say nothing at first. She walked like she always did with her head high with her eyes on everything and nothing at the same time if that made sense.
She wore a black bodysuit, an oversized flannel, her shades on, and hair slicked back.
She wasn’t loud, but she was the loudest one in the room without saying a word right now.
She didn’t look scared. She looked like she had already replayed the shootout from every angle in her head and was just waiting to line the facts up.
Carmen came in last and her eyes met mine as soon as she stepped inside and everything in the room balanced out.
She didn’t ask if I was alright and I didn’t ask her either because I knew the answer.
That’s not how we talked all the time. The check-in was in the eye contact.
She came to me first, soft but not fragile, and I rested my hand on the small of her back letting her know I got her.
Rell and two of the other shadows stood near the entrance posted with guns tucked and eyes scanning every angle with no talking. They blended into the structure of the penthouse like part of the architecture and just like that the room was filled with different energies.
Dique started pacing like he was waiting for somebody to try him.
Keondra was mumbling under her breath while adjusting Amour’s hoodie.
O’Shynn was leaning against the back of the leather sectional with her arms crossed with an unreadable expression.
Carmen took a seat after grabbing a bottle of water.
Tone began checking sightlines and perimeters one more time from the balcony.
Before I questioned them, or before I pieced anything together, and before decisions were made…
I had to look at my family first to see what the day did to them although this wasn’t new in our world.
I wanted to see what they were holding back and to see what wasn’t being said without saying it.
The silence was loud but not awkward. It was the kind of silence that only came before something that changed how things moved going forward.
“It wasn’t cartel.” I finally spoke. Everybody looked up and that alone said everything.
If it had been cartel, we already knew how to respond.
There’s rules in that with codes and signatures.
But this… this was messy and too public not strategic.
“So now I need to know,” I continued, slowly pacing the sectional.
“Why the fuck was Stone there, and who he was with?”
Silence.
It wasn’t the regular silence either, it was the kind where nobody wanted to be the first to talk because they know once the truth hits the floor, shit would be different. Dique looked around the room, then at Keondra, then back at me, then back at Keondra like something had just clicked.