Chapter 11 #2
“How long has it been doing that?” Tone asked her, already rubbing his chest with his palm, like he was trying to keep his own nerves steady. “Okay, sit down. I’m coming and don’t be walking around. Just wait for me, I’m coming right now.”
He hung up and rested the phone against his knee for a second as he clenched his jaws as his chest rose and fell like he was trying to control himself. “She in it, Dom. I gotta get home now.”
I didn’t respond because there wasn’t shit to say.
Instead, he pulled over and we switched spots.
As soon as I started driving, I made the next lane open by force, and we headed toward their house.
The Miami streets looked blurry as we passed by them and although it wasn’t my baby, Tone was like my brother, my right-hand man, and like I promised I would, I had to be in this shit with him.
When we turned onto the block, she was already outside waiting.
Shona was gripping the porch railing with both hands like the only thing keeping her upright was the rail itself.
Her plaits were thrown up messy bun, and she wore one of Tone’s big t-shirts that reached the middle of her thigh.
Her belly was sitting low but big and looked like she was about to pop as sweat perspired on her forehead.
I could see all over her face she was fighting the pain.
Tone got out first jogging. “I’m here baby, I’m here, come on. Relax.”
She cut him off and didn’t even lift her head all the way up. “If you tell me to relax, again I’ll knock your teeth out your mouth Tone... it’s because of you I’m in this pain.”
He froze and shut the fuck up quick and Tone didn’t bite his tongue for nobody but when Shona spoke considering the circumstances, he listened.
I respected it. Before we could get under her arms to help her walk, another contraction hit her hard enough to cause a deep moan almost like a scream that didn’t even sound like her.
She stopped, bent forward and dug into that railing like she wanted to break it in half.
“Okay, okay, come on, I got you,” Tone repeated, but softer this time.
He put his arm around her back, and I got the other side letting her lean her weight between us both.
We took the steps slow. Then out of nowhere her water broke and a little splash hit the concrete loud enough to hear, and Tone jumped back like the shit had exploded.
“Dom! Her water…”
“I see it,” I said. I thought for a second, which I probably shouldn’t have, before speaking. “She gotta hold the baby in though. We don’t know how to deliver no baby.”
She slowly lifted her head and stared at me like she wanted to throw something at me. “You want me to hold what exactly?”
I shook my head trying to remain calm. This shit was way different than shedding blood in the streets. “I’m just sayin’ we don’t have the skill set required.” I told her in a serious tone. Meanwhile Tone was trying not to laugh or panic, but the look on his face showed he was failing.
She pointed at the car. “Drive the car, Dominic.”
That was the order, and I took it because I wasn’t arguing with a pregnant woman in labor, I may have been the King but right now this was her show.
We got her into the backseat, and Tone slid in behind her and she grabbed his hand with so much force his knuckles turned white, but he didn’t say a word.
He just leaned his forehead up against hers letting her know he wasn’t going nowhere and he was in it with her.
I pulled the Maybach onto the road and didn’t look at the speedometer while driving because traffic wasn’t real to me anyway and I knew how to maneuver forcing space to open because I needed it to.
Tone was in the back on speakerphone with her doctor, stumbling over instructions while trying not to pass out.
“Yes, her water broke,” he said. “No, we didn’t time nothing, she grabbed my whole damn soul five minutes ago… yeah, we on the way we almost there, just be ready.”
Shona held onto Tone like she was drowning and he was the air she needed.
She cursed him at him every time a contraction hit and then apologized right after…
then she cried, then threatened him, then cried again; this shit was crazy.
Tone held it down though without taking it personal.
That alone told me more about how deep he was in this than anything he ever said out loud.
We hit the ER entrance, and the shadow detail was already there clearing the walkway and nurses came out with a wheelchair. Tone picked her up carefully even though his hands were shaking and lowered her into the seat. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down close.
“Don’t leave me.”
His voice cracked but he didn’t let it show on his face. I had never heard Tone’s voice crack prior to this. This was the toughest man I knew. “I’m not goin’ nowhere. I’m right here baby. I got you.”
They rolled her inside and the hospital doors closed behind them.
Then the quietness hit me again because this was real.
We went from hustling, robbing, building empires, filthy rich, and now having babies and anything we did would affect them too.
Tone had been in shootouts with me, Tone had buried his own brother, Tone had put men in the ground without losing sleep behind it, but this was different because it had his heart on the line and it made sense why men like us fear love more than death.
Shona was in labor and Tone was about to be on maternity leave.
I’d concluded those bullets wasn’t because of Stone, and since it wasn’t any of our Opps, I still had to be on high alert.
For the first time in a long time, the King wanted to leave for a long time, and I couldn’t fuckin’ wait until we were out the country.
I had already said I was gon’ slide out and give them their moment and let him call me later, but before I could hit the doors Tone called me. His voice was low, but steady enough to let me know pride wasn’t in the way right now by a long shot.
“Bro, I need you to stay with me. I’m in room 460, Labor and Delivery… just get up here.”
He didn’t say please, nor did he beg and he didn’t have to because outside of anything Royal, we were family.
I took the private elevator up to the labor floor.
I hated hospitals because they just had a smell that stuck to your clothes just like the fresh stench of blood did.
The nurses at the desk looked at me longer than they should’ve been looking because they recognized me like they always did but nobody said a word because they felt the energy and didn’t want none of it. Right now, wasn’t the time.
When I stepped inside the room, Shona was already in bed with her legs open and her feet in the stirrups getting checked.
I didn’t look nowhere my eyes didn’t need to be.
Her face was damp with sweat. She was breathing in short, slow pulls through her nose like she was trying to stay calm herself.
The monitor next to her showed her contractions spiking harder and faster and I only knew this by listening to what the nurses were saying.
Tone stood beside her bed holding her hand with both of his like he was scared she’d get up and haul ass if he let go.
His chains were tucked inside his shirt because he didn’t want nothing in the way or give her shit else, she could latch on to.
He looked at me quick as hell with relief on his face before he turned back to her strong again.
“She eight centimeters already,” he mumbled. “It’s go time man we got here right on time.”
I nodded and stayed by the wall, close enough but not in the way.
I wasn’t sure what the fuck I was supposed to do here, so I just stayed present and sometimes that was enough.
The next contraction hit and Shona’s whole body tightened.
She closed her eyes, clenched her jaws, and gripped Tone’s hand like she was trying to take him with her to the Lord.
Tone leaned in close, using a soft voice, softer than I’d ever heard from him. “I’m right here, baby. Squeeze if you need to. Go ‘head, take it out on me, it’s alright.”
She squeezed harder and Tone winced but kept that shit silent until she hit the highest pain point and next thing I knew, “OKAYYYY SHIT! Alright, alright, damn girl… aye watch the bone, watch the bone, the bone is connected to ME.”
She didn’t even laugh, she just breathed through another one, but I damn sure almost laughed because Tone was trying to act like his hand wasn’t breaking in half.
“You good?” I asked him.
“No,” he whispered with sweat on his forehead. “But yeah… but no.”
I smirked. “Uh-huh.”
The doctor came in, checked her again and nodded like this was just another casual day. “She’s progressing fast. When she feels pressure low, we’ll start pushing.”
Another contraction hit and Shona gripped Tone’s shirt this time. “If you ever get me pregnant again,” she hissed at him through her teeth, “I will kill you!”
“I know,” Tone said kissing her forehead. “You gon’ kill me. We talked about that, but breathe, baby.”
He wasn’t even panicking no more because he was locked in and a few minutes later it was time.
The doctor got into position and the nurses stood around.
Tone stayed at Shona’s shoulder, and I stayed half behind the curtain near her head but angled just enough to see without seeing everything. Respect was respect, even in our world.
The doctor said, “Push.”
Shona grabbed the rails and pushed with everything she had as she gritted her teeth with her eyes squeezed shut. Tone whispered in her ear while rubbing her back with one hand while letting her crush the other.
“You got it, mama. You got it. You stronger than every muhfucka in this building. Come on, push that baby out.”
There was another push, and it was a harder one this time. Shona let out a sound that didn’t even sound human.
The doctor then said, “There’s the head.”
After that Tone fainted like some slow-motion matrix type of shit. One second, he was standing upright and the next he was sliding down the wall like his bones were melting. I rushed to his side.
“Tone!” I stepped forward but had to catch myself because the second the doctor said head, my own stomach went against me forming into a knot I didn’t know I had.
I tried to swallow it down, but my whole body started to heat up quick as hell.
I hit the bathroom and threw up straight into the sink because I wasn’t built for seeing no baby’s head pop out.
I hurriedly splashed water on my face and looked in the mirror. That shit did not help. I came back out just as Tone was crawling back up the side of Shona’s bed trying to pretend like he didn’t just hit the floor. His eyes were glossy, and he kept blinking trying to come back to reality.
“I’m good,” he groaned. “I’m good… we back. We in this shit.”
“Nigga, if you pass out again, I’m just gon’ leave you where you fall,” I told him.
The doctor said, “Okay Shona, one more push. Bring your baby home.”
Shona didn’t scream this time, instead she gritted her teeth and held Tone’s hand then she pushed and, in that moment, it seemed like everything in the room changed when a cry broke out in the air.
It was so small, so new, and yet so loud it touched something inside my chest. The nurses moved fast with the towels, the suctions, the cords and clamps and all kinds of shit.
Tone’s eyes filled with tears before he could stop them.
Shona laid back shaking and breathing like someone who had just fought the hardest battle of her life and won.
Tone leaned down and kissed her forehead while whispering something only she needed to hear.
After he cut the cord, they placed the baby in her arms. Tone covered both of them with his body like nothing in the world could touch them and I stood there…
the hard one, the violent one, and the one who never let his guard down with my hands in my pockets and my throat tight in a way that felt unfamiliar and real to me.
That was family I was looking at, and not the name, and not the empire or the money.
What I was looking at was beautiful. Tone had his junior, I had another nephew, and our legacy was growing.