Chapter 6 Dominic Royal #2
The stairs creaked under my feet while I went up them real slow because I wanted that pussy ass nigga to hear me coming.
The whole upstairs smelled like mildew. Somebody had kicked a hole in one of the walls at some point and never fixed it.
There were dirty clothes all over the floor, empty liquor bottles, ashtrays, and one of them cheap little fans blowing hot air around the hallway like it was actually doing something.
I could hear him moving around in the back room with drawers opening and furniture scraping the floors like he was panicking.
Tone stayed a step behind me while Dique and Marco cleared the other rooms. I could still hear shots outside every now and then, but they were farther apart now.
That meant most of them niggas was already down or running.
I reached the last door at the end of the hallway and pushed it open with the barrel of my gun.
Maine was standing near the window with a rifle in his hands and a black duffel bag laying open on the bed with Money all over the mattress and drugs on the dresser.
A girl in a sports bra was crouched in the corner crying so hard she could barely breathe.
The second he saw me, his whole face changed.
He knew exactly who I was and he dropped the rifle and not because he wanted to, it was because he knew it wouldn’t matter.
The reality is, he should’ve shot anyway and that’s what I meant by fish playing with sharks.
I would’ve Swiss cheesed the door as soon as I knew an Opp was standing on the outside of it coming for me.
“Please,” he said, immediately throwing both hands up. “I ain’t even—”
I shot him in the shoulder before he could finish. He screamed and stumbled back into the wall, grabbing the wound while blood started gushing between his fingers. The girl in the corner let out a scream too and curled up tighter holding herself.
“Get the fuck out,” Tone barked at her.
She ain’t need to be told twice. She scrambled up and ran out the room so fast she almost slipped in the hallway. Maine was breathing hard now, with wide eyes wide and blood dripping down his arm.
“Please, man,” he begged again. “I ain’t even know she was pregnant.”
I walked farther into the room real slow and the broken glass on the floor crunched under my feet. I could smell his fear now; it was that sour smell people got when they realized they wasn’t gone make it out of something.
“You knew enough,” I said.
Sweat was starting to build on his forehead, and his brown skin was looking real pale now. “Nah, man, listen—”
I cocked my head to the side and smiled a real devilish evil one. “You knew enough to put money on my wife head.”
He shook his head. “Nah King, it wasn’t even like that.”
I looked at him and then I looked around the room and then back at him. “It look exactly like that.”
He swallowed hard. “I was trying to scare her,” he yelled. “That’s it, I just wanted her to know she can’t be getting involved in certain shit. You know how this shit go man. She was just a causality of war.”
I laughed cause this nigga was really stupid although in a sense he was right, I knew exactly how this shit went in a casualty of war, but he let his pride get in the way of underestimating who he was fucking with.
“You put a hit on a pregnant woman in front of a courthouse, and you think I’m supposed to believe you just wanted to scare her?
You ain’t sorry nigga, you fucked with the Cartel and you sorry we found out… sloppy.”
“Nah, listen—”
I shot him in the leg this time and he screamed again and collapsed to the floor, grabbing his thigh while blood soaked through True Religion jeans. I slowly crouched down in front of him and grabbed his jaw hard enough to make him look at me.
“You know what your mistake was?” I asked quietly.
This thug ass nigga was crying now… like actually crying.
“You thought because she pretty and pregnant and soft-spoken you could fuck with her. You had the shit planned out like we wouldn’t figure it out.
” His breathing got faster. “You thought wrong. I’m the last person you wanna come up against, you just thought you could out smart me.
” I ran the butt of my gun down the side of his face showing him he was a bitch.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I squeezed his jaw harder. “You should be.” I winked.
His eyes kept going toward the door like he thought somebody was gone save him. Nobody was. I let him go and stood back up. He tried to push himself backward across the floor with one hand, leaving a streak of blood behind him.
“Please, man,” he said again. “I got kids.”
I looked at him for a second. Then I thought about Carmen laid out on that concrete with Kilo’s blood all over her.
I thought about the way she looked when she couldn’t talk.
I thought about her crying in that hospital room because she thought Kilo almost died because of her.
I thought about my baby, and I ain’t give a fuck about his kids.
“You should’ve thought about them before you played with my family muhfucka.”
He started shaking his head so fast it looked pathetic. “Nah, please, man, please—”
I shot him in the stomach. His body jerked hard against the wall and his mouth opened, but nothing came out for a second. He looked down at himself like he couldn’t believe it. Then he looked back up at me. And I could see it. The exact second he realized he was gone die in that dirty ass room.
“You should’ve left her alone,” I said. Then I shot him again and this time right in the middle of his forehead. The back of his head hit the wall behind him and his body dropped sideways onto the floor. The room got quiet except for Maine’s blood dripping across the wood floor.
Tone looked down at the body for a second, then back at me. “You good?”
I stared at Maine a second longer. “No,” I said honestly.
“I wanna cremate the nigga and then cremate the cremate. I wanna bury the nigga and put the grave on fire that’s holding his body.
” My dark eyes were still on Maine. I lifted the Glock and shot him in the head, right in the middle. “But I’m better.” I told Tone.
Because the truth was, killing him didn’t fix nothing.
It didn’t erase what happened and it didn’t erase the fear on Carmen face.
It didn’t erase Kilo laying in that hospital bed with tubes in him because he took a bullet for my wife…
but it did make me feel like I could breathe a little easier.
I looked around the room one more time before turning toward the door.
“Burn this shit,” I said.
Tone nodded and got to it. “Already knew you was gon’ say that shit. I’m on it bro.”
By the time we came back downstairs, the house was quiet except for the moaning of one of the wounded niggas in the front room. Dique was standing in the kitchen eating out of a bag of chips he found somewhere like we wasn’t standing in the middle of a shootout.
“This nigga got all generic snacks in here,” he laughed. “He deserved to die for this shit alone.” Marco laughed too and Zo was standing near the front window keeping watch while Rell wiped blood off his hands with a towel. “You get him?” Dique asked.
I looked at him like he knew better and he grinned. “Stupid question, I know, but did he beg for his life? See man, you should’ve let me be there. I would’ve tapped dance on that nigga knees and tortured him some more.”
I ignored my lil brother and kept walking. The house smelled stronger now like fresh blood and gun powder filled the air. One of the younger soldiers came in from outside. “The Block clear Boss.”
I nodded. “Aight,” I said. “Let’s move.”
Everybody was walking out and the neighbors were peeking through windows now.
The old ladies were standing on their porches.
Niggas farther down the block was acting like they wasn’t watching, but they wasn’t crazy, they all knew what happened and more importantly, they knew who did it and that was the point.
By the time I climbed back into the truck, my hands still smelled like gun smoke, but my mind was more at ease.
Tone got in beside me. Dique climbed into the front with his chips still in his hands.
“Now what? We done in the playground?” he asked.
“Shit was just getting’ fun.” He looked back at me over the seat waiting for a response, but he didn’t get one.
“You know Carmen gon’ know something’ happened though right? ” He said still talking.
I looked out the window while the trucks started pulling off the block one by one.
The house behind us was still standing for now, but not for long because no sooner than we was to the stop sign did the flames go up.
“She can know somethin’ happened,” I let him know.
“She just don’t need to know what. She need to focus on getting the next Royal here. ”
Dique laughed under his breath. “Good luck with that.”