Chapter 10 Dominic Royal
DOMINIC ROYAL
The second Carmen said they coming for you, the whole energy in the office changed and not on some panic shit but on some Boss shit because we stayed ready, so we didn’t have to get ready.
She stood there with the phone still in her hand for maybe another second, then turned and walked right back toward her desk like somebody had hit a switch in her.
Her sandals slid fast across the hardwood floor while she started pulling files out one after another.
It was a red one, a black one, and then another one from the bottom drawer.
Papers slid across the desk, one folder hit the floor, and she bent down to pick it up without missing a beat.
I stayed where I was by the window for another second just looking at her with her hair down over one shoulder.
Her cream dress was hugging the shit out of her stomach.
She had one hand rested on her lower back for a second because she had been sitting too long.
She looked good as hell and mean too. Lawyer Carmen always had this look in her eyes like she was about to sue God himself.
“You know how long?” I asked while I pulled my phone out.
“Not exactly,” she said without looking up. She flipped through a stack of papers, found whatever she was looking for, then tossed it onto the desk in front of her. “But if Barron called me, that means they already moving.”
I unlocked my phone and texted Tone first telling him to meet me at the station.
Then I texted Marco to bring Zo. Then I text Rell.
I checked my security cameras and pinged the security to make sure everything was tighten at the mansion.
This wasn’t shit to me… annoying? Yeah. Inconvenient?
Most definitely, but scary? Hell no. They ain’t have enough to really do anything to me.
The only reason they were even moving now was because they needed noise. They needed cameras and a story, and they needed the illusion that they were actually doing something after the Riverside murders since it was a big story. Carmen was already dialing somebody else.
“Marcus,” she said the second he answered.
“I need you here now.” She listened for a second and rolled her eyes.
Marcus was on the payroll, and he worked in this building.
“No, not tomorrow, right now.” She started pacing behind the desk while she talked, one hand holding the phone to her ear, the other still flipping through papers.
“They’re trying to move on Dom.” There was a pause and then she continued. “No, I’m not panicking. I’m working.”
That made me smirk a little because that was Carmen all day. She wasn’t one of them women that cried and folded every time life got hard. If anything, she got colder, sharper, and more dangerous. She ended the call and immediately hit another number.
“Building security,” she said calmly once somebody answered. “This is Carmen Royal on twenty-three. If detectives come asking for my husband, nobody says anything to them until legal counsel is here.”
She listened for a second while she opened another folder. “I don’t care what they say they have. They can wait downstairs.”
She hung up and finally looked over at me. “You know they’re going to try to use Riverside murders and the courthouse together because that’s what this is about.”
I shrugged. “I never gave a fuck baby, I’m not worried.” I said in a low tone.
“They’re going to say the timing lines up too perfectly Dom.”
“They still can’t prove shit.”
“I know that.”
“And even if they think they got enough, they still don’t.”
She looked at me for a second, then nodded because she knew I was right.
I walked away from the window and toward her desk.
She had files everywhere now. One open in front of her, one under her arm, another one sitting in the chair across from her desk.
Her laptop was open too, with a screen full of notes, names, and case files.
“You know what the funny part is?” I asked.
“What?”
“They probably think I’m nervous.”
That actually made her laugh Not loud. Just enough to make me grin too. “You?” she said. “Nervous?”
“Exactly.”
She leaned over the desk and scribbled something down in one of the folders before looking back up at me. “You know I already got your bond attorney ready if needed.”
“I know wifey. This is exactly what you supposed to do.”
“And if Marcus needs extra help, Barron is on it. I run the show, but they’re my faces. Legally I can’t represent you, it’s a conflict. You know that.”
“Carmen, we built a whole empire together. You think I don’t know this. I trust you with my life.”
“And if they somehow think they’re going to hold you—”
I cut her off. “They not.”
She looked at me hard for a second, then walked around from behind the desk until she was standing right in front of me. “You sure?” she asked.
I looked down at her. “Baby, they don’t got enough to give me shit but a headache.”
She smiled and shook her head. I ran the back of my finger down her cheek and kissed her forehead. “You good?” I asked.
She looked up at me like I had lost my mind. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Just checking.”
She folded her arms across her chest and leaned one hip against the desk. “Dom, I knew exactly who I married.”
Before I could respond, a knock sounded at the office door before one of the shadows stepped inside.
“Security downstairs said detectives just came in the building.”
“How many?” I asked.
“About six they said. It’s two detectives, a couple uniforms officers and maybe the county too.”
I simply nodded my head. “They making noise?”
The shadow smirked. “No really although they trying to.”
“Let’em then.”
He nodded and stepped back out. Carmen walked back around the desk and started stacking the folders a little neater now that she had found what she needed.
She picked up one of the pens from her desk, wrote something down on a yellow sticky note, then stuck it to the top of one of the files.
I walked over to the little bar in the corner of her office and poured myself a drink. Just enough to wet my throat.
Then her office phone rang and she hit speaker. “Yes?”
One of the security guards downstairs sounded nervous as hell.
“Ms. Royal, they’re asking again if Mr. Royal is in the building.”
Carmen rolled her eyes. “And what did you tell them?”
“That legal counsel is on the way.”
“Good,” she said. “Tell them they can wait downstairs until he gets here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She hung up and looked over at me. “I swear people act like they never seen police before.”
“Because they scary.”
“Exactly.”
A few minutes later, the office door opened again, and Marcus came walking in carrying a leather briefcase.
His tie was loosened already like he had been dragged out of the middle of something and was irritated about it, but he looked like he meant business.
He was dressed in an expensive Tom Ford suit and kind of looked like he could’ve been Steve Harvey’s lil protégé as sharp as he was.
He stopped when he saw both of us. “Well,” he said while setting the briefcase down in one of the chairs. “This looks fun.”
Carmen handed him one of the folders immediately. “It’s about the Riverside murders.”
Marcus opened it while he walked farther into the office. “They finally moving?”
“Yeah.”
He flipped through a few pages, sucked his teeth, and shook his head. “This is weak.”
“Exactly what I said,” I replied.
Marcus loosened his jacket, dropped down into the chair across from Carmen desk, and kept reading through the file. “They probably got some bullshit witness,” he said. “Or somebody talking that doesn’t really know enough.”
“Most likely,” I said.
Marcus looked up at me. “You got somebody ready if they start getting creative?”
I smirked a little and leaned back against the bar. “Yeah, my wife has the names. Always.”
That made Marcus nod because he already knew what that meant.
There were always people around willing to take a charge for the right money.
Especially if they knew their family would be straight.
That was part of the game. You keep enough people fed, loyal, and comfortable, and somebody always willing to say they was behind the wheel, they made the call, they pulled the trigger.
The elevator dinged down the hall and everybody in the room got quiet for a second. Then one of the shadows stepped into the doorway again. “They coming upstairs.”
I removed both my guns and passed them to my wife so she could lock them in her safe.
The detectives did not knock soft. They came in like men who wanted the moment to feel bigger than it really was, with their shoulders squared and badges out, with two of them trying too hard to look calm while the uniforms behind them stood there like props.
The whole hallway outside Carmen’s office shifted the second they stepped off the elevator.
My shadows didn’t reach for anything, but they moved just enough to let everybody know there was a line in that hallway and if the wrong person crossed it, the rest of the night was gone turn into something else.
This could get real different, but they would stand down unless I told them otherwise.
Carmen was still standing behind her desk when the detectives came through the doorway.
Marcus had his briefcase open in front of him already, and that look on his face lawyers got when they were about to start charging people for every breath they took.
I stayed where I was near the bar with my drink in one hand and my phone in the other, watching the room the way I always did when somebody thought they were walking into a situation with the upper hand.