Chapter 11 Dominic Royal
DOMINIC ROYAL
By the time I got back home, it was late enough everything had settled down some, but not enough for the news to let shit go.
The second I walked through the front doors; I could hear my own name coming from the television in the sitting room once again.
Some reporter was standing outside the station in a fitted coat with too much makeup looking like she was in a casket talking about me like she knew me personally.
“The Miami King was taken in for questioning tonight in connection to the murder of Jermaine Cooper—”
I kept walking and Carmen was already in the living room waiting on me, barefoot now, in her silk two-piece pajama set.
Her hair was pulled back, and her laptop was open in front of her on the couch.
Papers were spread out all over the coffee table, her phone was sitting beside a legal pad full of notes, and the television was muted by the time I made it over there.
She looked up at me. “Are you okay?” she asked.
I looked down at her. “You know I’m good.”
She sat her laptop to the side and stood up slowly. I stepped closer with one hand against her back, and the other on her stomach before I bent down and kissed her. When I pulled back, she looked up at me and ran her hand down the front of my shirt.
“You smell like the station,” she sighed.
I kissed her forehead this time. “You ate?”
“No.”
“Why?” I questioned.
“Because I was waiting on you.”
“Don’t wait on me. I don’t have a baby growing in me, you do.” I looked at the table full of papers and files. “You been working?”
“Somebody has to.” She shrugged.
That didn’t surprise me. The whole time I had been downtown, Carmen had probably been doing exactly what she was doing right now, working, digging, tightening everything up before anybody else could think about it cause that was her thing.
If she felt like somebody was getting too close, she didn’t panic. She just moved faster.
The living room smelled like she’s been burning vanilla candles, but I felt a comfort you could only feel in your sanctuary. “You hungry?” Carmen asked.
“Hell yeah, get the chef here. I need a Tomahawk and a loaded baked potato right about now.”
She looked at me hard for a second. “You sure you’re okay?”
I looked down at her and smiled a little. “Baby, they ain’t got shit.”
“I know that I’m just asking.”
“And if they did, I still wouldn’t be worried.”
“I know that too.”
She sat back down on the couch after that and pulled one of the files into her lap. I dropped down beside her, stretched one arm across the back of the couch behind her, and looked down at the paperwork she had spread everywhere. I went ahead and text the chef myself.
“What’s all this?” I asked.
“Everything I need to tighten up before they decide to start fishing. Justttt in case.” She dragged out the word as her fingers typed faster than my eyes could keep up. She flipped a page over and pointed at something highlighted in yellow folder next. “These routes need to be moved.”
“Why?”
“Because if they start sniffing around, I don’t want them seeing the same names, the same drivers, the same warehouses, the same shell companies over and over.”
I agreed. “Yeah, change them.”
“I already started.” She winked.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking down at another page. “I want two of the trucking companies dissolved by next week and I want new LLCs built under different names.”
“Damn, that fast?”
“Yes.”
I looked at her for a second. She really was beautiful when she got like this. Focused. Sharp. Too smart for her own good sometimes. “You know you sexy when you talking business?” I asked.
She looked up at me over the top of the file. “You’re so annoying.”
“I’m serious.”
“Good.”
The ring alerted us that someone was at the front door a few minutes later before one of the shadows stepped into the living room. “Marcus and Barron here.”
I nodded my head letting them know it was cool. “Send them in.”
Carmen closed the file in her lap and sat it down on the table right as Marcus came walking in first now looking like he was tired of everybody.
Barron came in right behind him looking exactly like himself cause he was the type of man who looked like he belonged in courtrooms and backrooms at the same time.
Marcus dropped down into one of the chairs across from us and loosened his tie even more. “Well,” he started. “That was annoying.”
Barron stayed standing for a second with both hands in his pockets while he looked around the room. “They got anything?”
“No,” Marcus answered before I could. “They have theories. They have timeline bullshit. They have motive, but they don’t have anything solid.” He explained. Barron nodded like that was exactly what he expected.
“And they won’t,” I said.
“No,” Marcus agreed. “They won’t, but they are going to keep digging.”
Carmen reached for her water glass off the table. “We know.”
Marcus leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “They’re embarrassed,” he said. “That’s the real problem. They made all that noise with the press and arrest. They expected something to shake loose, and it didn’t.”
“So now they’ll start looking harder into that case,” Carmen said.
“Exactly.”
Barron finally sat down after that with one ankle crossing over his knee. “That’s fine.”
Marcus looked over at him. “You already have somebody lined up, correct?
Barron nodded once. “Yeah. Mrs. Royal gave me the names.”
That was all he said because Barron didn’t talk too much and he never had to. Men like him only spoke when it mattered. I leaned back into the couch and looked over at him. “Which one of my guys would be first pick?”
“Rashad, because he has three kids, a baby mama, and gambling debt, no priors, no records, no points. ” Barron said simply. “He’ll say whatever we need him to say if it ever gets that far.”
Carmen looked down at the papers on the table for a second. “Will it?”
“No,” Marcus said immediately. “Not unless somebody gets stupid.”
“Or desperate,” Barron added.
That had everybody quiet for a second because that was the real danger, not police, not feds, and not the cameras. People got desperate when they were scared. They talked too much and they made deals. They thought saving themselves mattered more than loyalty.
“You think somebody talking?” Carmen asked.
“Everybody talks,” I said. “Question is whether they know enough for it to matter.”
Marcus nodded. “And right now, nobody does.”
Carmen looked over at me then. Not scared. Not emotional. Just serious. “You need to make sure you’re around,” she said above a strong whisper.
“I am around.” I assured her. See, when it came to Cartel shit we didn’t have to worry about this kind of stuff unless drugs were involved.
We could have a shoot-out and blow up an entire block and the feds would turn the other cheek as long as everyone’s pockets were hefty but when it came to street shit like this, the local law always stuck their nose where it didn’t belong that’s why we left that street shit long ago but this…
this was personal and it had to be done, no questions asked.
“No,” she replied, sitting her glass back down.
“I mean really around.” She kept going. I looked at her, deep in her eyes.
“You need to be here,” she said softly. “For me, for the baby, for all this.” Her voice wasn’t shaky because she wasn’t begging, but I knew what she meant because all of this had gotten too close too many times already.
I reached over and slid my hand over hers where it rested on her stomach out of habit. “I’m not goin’ nowhere,” I said.
She held the gaze in my eyes for another second before nodding. “Good,” she replied.
Marcus stood up after that and grabbed his briefcase. “I’ll keep my ear to the street and the courthouse,” he said. “If they move on anything else, we’ll know first.”
Barron stood too. “And if they get too close,” he said calmly, “I’ll handle the rest.”
It wasn’t much for me to say because I knew he would. That was the thing about power. It wasn’t just the money. It was having enough people around you that every problem already had an answer before it even happened.
After Marcus and Barron left and after the news finally stopped replaying the footage of me walking out the station every five minutes, I stepped out onto the balcony with a glass of Hennessy and let the quietness settle around me as the chef prepared our food filling the air with spices.
The glow from downtown in the distance was in my view with the water reflecting back everything Miami was trying to hide.
From that high up, it almost looked peaceful, but I knew better.
The balcony sat off the back of the mansion, wide enough for outdoor couches, a fire table, and one of them expensive lounge chairs Carmen liked laying in when she wanted to sit outside in the evenings.
The pool below glowed a pretty blue color in the dark, and I could still see a couple shadows moving near the back gate because security had been doubled ever since the courthouse.
I leaned both hands against the railing and looked out over the city.
Jail wasn’t on my mind, that part was already done.
I looked down at the Hennessy in my hand for a second and thought about Carmen downstairs.
Thought about her sitting on the couch with files spread all over the table, laptop open, glasses on, still working while she rubbed her stomach every few minutes without realizing it.