Chapter 11 Dominic Royal #2
Then I thought about the baby, the nursery, the little neutral clothes already hanging up.
The tiny socks, the stuffed animals, the books and everything else.
Before Carmen got pregnant, I ain’t give a fuck what happened to me.
If I got shot, I got shot. If I got locked up, then it was what it was.
If I died, I died. But now? Now I had something to lose.
That made me more dangerous than I had ever been in my life because now it wasn’t just about me.
Now it was about Carmen and about my child.
It was about making sure nothing and nobody ever got close enough to touch what was mine.
I took a slow sip of the Hennessy and looked down toward the front gates.
A couple trucks were still out there cause nobody had really gone home yet.
They were still hanging around because that was what happened when one of ours got picked up.
Everybody showed up and didn’t leave until they knew everything was secure, everybody stayed close.
The city thought I had people because I had money. That wasn’t it by itself.
I had people because I made sure everybody around me ate.
I made sure families were good, bills paid, kids straight.
That kind of loyalty was hard to find and even harder to break.
I looked back out over the city again. Everything felt solid but solid wasn’t enough for me anymore…
not with a baby coming, because once that baby got here, I wanted peace.
Not regular people peace because that was never going to happen for somebody like me, but my version of it.
I wanted to be able to sit in that nursery and not think about who was plotting.
I wanted Carmen to be able to take the baby somewhere without me wondering who might be watching.
I wanted to be able to go out with my wife and not keep my hand near a gun the whole time.
That meant loose ends had to go and the biggest loose end still breathing was Victoria.
I hadn’t seen her since she left. Hadn’t heard from her either.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about her because Victoria was still dangerous.
I didn’t want her, didn’t love her, and bever did…
she was simply somebody I looked out for because El Blanca wanted me to.
Then El Blanca turned his back on her and she ain’t really have nobody else.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, she got attached.
That was her problem not mine and now I had to play chess.
Victoria wanted something from me that I never gave her.
She was the one who kept trying to force herself into a place she never had, and that was what made her a threat.
It wasn’t because she was loud or reckless because she was none of that and it wasn’t because she wasn’t beautiful because she was.
She was actually one of the baddest bitches I’d ever laid eyes on, but she was dangerous because she still wanted more and when a woman is emotional they couldn’t be trusted.
I knew she took the throne and with enough pressure built up it would be a matter of time before she got pressured into coming for me.
I pulled one of my encrypted phones out my pocket and stared at the screen for a second before I hit her number.
It rang a few times before she answered.
“Hello?” She answered still sounding sweet, but strong like she knew she was a ruler, yet it still had that softness and hidden accent.
“Don’t hang up,” I said knowing that she wouldn’t, it was just all a part of the game.
Silence.
Then, “Dom?” She asked.
“Yeah, it’s me.”
There was another pause.
“You have some nerve calling me.” she snapped.
I leaned back against the railing and looked out over the city again. “Probably,” I said lighting a joint and exhaling before taking a swig of Remy.
“What do you want?” she sighed. I could tell in her voice she really wasn’t bitter for real, but she had to play the role.
“Just checking on you.” I lied. It was really all a part of the game.
That got a dry little laugh out of her. “Checking on me?” she repeated. “Now?”
“Yeah.”
“After everything that has happened?”
I took another sip of my drink ignoring that comment. “You good?”
“You don’t get to ask me that.”
“Why not?” I quizzed sounding concerned.
“Because you made it very clear I was never important.”
I rubbed my jaw slowly with one hand. “Victoria, I’m calling, ain’t I?”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Maybe it do. You know I’m not a man who likes to waste time or play games. You know that.”
She got quiet after that. I could hear music somewhere in the background on her end and it sounded like people talking and a bunch of glasses clinking.
“Have you seen the news?” I asked.
“I always see the news when it comes to you. Seems like you’ve been in the news. Por qué tanto?”
That made me smirk a little because she sounded irritated and hurt too. “I’m good,” I said. “In case you were wondering but to answer your question, I’m not sure why so much lately. It comes with the life.”
“I wasn’t really wondering.”
“You’re lying, you asked.”
“No,” she said softly. “I’m not.”
I stayed quiet for a second because that was the thing about Victoria. She always meant what she said. Even when she shouldn’t have. “How things treating you over there?” I asked.
“It’s been busy, different.” She admitted like it was hard to do so.
“You settling in?”
“As much as I can I guess.”
I let the silence linger a little before blowing out a thick cloud of smoke to fill my space in the perfect ringed circles. “You know, you took that throne so that makes us Opps now, but we don’t have to be.”
I could picture her while we talked too.
Probably sitting somewhere expensive in Colombia with a drink in her hand, jewelry on, hair perfect, looking beautiful and sad at the same time.
That was Victoria for you though just beautiful and sad.
Victoria was mentally unstable when it came to loving somebody and it’s almost like she imprinted on people.
All I did was give her a chance and she wanted everything I had including my wife.
She was the type of woman when her emotions were unbalanced you didn’t know what she would do.
If I let that shit fly, that might be something I’d end up regretting for the rest of my life.
“You eating?” I asked.
That made her laugh softly. “Why are you asking me that?”
“Because you love to cook a bunch of food from of your culture while you dancing around and shit.”
“And you know that because?”
“Because I pay attention and you did it in my condo. I don’t forget nothing, you know that.”
She got quiet again. “You shouldn’t call me if you don’t mean it,” she finally said.
“Mean what?”
“Any of this.”
I looked out into the dark again. “I mean I’m checking on you. What is there to mean?”
“That’s not enough.”
“For right now it is but you always want more. That’s the problem.”
Her breathing changed a little on the other end. “Do you miss me?” she suddenly asked.
I shook my head. There it was, that emotion and it was too easy.
“Victoria…”
She cut me off. “No… answer me.”
I leaned my elbows against the rail. “You was never mine to miss like that. I’m not sure what I was supposed to miss. I knew you for a short amount of time and I helped you. That wasn’t enough.”
She got quiet because it was the truth. I never promised her shit. I never told her I wanted her and never acted like she had some special place in my life. That was all shit she made up in her own head because I was nice to her when nobody else was.
“You cared about me though,” she said quietly.
“I did.”
“Do.” She corrected me.
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I do.” Shit I’d tell her whatever she wanted to hear right now without taking it too far. She got quiet again, so I finished talking. “And that’s why you should stop making things harder than they got to be.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“Easy for you to say,” she whispered. “You got everything.”
I looked at the sparkling pool and thought about my wife downstairs and my baby coming. My whole future was sitting in that house behind me. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “I do.”
She didn’t answer right away. Then she sighed. “I’m tired, Dom.”
“I know you are.” That part, I meant and I was talking about in her life in general.
“I’m tired of all this.”
“I know.”
“Sometimes I think about just disappearing.”
“That wouldn’t be the worst thing if you asked me. I promise you might be happier. You wanna disappear with me?”
She laughed softly after that. “Goodnight, Dom.”
“Goodnight, Victoria.”
I ended the call after that and slid the phone back into my pocket.
For a second I just stood there looking at the view again.
Then I heard the balcony door slide open behind me.
I already knew who it was before I turned around.
Carmen stepped outside barefoot with her plushy slides on her feet looking the sweetest. As soon as she closed the door back, she folded her arms across her chest. She looked beautiful, and slightly irritated.
“How long you been standing there?” I asked.
“Long enough.” She hissed. She stopped a few feet away from me, and I could tell by the look on her face she was trying to decide whether she wanted to argue or not. “You were talking to Victoria.”
I nodded pulling her close to me right after I ash the joint because one thing I didn’t do was smoke around her exposing her and the baby to secondhand smoke. “Yeah.”
She raised a brow and slowly ran her tongue across the top of her teeth. “Why?”
I looked at her for a second before I answered because there wasn’t no point in lying to Carmen. “She’s still attached.”
Carmen looked away for a second and shook her head. “Of course she is.”
“And that makes her dangerous.”
“Please, she’s all the way in Colombia Dom.” She grilled.
“That don’t mean shit.”
Her eyes came back to mine. “She still wants more from you and she always will.”
I wondered if Carmen trusted me, because the truth was, all those hoes I had been long gone the minute I made this shit more than a contracted marriage. “I know, that’s why I had to make that call.”
“Well guess what, her feelings are never going to change. I know those kinds of women.”
“I know that too.” I told her in agreeance.
The wind blew across her face, and she wrapped her arms tighter around herself even though it wasn’t cold enough for that. She looked tired standing there but not physically tired. It was just the tiredness from not being able to physically be herself right now.
“You care about her?” she asked.
“Not like that. I never did.”
“But you cared enough to help her Dom. I went along with it, but I never felt like she could be trusted.”
“I care about her enough that I don’t want her to become a problem. She’s the new El Blanca and that’s why she has to go.”
Carmen looked down at her stomach for a second, and then back at me. “What are you planning?” she asked.
I looked back at the view away from her. “The same thing I always do.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“If she decides she can’t let this go, then I’m gon’ let it go for her.”
Carmen stared at me for a second unfazed because she knew exactly what I meant with that statement. “She would never stop,” Carmen said in a soft tone. “Not really.”
“No.”
“She’ll always think if she waits long enough, if she says the right thing, if she catches you at the right moment, then maybe you’ll give her something you never gave her before.”
“Most likely.”
“And if she gets desperate enough, she could become a problem.”
“She already is one and I’m not waiting for the outcome as simple as that.”
Carmen wrapped both her arms tighter around herself like she was holding herself together. “I’m tired,” she told me yawning. “But I’m hungry too and the food is ready.”
“I know.” I said now giving her my full attention again. I was hungry to and as good as she looked I knew what I wanted for dessert as I cocked my head to the side.
“I’m tired of looking over my shoulder all the time.
” She looked back up at me then, and there was something in her face that showed something else and I just knew it had to be the hormones.
“I’m tired of enemies. I’m tired of people trying to hurt us.
I’m tired of women thinking they got some place in your life when they don’t.
I know it comes with it and I’m going to always stand solid but damn, a bitch can get tired. ”
I laughed to myself when Carmen started talking that shit. She looked so small standing there in front of me with glossy eyes and her lips pressed together like she was trying not to let herself break down.
“You don’t have to worry about none of that,” I said.
“But I do,” she whispered.
She looked away when she said it, blinking fast, and I could tell she was trying to hold it together.
Her eyes had filled up, but she wasn’t about to cry.
Not my Carmen, cause that’s something she just didn’t do unless she really couldn’t help it.
She just stood there fighting it with her jaws tight, and arms still folded around herself like if she held herself together hard enough, and nothing could get in.
I slid my hand around the small of her back and pulled her closer against me.
“You gone have peace baby,” I said quietly. “You and this baby, I promise.”
She looked up at me then. “You swear?”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes searched mine for another few seconds before she finally nodded. “Then do what you have to do,” she told me. “Even if it means getting rid of her forever.”
I bent down and kissed her lips slowly before pulling her fully into my arms. She wrapped both arms around my waist and rested her head against my chest and standing there with my wife in my arms and my unborn child between us, I knew one thing for sure. Nobody was taking this shit from me.