Chapter 13 Dominic Royal
DOMINIC ROYAL
When the jet door opened and the night air hit my face, I saw her standing there at the edge of that little private runway like she had been holding her breath the whole time the plane was coming down.
Victoria had dressed for me too and that was obvious before my shoes even touched the steps.
The wine-colored dress hugged her body, and her hair was down in soft curls and pinned up in some places.
Even from where I stood I could see her earrings shining under the lights.
She had both of her arms folded around herself like she was cold, but I knew better.
She wasn’t cold, she was nervous and excited while trying too hard to look calm.
That was the problem with women who wanted too much.
Their hope always showed somewhere even when they tried to play it off…
especially the thirsty muhfuckas. I came down the steps slow, with my dark hoodie on, and shoulders relaxed.
Behind me, Tone and Rell stayed exactly where they were supposed to stay, halfway in shadow mode inside the jet, yet close enough if something went wrong, they’d be invisible enough that nobody on the ground would know I hadn’t come alone.
Victoria’s eyes never lifted past me anyway.
She was too locked into what she wanted this to be.
By the time my feet hit the runway, I had already counted the cameras near the strip, the angle of the small building off to the side, how far the car was from the jet, how many guards I could see, and where the blind spots were.
The strip itself was clean. She really had done what she said she would do and kept this quiet.
No extra men were standing around, and it was no convoy.
She thought she was giving me orders, but I had my own shadows in Colombia, and the driver was one of mine little did she know.
It was easy to flip people when money talked.
“You came,” she said, and she smiled when she said it, but her voice still gave her away. It came out softer than she probably meant it to while it being a little shaky and relieved at the same time.
I kept my face neutral and walked up on her until there was only a few feet between us. “I told you I would.”
She looked up at me like she was trying to read whether I meant more by being there than I actually did.
That was the funny part about Victoria. She had always wanted subtext or some kind of hidden feelings.
She wanted there to be some secret softness in me that only she could reach but I had never given her that.
She built that fantasy on her own and called it chemistry.
“You look good,” she said after a second went by as her eyes scanned over my face, my hoodie, and the way I was standing. She looked at me all thirsty like she needed some water.
“You too.” I replied and I didn’t lie. Victoria did look good.
That answer was enough to brighten her whole face.
I saw it happen in real time as her shoulders loosened.
She stopped holding herself like she expected me to turn around and get back on the jet.
The driver opened the back door of the SUV, and she got in first. I slid in beside her, and the second the door shut, the whole world outside seemed to disappear.
The glass was dark enough to block the runway lights, and the inside of the truck smelled like leather, perfume, whatever she had been drinking before she came to meet me.
She kept looking at me, but she was trying not to do it in an obvious way.
She was doing it in little quick glances but all that shit still added up.
I caught her looking at my hands, my mouth, the line of my jaw too, and every few seconds her eyes would move away, then come right back, like she couldn’t help herself.
Victoria was obsessed and I had never put no dick in her so I could only imagine if I had.
“You’re quiet,” she said still studying me, and I didn’t know why cause that shit was pointless. I couldn’t be studied by nobody.
I looked out the window while the car started moving through the dark roads, thick trees, and hills. Colombia at night looked rich but I knew like Miami, it was dangerous too. “I’m here.”
That made her laugh above a whisper. She crossed one leg under the other and turned toward me a little more, enough that her perfume smelled even stronger now. She was fine as fuck and I had to give her that, but look how desperate she acted, I would never want her.
“You have no idea how many times I pictured this.” She admitted.
“I probably don’t.” I replied in a cool tone.
“You really don’t.” She looked away then, and back out into the dark for a second, smiling to herself. “I kept thinking you were going to change your mind.”
“If I changed it, I wouldn’t be here.” Again, that was enough. She didn’t need much from me cause me showing up was enough.
The drive to the property was long enough for me to get a feel for the route.
I was paying attention to the winding roads, the elevation changes, and the moments of darkness where no houses sat close enough, then finally those private gates opening onto a narrower road that was lined with trees and low lights hidden in the landscaping.
By the time the house came into view, I already knew what kind of woman had prepared it.
I could see the candles glowing through the windows and the courtyard fountain was on.
Somebody had set soft lighting around the back terrace, so the whole place looked like it was set for a mood.
She wanted romance and privacy, and a fucking fantasy.
She wanted me stepping into her world and finally seeing her the way she had always wanted to be seen.
The driver opened the door for us, and he made sure that he locked in on eye contact with me in an understanding kind of way.
Cause like I said, my payroll reached higher than Miami and so did my third sets of eyes.
Victoria got out first and the hem of her dress moved around her ankles while she crossed the courtyard, she had one hand holding the front of the skirt down as if she was suddenly aware of every inch of herself.
She didn’t look back to check if I was coming cause she already knew I was. That was how gone she was.
“You like it?” she asked once we stepped inside.
The house was beautiful. The expensive furniture had been chosen by somebody with taste, not just money, and that shit made a difference.
The music was playing low enough to feel more like mood and the air smelled like flowers and whatever she had burning in the little black candle jars placed around the room.
This bitch is crazy, I thought to myself.
I was dealing with a real-life fatal attraction.
I looked around slow on purpose, not just for her sake, it was for mine.
I noticed the bar tucked near the back wall, the line of sight to the terrace, the staircase leading up, the hallway that connected toward the bedrooms, the way the cameras probably sat outside but not inside.
I noticed where she had already opened wine, where the glasses were placed, where the kitchen island ended, how easy it would be to move from one room to the next without being seen from the front of the house. Then I looked back at her.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s nice.”
She smiled the way women smile when they think they’ve done something right for a man they care too much about. “I wanted somewhere no one would bother us.”
“No one knows?” I asked although I knew the answer. I made sure I was in her head and chest real good the weeks leading up to me being here right now.
She shook her head. “No one.”
I knew it, just needed to hear the confidence in her voice when she said it. I also needed to know she had made herself as easy to erase as I thought she had. She slipped her heels off near the couch, one after the other, and walked barefoot to the bar. “What do you want?”
“Whatever you drinking.” I told her staring at her.
She smiled over her shoulder at that, like maybe she heard something intimate in it.
She poured the wine for herself and some bourbon for me, that really wasn’t my thing, but I didn’t give a fuck, this wasn’t a social call, this was business.
When she handed me the glass, her fingers brushed mine on purpose and I let it happen.
I let her think the touch mattered to keep feeding whatever little fantasy had gotten her this far.
We sat down in the living room, but she didn’t choose the chair across from me.
She made herself comfortable on the couch beside me, closer than she needed to be, with one leg tucked under the other, and her dress sliding back just enough to show more thigh than needed to show.
She wasn’t subtle, but she thought she was and that was another one of her problems.
At first, the conversation stayed light as we chopped it up about Colombia, the business, and other shit.
We talked about the people under her now.
She talked more than she probably realized, and I let her.
She wanted to impress me and wanted me to hear how much she had grown into this…
how much power she had. How much harder she’d gotten since leaving Miami.
“I’m not who I was when I left,” she told me, swirling the wine in her glass while she looked at the candlelight reflecting off it. “They don’t look at me the same now.”
“How they look at you?”
She lifted her eyes to mine. “Like they know better.”
That almost made me laugh cause she had a lot to learn. “Good.” I told her instead.
“You sound proud.” She smiled.
I took a sip of my drink and leaned back into the couch. “You wanted power. You didn’t wanna be looked at like some little spoiled cartel princess, now you got it.”
Her eyes softened at that. “I wanted you to see it.”