9. Carmen Royal
T he heel of my boots clicked against the marble as I paced back and forth. I’d been pacing in my penthouse for over an hour, with my mind spinning like I was tryna outwit a fucking ghost. Jit was true, Janine knew too much, and she wasn’t even trying to but the fact that she saw those files, it made her a liability. I had two choices, I could eliminate her… or erase her and if there was one thing Dom taught me, a very valuable lesson that still echoed in my mind, it was this, ‘loose ends don’t live long. Tie ‘em up… or cut ‘em off’.
I pulled out my second phone and not my law firm number, and not my personal. It was another one of my ‘in-between’ burner lines. I typed the message: Meet me at 3… don’t bring nothing. Storage 11C. I stared at the screen for a second and then I walked to the mirror and looked at myself. Yeah, I had the same full lips, the same bold eyes, same gold chain with the small cross that I never liked to take off because it was the last memory of my mother. But right now, there was a killer hiding behind the makeup if needed.
I pulled up my storage unit downtown Miami. It had everything I needed to make someone disappear. It had fake IDs, birth certificates, socials, and duffel bags full of cash in small bills. I had burner phones, prepaid passports, and new lives printed in folders like it was just another file in my legal cabinet. By the time Janine showed up, I was already inside. She stepped in slowly, and a little hesitant. Her eyes were wide behind her glasses and her hair was in a low bun. She looked tired and scared at the same time, almost like she knew she stepped into something she couldn’t unsee.
“Close the door,” I said without turning around.
She did as she was told. “Carmen…” she said, in a low voice. “I didn't say anything to anyone, I swear… I just… when I saw the file…”
I finally turned around slowly and walked over to her handing her a folder. “That’s a new identity. Your name is now Mariah Cortez. You’re from Fresno, California. You work remotely in online marketing. You’re allergic to strawberries and your blood type is AB negative. That envelope has fifty stacks. Use it to get wherever you need to go, cash only. Listen, don’t use a debit card or a credit card nor are you to stop at any ATM machines until you’re out the state.”
Her eyes welled with tears. “You… you’re serious?”
“Dead serious.”
Her voice started shaking. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you made a mistake opening that file, Janine, although I believe you didn’t mean to. You panicked, and you did the right thing by calling me.” I stepped closer and spoke with my voice low. “And if it were up to Dom, you’d be gone already.”
She began to quickly nod her head as the tears rolled down her eyes. I continued. “You’re not cut for this, Janine. You weren’t supposed to be involved. I gave you a way out because I don’t think you’re stupid enough to test me, and because I do actually like you.” I grabbed the envelope of cash and shoved it in her hands. “But if you ever speak on this or eventhink about reaching out to anyone, your mama, your cousins, your ex, and anyone else you love… I promise you, I will make one phone call, and you and everybody you love will vanish before the sun comes up.”
She nodded fast, while clutching everything. “I-I won’t say anything,” she whispered. “I swear.”
I reached into my jacket pocket and slid her a phone. “It’s prepaid… use it once to activate the ID and then toss it. If I ever hear your real name again, it’s already too late.”
Janine looked at me with tears still burning her red eyes, but I could tell she trusted me, and I was doing this for her own good. There was also that look of belief, that I wasn’t just threatening her, I was saving her from something she might’ve never saw coming. She walked out without another word.
I stood in the unit for another five minutes watching from the camera allowing the silence to sing. Then I dialed another number. “Hey, it's me. The girl’s new name is Mariah Cortez now. Trail her, but don’t give any contact unless she slips. If she ever steps foot back in Dade County,” I paused before continuing, “turn her ass into dust.” I abruptly ended the call. On the outside, I felt bad for Janine because she was the best assistant and deep down inside, I knew she would keep her mouth closed, however, had I not gotten rid of her, Dom would’ve killed her anyway.
The life I lived wasn’t for the weak, and neither was my life before this one. I came to the states running from my life back in Trinidad after my parents abandoned me. They sold me off to get the money they needed when I was just fifteen years old. I lived from pillar to post with different families in pure hell, because everyone was broke, until I turned eighteen and fled to the States. When I finally got my temporary visa, I thought I was safe, especially since I was working and not bothering anyone but when it expired, I wanted to kill myself when I thought they were going to send me back, until Dom came at me with his proposition of marrying me so I could stay. I did it, because I vowed to do whatever it took to stay away, but the truth was, I loved Dom since the day I laid eyes on him. I blinked tears away thinking about it all. Before the heels, before the courtroom, and before the title “Mrs. Royal” ever hit my name… there was Trinidad.
It was hot and loud, yet beautiful. And when I say beautiful, I meant in the way a trap could be if you didn’t know any better because for all the color and culture that tourists came to snap pictures of, I knew therealTrinidad. The Trinidad where broken homes weren’t really just another sad story, like everywhere else, it was normal.
It just wasn’t normal for me because I was the fifteen-year-old girl that got sold and nobody looked my way to try and save the little skinny, nerdy, smart girl who ran around barefoot most days . I used to think my parents loved me until the day they handed me off to a man more than twice my age for ‘help with the family bills’ without so much as a warning and no choice at all. They sent me on with a small suitcase and dared me to speak my mind.
“Be a good girl.”My mother whispered as she smoothed the hem of my dress, refusing to look in my eyes, that’s how I knew something was wrong because no matter what she always looked into my eyes and always taught me to do the same.
She didn’t say shit else after that and I remembered my chest feeling like something or someone was squeezing it. The man they gave me to didn’t even talk much and he didn’t have to because I didn’t want to talk to him anyway. The way he looked at me was enough for me to know that he was trouble. He looked like the type to beat a female, but he didn’t hit me right away. Instead, he fed me while also treating me like I was a stray cat he was trying to fatten up before the slaughter. Then one night, he finally came into my little smelling like rum and sweat.
That was the first time I ever truly feared for my life as I immediately sat up rubbing my eyes while adjusting my long, dingy sleeping gown. The minute he approached me, something inside of me wanted to fight and I truly did. I literally fought, bit, scratched, and screamed to stop him from sticking his nasty little dick inside of me. I barely made it out with a split lip and a bruised wrist, just glad I made it. I ran barefoot into the night, ignoring my own blood and bruises as my chest heaved up and down. Afraid that he may catch me, I ran straight to my aunt’s house across town thinking I’d be safe there, but I was wrong. I should’ve known that when she didn’t even care about me being attacked. I had to tend to my own bruises. Yes, she took me in, but only because she was flat broke and needed the extra hands.
I became a fucking slave in her care. It didn’t consist of love and comfort; I was just there based off of survival and that became my life eventually bouncing from one home to another like a burden nobody wanted but everyone needed. Hell, I slept on floors, and I ate scraps. I learned early on how to listen to arguments through walls and how to leave a room before someone’s anger entered my space. I worked as a damn child sweating in open-air markets, cleaning people’s laundry, and babysitting other people’s kids even though I was still one myself. It wasn’t one person who cared about me or my own dreams. Nobody even asked me if I had any… they just told me to keep quiet and be grateful I wasn’t dead yet, which I learned to do.
By the time I turned eighteen, I didn’t have shit at all… no money, no passport, and the way it was looking, no future either. I was full of rage and that same rage is what got me out. I had a cousin of a cousin who knew someone who forged documents for a price. It took everything I had, which wasn’t much, but I managed to scrape it together so I could get a new identity, a temporary visa, and a one-way ticket. At first, I didn’t know to where and I didn’t care either as long as it wasn’t Trinidad anymore. As long as it wasn’tmy past life. When I boarded that plane, I didn’t look back not one time because back there I wasn’t a person. I was a piece to everyone or something they could profit off of. I was born as Anya Joseph, and I left as Carmen Williams and when I got up there in the clouds, I told myself I would never let anyone own me again, but Dom… he was different. He didn’t own me, he saved me.
Taking a deep breath, I finally snapped myself from the prison of my own thoughts and dabbed my eyes with a napkin before gathering my things to head out.
* * *
An hour later, I was back at the penthouse. I kicked off my boots and poured a shot of Reposado before I sat at my desk. “Alexa! Play ‘Snooze’ by SZA!” I ordered before letting my hair down and making myself comfortable. It was time to handle the real threat with that file. The Feds were known for having holes and legal entry points I could exploit their asses with…and I would if it came down to it. I opened my laptop and pulled up the sealed customs documents.
I started rewriting case theories and burying the trails. I shifted digital routing protocols on the back end too and even falsified three donation receipts from a nonprofit we set up in O’Shynn’s name to act as a clean filter… you know to wash the money as well. I then rewrote legal exposure language in the packet the Feds would likely use as evidence. They didn’t know who they were fucking with. The system was crooked but not as crooked as I was.
By the time I was done, I had created enough reasonable doubt to break the entire back of the case without even having to step inside of a courtroom. I closed the laptop and sipped my drink, feeling satisfied. I leaned back in my chair with my drink in my hand, and eyes fixed on the lights from the skyline glistening through the penthouse windows. Everything looked perfect from where I sat but we all knew that was a fucking lie, especially in Miami. My phone buzzed with a blocked number snapping me from my thoughts.
I answered. “Carmen speaking.”
The voice on the other end sounded nervous. “It’s me, Harris. That subpoena request you flagged… you were right.”
My stomach started twisting in knots once again. Harris was just as crooked as me and in my back pocket for whatever I needed. Just like Dom had his people, I too needed my own people in my own field in order to keep the foundation solid. “Talk to me.”
“There’s a new one and they’re not just looking at vehicle manifests anymore. They’re pulling offshore wire transfers and custom dealer reports from Dubai and Berlin. They’re trying to establish a conspiracy ring.”
That word hit hard. Conspiracy? “Does Dom’s name appear?”
“Not yet, but Royal Enterprises is being watched. Two of your dummy LLCs were just pinged through a system you’re not supposed to know exists.”
"ICU-7?" I quizzed.
"Yeah," he said. “I don’t know how you know that, but yeah.”
I closed my eyes for a second, took down the last of my drink and rubbed my temples. Dom was making me work more now than I ever had before. He just didn’t know how much I was over here cleaning shit up, and it wasn’t for him to worry about either. “I need a full data pull. I need to know everyone they’ve served, everyone they’re watching, and where that data is landing. Make sure there’s no links to any personal IPs. Send it to my burner email and wipe your system clean afterward.”
“Damn Carmen, I could lose my fucking license behind this shit.”
“You could lose your life too Harris,” I said in an agitated tone, and then softened my voice. “But you won’t… I’ll make sure of that.”
He hung up without another word and I stared at the phone. The shit was moving faster than I thought. And if I had to be honest, this wasn't just Dom’s shit anymore… it was mine too. I spent the next three hours moving like a ghost in the underworld. I was wiping triple-layered VPNs, offshore transaction histories, and modifying log timestamps. I created false login entries from IPs in Argentina and Kenya, hell places we never touched but the Feds would love to chase ghosts in. I was stressed but silently laughing to myself too looking like Cruella Deville having an episode.
Next, I unregistered a shipping manifest that had Royal Enterprises listed as a secondary recipient and replaced it with a fake transport group we used once a couple of years ago. I pulled three dated contracts from our shell law firm in Spain and edited them to reflect a completely different vendor chain. Hell, by the time I was done, the evidence trail looked like a fucking Picasso painting that the Feds would have to chase for months and end up in the middle of an art gallery in Madrid somewhere wondering what the hell just happened.
I was completely satisfied that I’d done enough to hold it off and keep them chasing their tails for now. I stepped into the kitchen, poured another drink, and stared out the window thinking about Dom… at this point, he better had been ready to give me some babies and completely retire me in a few years with all of the work I put in.
I understood why he felt like we shouldn’t cross the line that we weren’t going to be able to stop crossing now, because we both knew the moment one of us slipped, everything would all burn down, and we needed to be focused. I picked up my phone again and made another call… this time it was to Charlene Dunley who worked over in the Internal Affairs, of the IRS Oversight Division. She had the nerve to try and prosecute Royal Enterprises, before I flipped everything and ruined her case in court and now, she owed me. I sent a message: I need to bury a federal trail… and I need a response in 12 hours.
After that, I sent her ten bands in crypto as a tip because I knew she’d call back. I walked into my bedroom and thought about Dom. I still smelled his cologne on my sheets. I wondered where he was right now, and what he was doing. I’d fuck him every hour on the hour if I could but right now, I had to be the one behind the scenes building the escape tunnel, and burning the evidence because God forbid if Dom ever fell, I was the only one with enough reach to protect what we built.