DOM: The Miami King

10. Victoria Blanca

I t had been two long fucking suffocating days in this concrete palace they called a safe house. Yeah, it may have looked like luxury with expensive appliances and heated floors as the place screamed money, but the energy and air were both stale. I might as well had still been back home under El Blanca’s watch if I was going to have to deal with the exact same thing. My entire existence made me feel as though I’d been locked in a cage with a dog watching me. It didn’t feel like safety, it felt like I was under arrest and losing my mind.

I paced the living room again completely barefoot with my silk robe trailing behind me like I was royalty, and I couldn’t help it because that’s the way I was used to living. The cartel moved around the property like shadows with a watchful eye and always silent except when they were talking shit to each other and laughing about it. Most of the time, their eyes never left me, even when I disappeared into the bathroom or stepped onto the balcony for air. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or shit without being watched, just the same as back home. Only home, I had a little more freedom to go places, and it wasn’t like that here. Dom hadn’t called me not one time and every time I did call him, he would answer, give me three words, and then hang up.

“I’m en route.” Was his response this time before hanging up once again in a cool mannered tone leaving my blood boiling. So, I called the one person who always gave me answers… at least I thought he did. I called El Blanca, and he answered in two rings.

“Victoria,” he said like he already knew I was about to complain.

“El Blanca, please don’t ‘Victoria’ me like this situation isn’t insane. I’ve been trapped in a safe-house for two fucking days, and Dom won’t tell me anything. I don’t even know who’s looking for me or if I’m being hunted or tested… what is this?”

“You are being protected,” he said calmly, and too calm for my liking. Of course, he didn’t care because he wasn’t the one trapped.

“Noooo, I’m being locked up El Blanca. The same as back home but at least back home I can shop and do things under the Cartel’s watch. This situation is different, and I can’t do anything besides wait around like a damn mistress!” I blurted in frustration. It seemed like all of my frustration shot down to my throbbing vagina. I needed a fix really bad, at least in Miami I wouldn’t have to sneak to have sex because back home, it was damn near impossible although I’d always find a way.

“Would you rather be laid out in a morgue right now?” he snapped, in his smooth tone. “Has Dominic mistreated you?”

“What?!” I blurted while blinking my eyes. “Why does that even matter?”

“It matters to me, because he’s not just protecting you. He’s being watched, too. I need to know if you feel unsafe.”

I paused, a good long one too. Something about the way he said that rubbed me the wrong way. Something wasn’t adding up here. “You keep asking the wrong questions, Tío!” I said, dropping my eyes into tiny slits while squeezing the phone so hard my knuckles were turning white. I knew I had to calm down.

“And you keep dodging mine Victoria. The next time I ask you a question, you answer me. How has The King been treating you?”

“You trusted him enough to send me here in his care dearest uncle,” I replied sarcastically.

He didn’t take to kind to it and just like Dom would do… he hung up . By the time Dom showed up, the sky was already gold behind the skyline and my mood had gotten even worst and damn near dangerous. He wasn’t alone either. Shewalked in behind him like the thunder following the fucking lightning. She was fine and dressed in all black. Her face was smooth and unreadable as her eyes scanned the safe house like she was calculating the many exits or scanning any area that can be a weakness or a threat. I remembered her from the club that night and she was still just as beautiful. However, when her gaze met mine, it lingered and she didn’t blink, nor did she flinch. Her look said it all… I ain’t here to make friends bitch.

Dom was giving his people orders, and they were moving like soldiers wearing black on black with no questions asked. However, she and I didn’t speak at all, and we didn’t need to. She stood close to him... really close and when his hand brushed her lower back just for that brief second, I just knew it had to be more. She wasn’t just part of the team; it seemed as though she was his and the way she looked at me said she knew I knew. The tension was brewing and maybe it was one-sided but before I could process it, close gunshots began to ring out.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

The glass shattered shattering, and the front window exploded causing all of the glass to shoot inward. Bullets hit the walls knocking chunks of the walls out and the cartel moved instantly. One of Dom’s people tackled a chair down and pulled out a heavy-ass assault rifle from behind a false wall while another one flipped the marble island for cover.

“MOVE!” Dom demanded as his voice boomed through the chaos. “Carmen be careful!” He yelled to her.

Carmen already had her gun out and was crouched low with the perfect aim. Her trigger finger was smooth like she’d done it many times before. I hit the floor as bullets shot through the air right above my head. Dom reached me and wrapped his arm around my waist pulling me on to my feet. Even in the middle of chaos I loved the feeling. This wasn’t the first time I’d been in the middle of a shootout, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last.

“We gotta move! NOW!” He barked.

“What about her?!” Carmen yelled with her eyes bouncing around me as he held on to me.

“Igot her! Just go!” He ordered her.

The sound of gunshots filled my ears like an annoying static in the room. We moved fast as hell while Carmen stayed behind, taking cover like a trained assassin and to my surprise she was cool under pressure as she unloaded her clip like she was counting bodies and the world around her wasn’t spinning. I didn’t have time to process howgood she was because I was pissed that I didn’t have my own protection. El Blanca had me pampered like a Princess who never had to lift a finger for anything. Dom shoved open a steel-reinforced door and pushed me through a back hall. One of his people was already at the exit, opening the SUV door, while the others kept shooting.

“Get in!” He shoved me in first, and slammed the door as gunshots still rang through the Palm trees and bushes. Then he ran back for Carmen returning in about three seconds. She emerged from the smoke with a streak of blood across her cheek and her gun was still smoking. Dom then grabbed her and threw her into the back seat… and just like that we were gone.

The truck moved fast, eating up the road as Dom’s people trailed us in a second vehicle behind us. Inside, the energy in the truck was uncomfortable. Carmen sat in silence with her shoulders tense, eyes focused forward. She didn’t look at Dom, nor did she look at me. Dom didn’t say a word either, but I saw the way he checked on her through the review mirror. I saw the way his knuckles twitched like he wanted to reach for her and in that moment, I realized that yes, he might have saved me first, but she’s the one he wanted to make sure walked away as a whole.

I took a deep breath and stared out of the window. We pulled into the private garage beneath his penthouse once again like we’d done before and his people were already posted up with extra fire power and guns lined up. I knew they were always serious before but now it was like no one was playing or taking any chances. Carmen stepped out first and straightened her jacket as she wiped the blood from her face before walking off without so much as a glance at Dom. I stepped out next, and Dom’s hand hovered behind me like he wanted to keep me steady, but he didn’t know if he should.

“You alright?” he asked in a low voice.

I nodded, but on the inside, hell no, I wasn’t alright because I was finally starting to see the truth. This wasn’t about protecting me. This was about using me and that’s why El Blanca asked me those questions. Dom was caught between love, loyalty, and a possible war. I was just the storm caught in the middle to help it rise.

The elevator doors quietly slid open and the heavy security gate at the top of the penthouse clicked open once Dom used his thumbprint. Even in the chaos, everything was back calm like bullets hadn’t just chased us across the city.

The penthouse was calm per usual and everything was neat and in place. It gave me the vibes that Dom was a neat freak. The black leather furniture, gold fixtures, low moody lighting set the tone, but the tension couldn’t be ignored.

Carmen stepped in first, and again, she still didn’t have much to say. She just peeled off her jacket and walked straight toward the hallway like she knew the floorplan like the back of her hand. Dom followed her without hesitation without saying a word to us nor looking back at us which frustrated me even more. Instead, he placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her to the master bedroom like it was second nature. Once again, he left me in the living room with Tone.

He stood by the glass window, with hoodie on, and his thick chain hanging low, with his arms folded like he was watching the whole city outside. He didn’t say shit to me at first. The only thing he did was nod once in acknowledgment. I sat on the edge of the velvet sectional, trying not to let the heat in my chest show through my face but I couldn't stop staring at that bedroom door. Dom had looked different tonight than any other night and I assumed that he was more focused, or it was because of Carmen. The way he moved during that shootout, and the way he protected me and her, it was dangerous, yet so fucking attractive. The weight he carried in his chest must’ve been a lot. However, even though dangerous, he was just as beautiful in that danger. He was a king… The Miami King… and I was staring at that door like I wanted to rip the fucking hinges off and replace her.

“You might wanna cool that look,” Tone said without looking at me.

I blinked twice because he had surely snapped me from my thoughts. “What?”

He finally turned to me, flashing his gold and diamond crusted teeth behind a crooked smirk... but it was one of those smirks that said ‘ fuck around and find out’ if you asked me. “You lookin’ at Dom like you ready to risk it all. Lemme tell you somethin’, princess… Carmen ain't a ‘maybe’… she the one. Even if he just too deep in to say it out loud.”

I looked away, but I just knew my cheeks were beet red right now. “I wasn’t…”

“You was,” he said cutting me off. “Don’t… even try that shit.”

Then he walked toward the kitchen like he hadn’t said nothing at all. The elevator opened with a low chime that briefly overturned the silence of the penthouse. I looked up from the couch and had a feeling I’d see Dique appearing.

O'Shynn stepped out first , and she was a walking baddie simply wrapped in beauty. Her all-black one piece hugged her like it was melted into her skin. Her tactical vest was unzipped, and she wore a Glock on her hip. Her curls were slicked back into a high ponytail and her expression was hard and I didn’t think it was because the blood that had dried on my shoulder. Or the scent of gunpowder still lingering in the air.

Her eyes immediately landed on me with a sudden judgmental look in her ice-cold eyes. She didn’t speak, instead she just scanned me like she was wondering how I’d gotten her brother into this mess when truth is, it was never even me. I never asked to be born into this world, especially around the cartel. Then, she walked past me without a damn word, with her heels clicking hard against the marble as she headed toward the hallway where Dom and Carmen had disappeared although I didn’t know exactly where she was going.

Dique came next , full of charisma and a cocky, street like confidence, like the shootout was just another story in his page of books of his life. He had on a gray hoodie with the Royal “R” stitched across the chest in gold threading, as diamonds danced on his fingers. His energy was loud, but not careless. He read the room and let out a low whistle.

“Yo!” he called out, grinning as he looked around. “I heard ya’ll turned the safe-house into a whole episode of‘Power’and didn’t send me no invite?”

No one laughed, not even him because he was actually dead serious. “What’s good princess,” he winked his eye at me and kept walking. I rolled my eyes and shook my head before popping in my air pods full of irritation and not wanting to hear any of their voices anymore.

Tone gave him a nod from the window, arms still folded across his chest. “They knew we’d be there,” Tone said.

Dique stopped grinning this time. “El Dorado?”

Tone gave a slow nod. “They ain’t flinch. They shot through concrete like they had a guarantee they was gon’ hit somebody.” It then got silent as they read each other without saying words. Tone jerked his chin toward me while speaking with Tone. “That was about Dom.”

Dique cracked his knuckles. “They bold as fuck. They hit a cartel safe-house in broad daylight. Shit feels like a chessboard now fo’ real and I’m ready to blow some shit up. I’m madder than a muhfucka. I got pussy waitin’ on me, I got shit to handle on the West Coast, and my dispensary in Compton still under construction. The last thing I got time for is this shit, and I don’t give a fuck ‘bout no El Dorados… El Tacos… or whateva ya’ll wanna call them muhfuckas. Fuck ‘em.”

Tone nodded. “They ain't tryna kill her… they know Dom won’t let that happen. It’s just like we thought it was… shits loud and clear.”

Dique’s smile faded all the way. He looked at the ground, lips pressed together like he was chewing on the reality. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” he said finally.

“We discussed it already so it ain’t gotta be explained,” Tone replied, dead serious. I knew they were talking in coding because of me but what they failed to realize was I figured it out myself, however I’d still play like I didn’t know anything.

I turned down the music in my air pods even lower and listened without speaking with my hands loosely crossed in my lap.

“They knew the play,” Tone added. “Knew sendin’ a lil sum-sum to Dom would draw out heat and put him dead in the middle.”

Dique rubbed the back of his neck and mumbled. “That old bastard, and we was ridin' for that punk muhfucka.”

They then became silent, and it was the kind of silence that came before someone made a decision they couldn’t take back. Then Dique’s phone started to ring redirecting the energy. He looked down and immediately frowned.

“Man, not right now…” He answered it anyway putting the call on speaker like he regretted it before he even said hello. “Keondra, what?”

Her voice screeched loudly through the phone. “I said what I said, Dominique! You think I’m playin’ with you? I got that baby swabbed and everything. If you don’t take the damn test this week, I swear…”

“Yo,” Dique cut her off, “Why you callin’ me while I’m in the middle of somethin’ real? We over here dodgin’ bullets, Keondra. REAL FUCKIN’ BULLETS.”

“I don’t care if you dodgedGod , you gon’ stop dodgin’ this test! That little girl look just like you!”

Dique didn’t say another word, he just ended the call as silence once again filled the room until Tone coughed into his hand trying to cover a laugh. Dique flopped back onto the sectional shaking his head.

“Goddamn. Why every woman I deal with sound like a lawsuit?” he muttered. “I need a vacation.”

“Man, you need a vasectomy,” Tone said without looking at him. I couldn’t help it, I smirked just a little, but the moment faded fast as reality wrapped itself back around us. El Blanca was up to something, I just didn’t know why and almost didn’t know who to trust but if I wanted to stay alive, I had to play it safe.

Dique sat up with his face serious again. “This ain’t no random shit no more,” he said, finally looking at me. “This is El Blanca makin’ power plays. He don’t like the way we growin’ and Dom’s empire’s too clean… too big and too fuckin’ clean.”

Tone added, “He figured he could run shit… but nah we too sharp. Muhfuckas wanted Dom distracted, and taken out, just not directly.” He was now talking like neither one of them gave a damn anymore. I was under their watch, and they could end me in the snap of a finger. I swallowed hard.

“And I was the distraction,” I said softly.

Dique’s gaze didn’t leave mine. “Exactly.”

That truth hit harder than the bullets that were previously flying and while my uncle loved me, he was also using me. I looked down the hall where Dom’s bedroom door was still closed, where he and Carmen had disappeared the second we walked in. They hadn’t come out yet, but I already knew what was happening behind that door or at least I thought I did, and it wasn’t just strategy or planning going on. It was something deeper to me. Carmen was his balance, and I was the reason the scene tipped tonight, and it sucked.

I immediately went into the restroom feeling as though a panic attack was coming on. Just who does either one of these Cartels think they are using me for their own benefit! I yelled to myself internally. All my life I’d been a fucking pawn and El Blanca, I trusted him, even as iffy as it seemed right now, he had to know what he was doing, whatever it was he was doing. How dare he send me here with strangers for his own self reasons!

I wanted to pull out the phone and call him, but if I did it may have just made things worse and while they may have thought that I was just some spoiled princess, I learned a lot in this world even if I didn’t have to get my hands dirty. The lifestyle didn’t scare me, but the fact that I’d die in the lifestyle without ever being able to freely live my life did.

“Calm down Victoria, get it together.” I mumbled to myself before turning on the water and cupping my hands underneath it to I can wet my face. I took a good look at myself in the mirror and pursed my full lips together while dropping my eyes into tiny slits. I knew had to play chess with them if I was going to get out of here, but I had one question, would I even want to go back to El Blanca after this?

I took me a few minutes to gather my thoughts but when I did, I opened the bathroom door and was greeted by Tone right there waiting with his gun on his hip. He was on me like white on rice at the moments as if he thought I were up to something.

“Everything cool princess?” He quizzed in a warning yet, sarcastic tone. I rolled my eyes and simply stepped back around him to head back to the living room and wait for Dom to show face again. I was still wearing my robe with my gown underneath and streaks of blood and dirt were still on it. I wanted to shower and change, but not with Tone down my back and not just yet. They thought that I was just some spoiled princess who didn’t know how to defend myself but that was far from the truth. I simply didn’t feel like I ever wanted to get my hands dirty, and I never had to. I may not have been as skilled, but El Blanca made sure that I knew things.

As I walked back out, my mind was roaming, and I thought back to what it was like back in Mexico as little girl wanting to be free from the watch of the Cartel. El Blanca always showered me with gifts and luxury to keep me from feeling like a prisoner, but I wanted normalcy. To El Blanca I was the forbidden fruit and everyone knew it. For a long time, I never understood exactly what happened to my padre until I made a big fuss when I reached high school age about why I couldn’t be normal and go out with friends without being watched by the cartel. It was the day El Blanca allowed me to go out and I was caught making out with a boy. They beat him badly and forced me back home. When he finally calmed down, he explained why he never allowed me to be normal. He also explained why I didn’t have a mother… it was because she died in the middle of a cartel war a few months after I was born. I was doomed from the beginning if you asked me. I remembered like it was yesterday the day El Blanca broke it all down, because that same day, I experienced being caught in the middle of my first cartel war as we were shot at on the way home.

People thought that legacy meant power, money, and control but when your name is whispered in cartel circles with fear behind it, that shit didn’t feel like power. It felt like a target because I wasn’t just blood to El Blanca. I was his legacy; my father, Mateo Delgado, was one who lurked in the shadows with a crown, and he was also feared and respected. He hated being equal or compared to anyone and he didn’t mind walking through fire like it owed him some kind of favors but even the devil had to watch his back.

They caught him in a church and killed him execution style in the knees first, the chest second, and the head last. El Blanca said the hit was too clean and it had no trace and only one way that could happen to a man like my padre had to be an inside job. After that, I became a secret and locked away in a mansion silenced, watched by men who didn’t speak and didn’t smile at me. My toys were Berettas and blade trainings. My lessons were of loyalty and betrayal and for a while, I obeyed until I turned sixteen and started craving to be a fucking human.

“ I just want to go out like a normal girl!”I snapped one afternoon, slamming my palms on the heavy oak table where El Blanca was drinking coffee like nothing I said ever mattered.

He slowly looked up with a stern look on his face. “Normal?”he repeated, in a calm voice laced with a hiss.“What the fuck is normal when your blood started a war, mija?”

“I don’t care about the war,” I hissed.“I just want to go out. I want to laugh and dance with my friends and feel something that doesn’t feel like fear or control for once.”

He set his tiny white cup down gently and then leaned back in his chair as that silver streak in his beard caught the light and his cold eyes locked onto mine like I was one of his enemies and the princess all at once. “You think I enjoy this shit?” he replied. “You think I wanted to raise you behind bulletproof glass with men trained to kill on command?”

“Then let me live!”I yelled. I didn’t mean to, because I would never disrespect El Blanca, but I simply couldn’t take it anymore.

The silence between us was loud and the look in his eyes was full of doubt. I knew he was afraid to let me out of his sight, but he finally nodded and agreed. It was almost like he knew I’d ruin this. “One night,”he said.“With my men shadowing you. If you step out of line, it’s over.”

I believed him, but that still didn’t stop me from stepping out of line. If I was going to get any kind of freedom, I was going to enjoy it because I didn’t know when the next time would be. I’d been partying with my friends for the most part of the night as they snuck me little shots of Tequila at the party. I knew the Cartel was around although they weren’t in eyes view, I just knew they were in the building with me. I was having the time of my life and must’ve had too many shots because my head started spinning, which led my friends to walk me into the open restroom.

“Victoria,” my friend Catalina hissed as she sat me on the toilet and splattered water on my bare face. “You have to get it together Chica, before they make a call to your uncle. We can’t stay in here long.”

I could feel the tears welling in my eyes from depression of just wanting to me normal. For a brief second, I wished that I could get away from El Blanca. “I don’t care if they see anything Catalina, maybe my uncle will realize I’m only human.”

Catalina was nervous and I could see it inside of her deep brown eyes. She ran her fingers through her curly hair and sighed in frustration. Before she could say anything else, one of our guy friends, Marco peek his head around the door.

“Mamacita, you can’t stay in here when the party is still going on,” he said wearing a smile on his face, which showed his deep dimples. Marco was so beautiful to me with his light butterscotch skin tone and curly hair that he wore into a low ponytail. He was one of the boys that most girls wanted, including me.

I reached out for him to come inside, and when he did, the Tequila truly took over when I wrapped my arms around his neck and began to kiss him even catching him off guard himself. Marco didn’t hesitate to loop his arms around my lower back and stick his tongue in my mouth. His tongue tasted like the Fire Ball he’d been drinking all night.

Catalina gasped with horror in her eyes for fear that we may get caught. “Victoria, that’s enough!” She yelled while peeking her head around the door checking the hall to see if anyone was coming, but it was too late because they were already there, and I was busted as I moved recklessly like I wasn’t born cursed. By the time I was dragged home, Marco had been stomped out so bad he couldn’t even open one of his eyes. I was horrified as I cried and tried to stop it, but I was no challenge for El Blanca’s men as they lift me up and drag me out of the place.

I stormed into the study as my tears mixed with my eyeliner in a rage I’d never felt before. “You ruined his life El Blanca!”

El Blanca was sitting at his desk while slowly turning the ring on his pinky finger, the same ring that most of the men in the family had diamond encrusted with the onyx and gold. “I saved yours,”he said in a calm tone.

I raised a brow. “You call that saving?! You call this protection?! I can’t breathe! I don’t have a mother, I don’t have a life, I don’t have shit!”

When he stood up, I was prepared for him to slap me and teach me a good lesson, especially when he came from around the desk with slow and heavy steps. The fear in my heart was evident, but I didn’t care. He didn’t stop until we were eye to eye.

“You wanna know why you don’t have a mother?” he growled in a deadly tone. “She was murdered in a cartel war. She was collateral, and her body was found next to yours in a burning SUV when you were four months old. The only reason you’re still here is because the bullet meant for your head missed.”

His words made my knees buckle and sent chills down my spine, but I didn’t fall because I just couldn’t show that level of weakness.

“You want to be normal? You think you were born for prom dresses and boys with cologne while making out in an open bano? No, you were born for this…” he groaned tapping my chest with two fingers.“You were born for survival.”

I wanted to scream and break everything in the fucking office, but I didn’t, because I knew I’d never win. I just simply fell back and decided it was no use. He didn’t care about my tears anyway because he was too tough to try and understand me. Instead of continuing, I curled up on the couch and waited until he was finished for the night.

That same night, on the way home from his compound we got lit up as two SUVs boxed us in, and gunfire erupted using us as a target practice. I heard the sound of glass shattering, and metal twisting while one of El Blanca’s died next to me as guts poured from his skull. I didn’t cry, nor did I scream because I was in complete shock. Instead, I just crawled across the crimson blood-streaked seats of the Escalade and grabbed the pistol off of the dead guy’s hip and held it in both hands even though it was too heavy for me. I didn’t know what I would do with it, I just knew I needed it just in case and when I looked up, El Blanca was calm and watching me from across the seat.

“Now,”he said, with a little blood dripping from his lip,“you understand.”

I blinked back the tears and slowly nodded my head. I followed his lead ever since and never questioned him again.

“You want some water? Tone asked snapping me from my thoughts. I shook my head ‘no’ although my throat was as dry as cotton. I couldn’t stop thinking about my uncle. I had never questioned him ever again up until now. Did I truly want to go back? I simply did not want to. I wanted freedom here in Miami and if I could get close to Dom, he could be the man that I need in my life and live happily ever after. I just had to be smart about it.