Page 2 of DOM: The Miami King

She wasn’t a punk at all. Hell nah, she moved like somebody who’d been through war and came out wearin’ perfume. She ain't have to raise her voice to demand respect. Every step she took was deliberate and even graceful. But those deep, dark eyes of hers never told a lie. Instead, they told tough stories about pain and survival. One thing I knew, wasn’t no fake shit in her, she’s real.

We ain’t talk much at first, it was just enough to keep the tension from crackin’ the walls. I’d toss her little pieces of conversation like bait, tryin’ to see how she’d move. Instead, she didn’t take the bait like some scared ass lil girl. She flipped that shit and spun it back at me. She was smart as hell which is why I invested in her career in law. She was training to be a criminal attorney now, for the family, forus. But every time I looked at her, I can’t lie... the lines looked blurry. She was sharp, quiet, and loyal. Most definitely the type of woman who’ll bring you lunch and hide your gun in her purse when the Feds show up.

She was also calm, like I could be talkin’ cartel shit, street bloodshed, money runnin’ hot, and she’d just blink slow takin’ it all in. At some point, I started testin’ her, seein’ how far I could go. I told her about my world, and not everything, but enough to scare a normal bitch off. Carmen didn’t flinch nor did she beg me to stop. She just asked real questions. Shit that made me pause and look at her like…who the fuck is this broad?

Next thing I know, I’m talkin’ to her and like really-really talkin’ about the streets, my past, the violence, the betrayals, and my siblings and the wars we fought to get here. Along with the people we buried, again, she just listened and didn't interrupt, nor did she pity me either. She understood, not just heard, she actually “understood” me. Like she had her own scars that matched mine, just in different places.

One night, we cracked open a bottle of wine. That real expensive shit I usually saved for closin' deals. I was loose enough to let some of the pain slip through and told her about the hood, how it raised me, broke me, and made me. I told her how loyalty and death sometimes felt like the same damn thing, again she understood then she told me her own story about Trinidad and the struggle. She told me how she crossed oceans lookin’ for more, only to be met with ICE, fake promises, and the fear of being shipped back like the fuckin’ cargo. Even through all of that she never begged, she survived. It gave me more of an understanding of where that quiet strength of hers came from. Since then, shit changed between us.

We stopped talkin’ with our mouths and started talkin’ with comfortable silence. You know, the kind you sit in without feelin’ like you gotta fill the space. We’d chill, just vibin’, with her readin’, me sippin’, and the city buzzin’ outside but feelin’ miles away. I started lookin' forward to seein’ her and hearing her voice and lil smart ass remarks, or the way she side-eyed me when I said somethin’ slick. I loved when she’d hum songs from back home when she thought I wasn’t payin’ attention. Only in her late twenties with an old soul.

I wasn’t supposed toever feelnothin’ for Carmen although she was beautiful and wasn’t shit not to love. This was supposed to be a contract. Straight up cold, but every day, she made it harder to stay numb. I caught myself noticing little things like how she touched that gold cross ‘round her neck when she was deep in thought. How she always knew when I needed space and when I didn’t. She wasn’t scared of me and that alone was rare. Then, that one night, we reached for the same bottle at the same time, and our hands brushed across each other. It was a simple touch that shouldn’t have meant shit, but it hit like electricity and our eyes locked in on each other.

That right there was the moment I knew I was fucked. I started catchin’ feelings. Real fuckin’ feelings and deep dangerous ones too. However, I couldn’t tell her that shit because that wasn’t supposed to exist in my world. One rainy afternoon, the whole city cried underneath thunder and dark clouds, and we was sittin’ on the balcony.

"You remember the first time we met?" I asked her.

“Course I do, you were cocky as hell and thought I was gon’ fall for your little smirk.”

I chuckled. “Youdid.”

“Eventually,” she teased pushing one of her thick coils behind her ear. Then she got serious. “But only ‘cause you never made me beg. You just... showed up.”

There was that comfortable silence again. The kind of silence where every word meant more than it sounded. I stared at her with that hard look in my eyes. “You ain’t never had to beg with me, and you never will.”

She looked up, with a soft look in her eyes. “I want more Dom,” she whispered.

“I know.” I admitted.

“I don’t just wanna be your wife on paper. I want to be part of your world, Dom and I mean all of it. The ugly, the dirty, the dark. I wantin,” she sighed.

I knew Carmen enough to know exactly what she was saying. She was indeed a part of my world. The ugly, the dirty, and the dark, but she would never truly feel like it until she could have my heart too. That scared me more than bullets ever have. But I didn’t say ‘no’. I gently grabbed her hand and stared out into the storm while smoking my blunt.

Till this very day, even when I showed Carmen any type of affection, she ain't jump into my arms or cry no soft ass tears. She always looked at me real calm and reminded me that she knew I was afraid of love and so was she. Life was messy, and complicated, and we could both get hurt. But she was always willin' to try and risk everything with me and that’s all I needed to hear. The life we lived was full of blood, bills, secrets and survival. Somehow, in all the chaos, I found something real with her. I couldn’t allow her to be my weakness. I needed her to be my anchor and think…. and she knew I’d kill to protect that.

The second my phone started buzzing my eyes shot to the screen seeing no caller ID flashing across the screen, and it’s only one person ever to hit my line like he was a fuckin’ ghost, with no trace and no mistakes. ‘El Blanca.’

When that name popped up on my screen, I sat up straight ‘cause that's the kinda man you didn’t make wait, especially when it came to business. That voice alone would have grown men pissin’ on themselves in tailored suits, not me though, I wasn’t nobody’s bitch. El Blanca ran a Cartel family older than countries, and meaner than a muhfucka. I knew killers, but El Blanca… he built them muhfuckas’.

I picked up with no hesitation. “El Blanca.”

“You’re still breathing,” he said, in his smooth voice. “Good. I need a favor.”

I grabbed the lighter, sparked the blunt again, and let the smoke roll out slow. “El Blanca don’t ask for favors,” I replied. “So, let’s cut the bullshit. What you need?”

“My niece, Victoria.”

I stop mid-pull and let the silence linger between us. “TheVictoria?” I asked. “The one y’all keep locked tighter than Fort Knox? That Victoria?”

“She’s in Miami,” he said, calm as ever. “I want her watched and protected.”

“Why Miami?” I questioned, already knowin' this wasn’t no social visit.

“El Dorado cartel got wind she might’ve been the one who identified the snitch in Bogota. That whole warehouse that got lit up… the one with six of their men inside… they think she knew and whispered it to me, but she couldn’t have known… it’s a clear case of mistaken identity or they are using that as an excuse to initiate a war that they want me to start first. Now they want her dead for nothing at all. Everyone wants the heaviest balls.”

I exhaled, slow and tight. That ain’t just bad blood in my books. Sounded more like war talk. “And you sendin’ herhere?”

“She needs to disappear in plain sight,” he said making it clear. “And I trust you.”

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