Page 23 of DOM: The Miami King

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.

---