Page 24 of DOM: The Miami King

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 baño? No, you were born for this…”he groaned tapping my chest with two fingers.“You were born for survival.”

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