Page 31 of DOM: The Miami King

By the time I got back to the penthouse, shit was quiet in that eerie kind of way like how it got when everybody who mattered was either dead, sleep, or plottin’ on some shit. I stepped out the elevator, feelin’ the weight of the night sittin’ heavy on my shoulders per usual but it was small to a giant. My Glock was secured on my waist and all I needed was for my people to hit me up and let me know the first strike on El Blanca was done. Although I’d showered earlier, I could still smell the strong stench of gunpowder in my nostrils. Tone was by the window when I walked in. When he saw me, he nodded his head and dapped me up.

“You good?” he asked.

“Shit, as long as I’m still breathin’, I’m still good.” I replied removin’ my boots sittin’ them on the custom shoe rack by the front entryway while keepin’ my guns on me. Tone gave a small nod, but I knew he was tired ‘cause I saw it all in his face and he’d been puttin’ in work nonstop. Plus, I knew he was ready to get home to his girl.

“You can slide if you ready,” I told him. “Stretch ya legs, go home. Rico’s outside the door so he ain’t lettin’ shit happen.”

Tone hesitated for half a second. He hated leavin’ my side without knowin’ I was truly gon’ be good. That’s why I’d lay everything on the line and die for Tone, ‘cause he would do the same for me and those kinds of people were hard to come by. “You sure?”

I nodded my head and showed a half grin. “I ain’t gotta repeat myself, you wanna go home or not?” I asked slightly cockin’ my head to the side. I knew Tone though, and somethin’ was on his mind. I felt myself becoming perplexed again ‘cause I didn’t want to hear no bad news. I raised a brow. “Yo, Tone, I know you, if you got somethin’ you wanna say, spit it out, we brothers.”

“Yo,” he said. “If you got a second, I do need to holla at you.”

I raised a brow ‘cause although I asked, I didn’t expect him to really want to talk. Tone never asked for time because he always just handled shit and everyone who knew Tone knew this. He was one of the ones who handled shit quietly and efficiently even in his personal life. He did shit with no questions and no explanations. We stepped out onto the balcony allowing the skyline to shimmer above us while the streets buzzed below us. The city lights were flickering like stars but no matter the beauty of Miami, we knew the truth.

Tone lit a weed tweaked Black & Mild, took a long drag, and exhaled like he was tryin’ to let somethin’ off his chest. “She four months,” he said.

I squinted with an eyebrow rose while slightly runnin’ my hand over my tapered low-cut beard. “Who?”

He glanced sideways like I should’ve known who, but hell I couldn’t keep tabs on the next man’s dick. I didn’t know what they did with that shit when they wasn’t in the field. “Shona,” he informed.

I exhaled when he said her name. Shona and Tone had been together for the past five years. I leaned against the rail, letting it click in, but at least she wasn’t a random like that shit Dique had goin’ on. “Damn.” I sighed surprised that he held it in this long.

He slowly nodded his head. “Yep, I ain’t plan it. It was a drunk night, and real quick too. She wasn’t on nothin’ and I ain't ask questions ‘cause I mean, shit that’s my girl. It just… happened.” He explained, but he really didn’t have to. I stayed quiet in deep thought thinkin’ bout how I’d slid in Carmen raw the last three times we had sex. Tone wasn’t a reckless dude, but life in this world wasn’t much room for perfect timings.

“You keepin’ it?” I asked.

He laughed real dry and sarcastic. “Man, I ain’t no debate, bruh. She already rubbin' her belly like it’s comin’ now and shit… women be fifteen seconds pregnant and delusional as fuck.” He then got quiet again before he continued in a low tone. “Thing is, I’m scared Dom, and it ain’t ‘cause I don’t want the baby… it’s ‘cause I don’t know if I’m gon’ be around to see it grow.”

I looked at him, like really looked and understood ‘cause I felt the same exact way. Tone was the same dude who ripped a dude’s jaw off with a pipe in Atlanta, and who never flinched when the bullets flew… now looked like he’d just been hit with the one thing he couldn’t fight and that was fatherhood. He shook his head. “I don’t know if I’m built for this. I ain’t had no father and my moms’ bounced. The only blueprint I had was the streets.” Then he turned to me. “But if somethin’ happens to me… I need you to step in Dom.”

Tone was tryin’ to finally see the King fold; he had to be with this shit. I blinked a few times as I hit my own joint. “Say what?”

“You heard me… be the godfather. I trust you and ain’t nobody else I’d even think about askin’.”

His words were echoing through my mind. That shit hit different, and I wasn’t the sentimental type at all; far from it. I ain’t think about family outside of the ones already in the trenches with me. But that… that was real. “You sure?” I asked, in a tone that may have been little rougher than I meant it to be.

Tone nodded once. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d be six feet under or in a cell. I told you a million times, man you a mastermind. Yeah, I saved yo’ ass but you saved me too. We been through war together and I trust you with my life... now I’m trustin’ you with somethin’ even bigger. My fuckin’ seed.”

I looked out at the city again, breathin’ real slow as I thought about it. “Alright,” I agreed. “I got you and I’ma take my role serious too… you know that.”

The new expression on his face was one of relief. It was fucked up that he even had to think that far ahead of possibly not seein’ his child grow ‘cause of the underworld, but I felt him. He dapped me up hard and shook my hand with a grip that had power in it, just grateful. Then I asked what I’d been wonderin’ since he said it. “You want out? If you do, I’ll respect it. I’ll cover you… I’ll let you out.”

Tone’s laugh was short but deep. “Nah. I ain’t built for no nine-to-five. You my brother, Dom. If I leave now, who got your back when the snakes come?”

I nodded, with my jaws tight. “You already know I’d do the same.”

We stood in silence, with our thoughts lingerin’ around us. We were two men who’d been through too much to be talkin’ all soft, but who also knew the bond was bigger than words at the same time.

He then dapped me up. “Keep ya head on a swivel,” he said.

“Always.” I replied followin’ him back inside.

Soon as he left, it was quiet again, but since Victoria was around, it wasn’t empty. I walked towards the kitchen and saw her. She was leaned against the counter, half-turned, holdin’ a glass filled with Remy like she wasn’t in the middle of somebody else’s kitchen. Like the penthouse, the hits, the surveillance, and none of that other shit touched her ass.

She was barefoot, wearin’ a soft gray two-piece lounge set with thin long-sleeves, and a ribbed material that hugged her arms and sat just right on her waist. Her shorts were high cut, but they wasn’t disrespectful, they showed enough thigh to remind you she was grown. It wasn’t flashy or doin’ too much. She was just effortlessly feminine, and her scent was the shit. She had the kitchen smellin’ like warm vanilla and maybe a lil honey too. It lingered in the air, and it was sweet, not too loud like that cheap perfume some females drowned themselves in. Her shit was like a skin scent that I probably ignored before. It was the kind of scent that made a man want to lean in closer without realizin’ it.

She ain’t say nothin’ at first, she just stood there, with her brows slightly furrowed like she was lost in thought. One of her legs crossed in front of the other and she shifted her weight which cocked one hip to the side, but her posture was still solid. One look at her ass and she looked peaceful, like she was secretly bad and quiet. Things around us had been movin’ too fast but I was readin’ her ass like a book right now. El Blanca had her spoiled and put up, but I knew that didn’t come without teachin’ her shit. I hated how she caused a twitch in my dick and not because she was givin’ me a look, not even because she was flirtin’ or pushin’ up whenever she could, it wasn’t because she wasn’t even when she wanted to. Right now, she was just… there with an energy that was and foreign, yet familiar all at once and that’s what made her desirable.

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