High Risk Watchlist
Linked: R.E. Logistics, Royal Auto Holdings, Viper Transport Solutions
Alias: Emberline
Estimated Street Value: $47M
Transported via: Custom-modified luxury imports.
I sighed and took a deep breath scrolling through bills of shipping records, and names in code. Then I sat up with my eyes deep on the screen. I clenched my jaws as I glared at images loading of the containers arriving through the Port of Miami, labeled luxury Bugattis’, Bentleys, and Maybachs’. The cars were straight up mules in luxury form instead of people.
On the inside, they were full of kilos and not just dope. It was weapons, flash drives, and untraceable currency. One container even had‘encrypted cartel commdevices’inside the wheels. The paperwork traced back to shell corps in Dubai, Singapore, and Colombia. Yeah, shit may have been clean on the surface, but the money trail always leaked when you knew where to look. I thought that was it, but I was wrong, so I kept going and that’s when I saw it:
Legal Advisory Contact: Carmen Royal – Southern Coast Legal Group.
Signature Date: March 3rd, 2023
My stomach twisted in knots because I never signed that shit. I pulled up the document and blankly stared real hard looking at the perfect copy of my signature with my firm’s seal on it. However, I’d never touched that file. Someone indeed forged it and used my fucking name to shield a multi-million-dollar trafficking ring and that was federal. I pulled out my phone and dialed a burner line I kept locked in my office safe about to use a number I hadn’t used in over a year.
“Hello?” a voice answered on the second ring.
“It’s me.”
“Damn, Carmen,” the voice said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you unless I got caught.” Rome was one of my ruthless clients and had his hands into everything.
I ignored everything else he said and got straight to the point. “You still got access to Port of Miami intake logs?”
He paused as though he had to think about it first. “For you? Yeah. What’s the name?”
“Emberline… and check cross-traffic from R.E. Logistics and a Dubai-based corporation called Orion Vale Holdings. Look for anything registered under my firm.”
“Shit… that’s heavy as fuck, but I got you.”
“You got an hour. Text me, don’t send me shit on email.”
“I ain’t dumb.”
“Just making sure you haven’t let the dust settle to your ass. Good to know.”
I ended the call, and I sat back in my chair, with my heart pounding. The silence in my office didn’t make my loud ass mind any better because this shit was killing me. Dom always said I didn’t need to know everything and now, I knew why. While I knew most of it, it was different seeing it. True enough he was protecting me, but he was alsousing me although this was what I signed up for the minute I married him for papers. It seemed like it took an eternity but an hour later, my burner buzzed.
Message:Emberline was flagged again 2 weeks ago for a Lambo shipment with five containers. One held unmarked hardware flagged by ICE. The signature listed as yours. CBP noticed but hasn’t moved yet, it’s a quiet hold. Orion Vale = shell. It bounced through a tech group with cartel ties. This is about to go fed and you need to get ahead of it.
I sat breathless and I didn’t even feel the tears when they started falling. I wasn’t crying for me. Hell, I was crying for the girl who knew love meant protection, and I loved the fuck out of Dom. I removed the flash drive, and had my main phone on do-not-disturb, with my gun in my lap. Damn right I was paranoid, but paranoia is how you survived sometimes.
I didn’t walk into this life Dom brought me into blind, hell, Ichoseit. From the moment I stepped into his world, I knew what Royal Enterprises would eventually become, and it really was that big. I knew about the luxury dealerships, the offshore accounts, the "import-export" routes that were just fancy talk for global trafficking. Hell, I'd seen the books, and I’d buried evidence before. I’d rewritten the law on paper with my own two hands, which meant I wasn’t a saint either.
Dom didn’t just bring me in because he truly saw a pretty girl he felt sorry for, he brought me in because heneededsomeone with brains and a backbone to cover the family when the streets turned cold. He said it the night I signed the NDA and kissed me on the forehead after.“You ain’t just my woman now, you my safety net. When this empire leans, you hold the muhfuckin’ ground steady.”
So, I did… but tonight the ground wasshifting fast as hell.The customs file didn’t scare me because it was illegal, the shit scared me because it had my name forged on it and if they caught it, I wasn’t just the attorney anymore. I’d be thefucking fall girl.Right about now, I had my own options. I could lawyer up and flip the script. Hell, I could even distance myself from the Royals, but I’d never been built like that. If they go down, I go downwiththem and that’s the only way I saw it because family stuck together at all times.
I poured myself a glass of rum and took it down instantly before pouring a second one that was heavier and stronger than the first. The burning in my chest made me quiver. I took a deep breath and rushed home after locking up. Once in my own sanctuary, I stared out at Brickell from my penthouse, the one Dom put me in that was clearly separate from his. It wasn’t shit but a pretty box to keep me safe, quiet, and comfortable but I was never the quiet type. The flash drive was still in my thoughts. That file wasn’t just a red flag. No, I knew better than that. It was the Feds’ first knock. It was the calm before the storm, and I could feel it.
I grabbed my laptop again, opened a private server link, and called up my internal dossier on Royal Enterprises which was the onethat only Ihad access to. Which gave me ties to El Blanca through dummy logistics companies as well as key port entry data from Cartagena, Rotterdam, and Dubai too. I had multiple aliases linked to single IPs. I may not have built the empire but I damn sure structured the legal foundation that let it stand this far without crumbling. Now I was finally seeing the cracks. Suddenly, a name lit up in my secured message feed.‘R.Blanco.’I knew that wasn’t nobody but one of El Blanca’s U.S. liaisons. A fucking low-level lawyer with high-level reach. Just as I sucked my teeth, my burner phone buzzed with a message: They’re looking into Emberline. One of the containers was flagged. Victoria’s presence complicates things.
I didn’t respond because I needed to breathe. I cringed at Victoria’s name. The fucking niece Dom was sworn to protect. The same woman now walking freely in Dom’s shadow, catching his glances while I was pushed to the sidelines and kept in a penthouse across the water like a liability instead of the one whose been cleaning up after every mess. However, none of that changed what I was about to do because my dearest husband prepared me for this. The fake IDs, the burner phones, the encrypted contracts… was just the beginning. I knew how to move silently and more importantly, I knew how to protect what mattered, even if I lost everything behind it.
Two hours later, it was a little after 2:00 AM when I arrived at my private downtown storage lockerunit that I kept under a different name that not even Dom knew about. Inside it was years of files, photos, burner drives, contingency plans, and a secure laptop no one could trace. I keyed in the code, slid open the steel door, and sat down in the folding chair across from a banged-up table.