Page 28 of Dom 4
“Aight,” I replied. “I don’t got time to be dancin’ around if you lying. You had your people out today?”
“Yeah,” he shook his head. “My own security which was on the inside with me.” He pointed to the guard who’d been watching the hall. “He was with me. You can ask him.”
Tone looked him over, then told the security next. Then gave us the same look that Stone had with no change in his expression or body language. I let the silence linger long enough for shit to sink in. “I’m not sayin’ you’re clean and I’m not sayin’ you’re guilty. I’m sayin’ you were in the wrong place at the wrong time and that puts you under my eye now. If anything, else moves funny, you gon’ tell us everything you know.”
Malik nodded his head. “Understood,” he said. “I don’t hide shit from honest men.”
Either way, we were in a place that required more watching now than a polite conversation. I continued to watch his posture through the glass for a second where the ocean met the sky and then I looked back down at him and told him what he needed to hear without sounding like I was preaching because I wasn’t no fucking pastor and far from it.
“If somebody tries to make your life drama, you tell us first. You feel me?”
He nodded. “I hear you.”
We left the security with orders and phone numbers. Tone and I walked back to the elevator and the start of the ride downfelt like the beginning of something we just didn’t know what. After we retrieved the ride, the Maybach slid back into traffic and Tone drove like he knew every curve and backstreet because he did. I lit a joint and barely rolled the window down, allowing the smoke to escape. Stone looked clean in front of me, but it was about what he did after the fact because in our world, respect didn’t equal innocence, it really just meant somebody knew how to be in a room with the right people.
We were still rolling through the streets when Tone’s phone rang. He answered on the first ring, and the way his voice dropped told me everything before I even heard her. Shona’s breaths were uneven like every inhale and exhale she was fighting for her life. She wasn’t dramatic so if she sounded like that pain was bringing something out of her and this shit was real.
“How long has it been doing that?” Tone asked her, already rubbing his chest with his palm, like he was trying to keep his own nerves steady. “Okay, sit down. I’m coming and don’t be walking around. Just wait for me, I’m coming right now.”
He hung up and rested the phone against his knee for a second as he clenched his jaws as his chest rose and fell like he was trying to control himself. “She in it, Dom. I gotta get home now.”
I didn’t respond because there wasn’t shit to say. Instead, he pulled over and we switched spots. As soon as I started driving, I made the next lane open by force, and we headed toward their house. The Miami streets looked blurry as we passed by them and although it wasn’t my baby, Tone was like my brother, my right-hand man, and like I promised I would, I had to be in this shit with him.
When we turned onto the block, she was already outside waiting. Shona was gripping the porch railing with both hands like the only thing keeping her upright was the rail itself. Herplaits were thrown up messy bun, and she wore one of Tone’s big t-shirts that reached the middle of her thigh. Her belly was sitting low but big and looked like she was about to pop as sweat perspired on her forehead. I could see all over her face she was fighting the pain.
Tone got out first jogging. “I’m here baby, I’m here, come on. Relax.”
She cut him off and didn’t even lift her head all the way up. “If you tell me to relax, again I’ll knock your teeth out your mouth Tone... it’s because of you I’m in this pain.”
He froze and shut the fuck up quick and Tone didn’t bite his tongue for nobody but when Shona spoke considering the circumstances, he listened. I respected it. Before we could get under her arms to help her walk, another contraction hit her hard enough to cause a deep moan almost like a scream that didn’t even sound like her. She stopped, bent forward and dug into that railing like she wanted to break it in half.
“Okay, okay, come on, I got you,” Tone repeated, but softer this time. He put his arm around her back, and I got the other side letting her lean her weight between us both. We took the steps slow. Then out of nowhere her water broke and a little splash hit the concrete loud enough to hear, and Tone jumped back like the shit had exploded.
“Dom! Her water…”
“I see it,” I said. I thought for a second, which I probably shouldn’t have, before speaking. “She gotta hold the baby in though. We don’t know how to deliver no baby.”
She slowly lifted her head and stared at me like she wanted to throw something at me. “You want me to hold what exactly?”
I shook my head trying to remain calm. This shit was way different than shedding blood in the streets. “I’m just sayin’ we don’t have the skill set required.” I told her in a serious tone.Meanwhile Tone was trying not to laugh or panic, but the look on his face showed he was failing.
She pointed at the car. “Drive the car, Dominic.”
That was the order, and I took it because I wasn’t arguing with a pregnant woman in labor, I may have been the King but right now this was her show. We got her into the backseat, and Tone slid in behind her and she grabbed his hand with so much force his knuckles turned white, but he didn’t say a word. He just leaned his forehead up against hers letting her know he wasn’t going nowhere and he was in it with her.
I pulled the Maybach onto the road and didn’t look at the speedometer while driving because traffic wasn’t real to me anyway and I knew how to maneuver forcing space to open because I needed it to. Tone was in the back on speakerphone with her doctor, stumbling over instructions while trying not to pass out.
“Yes, her water broke,” he said. “No, we didn’t time nothing, she grabbed my whole damn soul five minutes ago… yeah, we on the way we almost there, just be ready.”
Shona held onto Tone like she was drowning and he was the air she needed. She cursed him at him every time a contraction hit and then apologized right after… then she cried, then threatened him, then cried again; this shit was crazy. Tone held it down though without taking it personal. That alone told me more about how deep he was in this than anything he ever said out loud.
We hit the ER entrance, and the shadow detail was already there clearing the walkway and nurses came out with a wheelchair. Tone picked her up carefully even though his hands were shaking and lowered her into the seat. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him down close.
“Don’t leave me.”
His voice cracked but he didn’t let it show on his face. I had never heard Tone’s voice crack prior to this. This was the toughest man I knew. “I’m not goin’ nowhere. I’m right here baby. I got you.”
They rolled her inside and the hospital doors closed behind them. Then the quietness hit me again because this was real. We went from hustling, robbing, building empires, filthy rich, and now having babies and anything we did would affect them too. Tone had been in shootouts with me, Tone had buried his own brother, Tone had put men in the ground without losing sleep behind it, but this was different because it had his heart on the line and it made sense why men like us fear love more than death.
