Page 9 of Dom 4
I had promised him I’d rest, but business didn’t take naps and neither did the law. My phone had been vibrating since sunrise, and I ignored every call because I wanted to focus on my appointment. One of my oldest clients, Trent “Kilo” Watkins had called twice, and left one voicemail, as well as sent a message through his cousin saying it was urgent with a slew of emails as well. Apparently, he had a new murder attached to an ongoing Rico. He was buried under charges and wantedme.
By the time I stepped into the elevator and hit the button for the garage, I’d already shifted back into lawyer mode. The partof me that handled chaos better than anything else. My driver opened the door of the black BMW, and I slid in. The city was awake now looking like glitter bouncing off damn near every window around me. Miami looked too pretty for the kind of dirt it hid behind it, but if you knew, you knew and most tourist didn’t that’s why they couldn’t stay away. The ride was smooth until we hit Biscayne and that’s when I noticed something strange.
People were staring and it wasn’t the usual kind of stares either. These were the kind that followed me even after the light changed and now people were lifting their phones, being weird in my opinion. Someone yelled, “Congratulations!” from across the street.
I frowned. “What the hell?”
When we reached my office building, the front desk girl, Tasha, practically tripped trying to buzz me in. “Ms. Royal! Oh my God, congratulations!”
I blinked a few times, tightening my grip on my bag. “Thanks, but… what exactly are we congratulating?”
She grinned, pulled out her phone, and turned the screen around. “It’s everywhere.”
The headline hit me in my chest:“Criminal Defense Powerhouse Pregnant by Alleged Kingpin Husband. Miami’s Royal Family Expands.”
Below it, there was that photo of me and Dom leaving the doctor’s office earlier with me holding the sonogram and him with that look on his face that said fuck around and find out. His arm was around me, his security was blurred out in the background, and paparazzi flashes caught the perfect moment to snap photos. I didn’t think they would actually sale the shit this quick.
I stared at the screen as heat built up in my face. “You gotta be kidding me.”
Tasha laughed nervously. “Girl, you’re trending. They’re calling y’all Miami royalty for real now.”
“Of course they are,” I mumbled, pushing past her toward the elevator.
Inside my office, one of my assistants, Troya, was already pacing. “Carmen, don’t be mad, but Channel 7 called for a statement. Then theHeraldemailed asking for an interview about you and Dom’s… uh, partnership.”
I dropped my purse on the desk and exhaled. “Partnership? That’s what they’re calling it now?”
She nodded. “They used the wordempiretoo.”
“Figures.” I walked over to the blinds, opening them just enough to see the streets below. Reporters had already started gathering out front, with cameras aimed toward the door like they were vampires thirsting for blood.
It wasn’t that our marriage was a secret because Dom never hid me, although it was technically arranged, we built our world carefully, keeping certain parts private. People whispered, of course, because that’s just how people were. They speculated but this… this was confirmation splashed across every feed and damn headline.
Now the world knew exactly who Mrs. Royal was. My phone vibrated again with group chat notifications from other lawyers, colleagues, even prosecutors. Some texts were genuine congratulations and others were curiosity and shade:
You really married him?
Carmen, the Feds are going be watching that nursery.
Congratulations… I think?
I closed my eyes and exhaled. “This is exactly why I didn’t want to be famous,” I said under my breath.
Troya chuckled from the doorway. “It’s not fame, Carmen. It’s power and people don’t know how to act when a woman owns both.”
I smirked a little at that because she wasn’t wrong. Still, power came with a spotlight, and spotlights burned hot sometimes. I slipped off my blazer and sat behind my desk. My mind was already running through crisis management as far as what needed to be locked down, which files to move offline, which names to scrub from my active client logs. The firm had been built on strategy and silence, and I wasn’t about to let a headline undo that.
“Pull everything sensitive from the system,” I told Troya. “Anything that connects to Royal Enterprises or the West Palm cases, take it offline. Print backups and put them in the safe.”
She nodded fast and hurried out. I glanced back down at the tablet on my desk. The article headline was still glaring back at me, bold and somewhat messy, next to that picture of me and Dom. The comments were already wild and half gossip, half envy:
She knew what she was doing marrying him.
Power couple goals.
She’s in too deep.
That’s real love right there.
