By the time we got downstairs, the lobby was already set up like a damn circus. Our black trucks were lined up along the curb outside, sitting pretty, waxed and waiting with the engines running. The shadows moved in and out of position like they were part of the architecture or something like they always did. Beyond the glass doors, the cameras and microphones were behind barricades flashing so hard it looked like lightening hitting over and over. The second somebody inside noticed us heading for the front, the noise outside got louder and all hell broke loose. I was starting to hate how nothing in our life was private. I didn’t even get to announce my own pregnancy.
All I heard on the outside was, “Carmen! Mrs. Royal! Was the shooting related to your client? Do you know who was targetingyou? Is your husband going to retaliate?” They were asking me shit about Dom as if the Miami King himself wasn’t right there to answer. It was almost as if they had gotten a memo not to say shit to him.
Dom leaned down close enough that only I could hear him. “You don’t owe them shit. You know how this go.”
“I know.” I told him.
“They lookin’ for a clip, or a crack, anything to give them some footage… pussy muhfuckas.”
“I know.” I said again.
“Then we keep it moving.”
I meant to listen, I really did but the second one of the reporters shouted, “How are you feeling, Carmen?” something in me made me look up anyway and maybe it was the attorney in me. I was used to cameras being in my face, I was used to interviews ‘if I wanted to take them’ and I was used to speaking up for myself.
The flashes got brighter immediately, and I could feel the whole crowd waiting for me to either break or perform and I didn’t do either. I looked right at them and said in a calm tone, “I’m alive, and my baby’s alive. That’s all that matters.”
Questions started flying all over again after that, louder and faster, but Dom’s hand shifted from my neck to my shoulder and guided me straight toward the truck before I could say anything else. He didn’t rush me; he just moved me with that quiet kind of force he had as he wheeled me.
Once the truck door shut, the noise disappeared like somebody had just cut the damn power. It was now just me and him in the backseat and I had never been happier to be in the damn truck.
I leaned my head back and let out a long breath. “You were right. I just couldn’t help it.”
“I know I was right, but you just Carmen being Carmen.” He told me with a serious look in his eyes. “That’s why I married you.”
I smiled. “You are so full of yourself.”
He smirked and reached over, pulling me closer until my head was rested on his shoulder and his hand landed on my belly like it calmed him down. “You hungry? You gotta feed my baby. I don’t want my baby coming out stressed and underfed. That’s the only way I’m divorcing you.” he said.
“Oh please, yes, I’m a little hungry but I’m not worried about you divorcing me because it takes a lot to fill the shoes of being Mrs. Royal and it ain’t for the weak.” I winked at him.
He slowly nodded his head digging my response. “Sound like I ain’t the only one full of myself. You want the chef there when we get home?”
The word home sounded so different right now because I knew he didn’t mean my penthouse or his and from the direction we were heading in, I knew he was talking about the mansion.
I looked up at him. “So that’s it then.”
“That’s what?”
“We’re going straight to the mansion huh.” I raised a brow.
He looked down at me like he didn’t understand why that even needed to be said. “The hell else we gon’ do? Send you somewhere by yourself after yesterday? I’m not taking no more chances Carmen, for the first time in my life I feel guilty about a breach we didn’t catch. As a man who don’t fuck up, you can’t imagine how I feel.”
That answer did something to me because I had never seen him feel guilty about anything until now and I did try to sympathize with that. I sighed because it wasn’t his fault, but it was no need to keep carrying that bone back and forth talking about it. “You for real now.”
He kissed the top of my head and continued to rub his hand across my belly real gentle. “You forever stuck with me, welcome to death row.”
I looked out the window for a second at the traffic, tall the people, and the way everything still looked normal from the outside. Somewhere out there people were heading to lunch, heading to work, heading home, doing all the ordinary shit people do when their lives were normal, but me?
I was going to a mansion with my husband, the Miami King after surviving something that should’ve taken me out. My phone lit up again in my lap with more messages still coming in, but I didn’t respond to any this time. I did something I never truly did, I let the world wait because for the first time since those shots rang out, I wasn’t thinking about the cameras or the blood or the questions. I was thinking about getting home and the farther the black trucks pulled me away from that hospital, the more relaxed I’d become. Although Dom and I had officially moved in, we both found ourselves moving in a way where I would still fall asleep at my penthouse if I had a long day since it was closer to my office, and he would do the same at his, but he was saying that shit was over now.
The ride to the mansion felt quiet now but it wasn’t awkward either. Dom stayed close to me the whole time with one arm wrapped behind me while his hand rested on my lower stomach like he needed to continuously make sure that the baby was okay. The trucks stayed in front of us and behind us the whole ride, moving through Miami traffic in a long black line, and every now and then I would catch Dom looking out the window with that same look he’d had since the courthouse.
It was that same far-away calculating look. It was that look that always let me know his mind was somewhere dark. By the time we pulled through the gates of the mansion, the sun was starting to sit lower in the sky and the whole property glowed inthat rich orange Miami light that made everything look prettier than it already was. I would always tell people they had to literally be here to see it because Miami was just one of those kinds of places. The mansion really did come out beautiful, actually better than I imagined honestly because I always had somebody coming to do something. The driveway curved around a big water fountain in the front, and the outside of the house had that clean white stone with the black accents I loved. The huge windows reflected the sky, the palm trees moved slowly in the breeze, and the whole place looked like something out of a movie.
I sat there for a second after the truck stopped just looking at it. “It’s weird,” I admitted in a hushed tone.
Dom looked at me. “What is?”
