Another man leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “People are going to test you.”
I folded my arms across my chest glaring into his eyes. “I know they are.”
“They’re already testing you.”
“I know that too.” I reminded him.
He slowly nodded. “Then what happens next?”
That was what everybody wanted to know. What happens next. Did I want revenge? Did I want war? Did I want bodies? They all expected me to because that’s what men like them understood, nothing besides blood, retaliation, and violence no matter how many people they lost in the process. They thought grief had to be loud and because I wasn’t doing that everyone was watching me with three eyes. I placed my chin in my hand for a second and looked around the room again.
“The problem with men like you,” I spoke in a calm tone, “is that you mistake grief for weakness.”
Nobody moved when I said that and nobody even picked up their glass. “You think because I’m not screaming or crying or throwing things, I’m not angry enough. You think because I’m sitting here speaking calmly that I don’t understand what this means.” I leaned back in the chair and continued. “My uncle is dead,” I said quietly. “I buried him and I listened to people tell me how sorry they were. I smiled when I wanted to tell everybody to get out of my face. Don’t mistake my control for softness.”
That made everything in the room be silent for a minute and I could feel it. It almost felt like respect but not fully. It wasn’t really there yet but it was enough. One of the older women who had worked for my uncle since I was a little girl stepped forward after that carrying a black velvet box in her hands. She stopped beside me and opened it slowly. Inside was my uncle’s chain which was a heavy gold, custom piece. It was the one he wore almost every day. For a second I couldn’t breathe and I stared atit long… too long for a woman who had just told a room full of men not to mistake grief for weakness.
The woman looked down at me softly. “This belonged to him,” she said. “Now it belongs to you.”
I slowly reached into the box and wrapped my fingers around the chain. It felt heavier than I expected. It didn’t even feel right because it felt like it still belonged to him and my body knew it. The room remained quiet while I stood up. One of the men stepped forward and held the chair out slightly so I could step around it easier, and I hated that because I hated people trying to treat me fragile all of a sudden. I moved in front of the table and slid the chain around my neck myself, but nobody clapped or said anything, they just watched.
For the first time since my uncle’s death, I truly understood what everyone had been hinting at all along. There was no returning to who I was before. I was no longer just the niece, no longer able to stand on the sidelines or pretend I wasn’t involved. Now, it all belonged to me, the house, the business, the men, the enemies, the fear, and the respect.
I looked around the room one more time and lifted my chin up. “If somebody moves against us, we respond,” I said. “If somebody tests us, we remind them who they’re testing but I’m not interested in bloodshed just because people expect me to prove something. That’s not how this will work under my reign. My uncle started a lot of meaningless wars, and he wrote me off when he did so, even using me as a pawn though I know he loved me. I will run my throne in my own way.”
One of the men frowned slightly. “People may see that as weakness.”
I looked right at him. “Then let them,” I said above a whisper. “People are always most comfortable right before they realize they made a mistake.”
That shut him up and that was good because I was tired of the looks and the whispers. I was tired of pretending I wasn’t carrying grief with me just because I didn’t move how they wanted me to. The meeting dragged on for another hour after that as the men talked numbers, routes, and security. The spoke of things and names that I barely cared about. Everybody wanted to tell me something. Everybody wanted to prove they belonged in the room. I listened where I needed to and spoke when I had to and then Ignored what didn’t matter. By the time it was over, my head was pounding.
I stepped out onto the back balcony alone with a glass of wine in my hand and finally let myself breathe. The estate overlooked acres of land and trees. It was quiet out there except for the sound of the wind breezing through the leaves and the faint music still playing somewhere inside the house. The sun had started setting and everything looked gold and beautiful, yet I still felt alone.
I leaned against the railing and closed my eyes for a second. Then I heard the television from the inside right behind me. Somebody had turned the news on but at first I ignored it. Then I heard Dom’s name, the Miami King is what they called him as they spoke in Spanish. My eyes opened immediately and I turned toward the open balcony doors and looked through the sitting room where the television was mounted on the wall and there he was, standing outside a hospital in all black with that same look on his face he always had that people couldn’t read and next to him was Carmen.
The headline running across the bottom of the screen said something about the courthouse shooting and about the pregnant attorney of the Cartel King’s wife. About the Miami King protecting his wife after a public assassination attempt. I stared at the screen with a blank expression. Carmen looked tired, but I was glad she was alive. Dom had his hand againston the wheelchair pushing her out her back while he moved her toward one of the black trucks and even through the television I could tell exactly what kind of mood he was in because I knew that look from being around him for the time that I was. It was the kind of dangerous he only got when somebody messed with his family or his life. The reporter kept talking, saying the shooting may have been tied to Carmen’s client. Saying there were rumors of retaliation and gang ties I just kept staring because even after everything between us or no matter how I felt, deep down inside I was glad they were okay I guess.
For a second, I let myself think about what would have happened if Carmen had died or if that baby had died. If Dom had lost them both in front of cameras and strangers and the whole city. I already knew the answer, Miami would have bled for it. I looked down into my wine glass and shook my head once.
“Poor girl,” I whispered although I wasn’t even sure if I meant Carmen or myself.
I stayed out on that balcony longer than I meant to, so long the wine in my glass was now warm and flat, but I kept holding it anyway. Inside, I could still hear people moving around the estate with the doors opening and closing, glasses clinking and men talking low because life continued whether I wanted it to or not.
The news kept playing in the background too. I could still hear the reporter’s voice carrying through the sitting room while clips of Dom and Carmen flashed across the screen over and over again with her looking pale and tired, but still somehow beautiful even with the reporters’ screaming questions and the lights flashing.
It irritated me how good they looked together and not because I hated Carmen because I didn’t, I just hated what they had…. that kind of love and that kind of certainty. Even through a television screen, you could tell she was his whole world. Youcould see it in the way he looked at her, the way his hand stayed on her, the way his body always shifted toward her without him even realizing it. Dom was intense, but with Carmen it was different because he was softer with her. A man with nothing to lose is scary, but a man with everything to lose? That was something else entirely and I may never experience that kind of love from a man.
I looked down at the ring on my finger and turned it slowly which was probably going to be a new habit. My uncle’s ring looked too big on my finger, but I liked the weight of it. It reminded me that I wasn’t just floating anymore. I had something now which was power even if I didn’t handle it how they wanted me to.
The balcony doors slid open behind me, and I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. I could tell by the sound of the heels first that it was Luciana. She had been with my uncle forever as an assistant and maybe even a lover. She was older than me by maybe fifteen years, but very sharp. She too was beautiful in that intimidating way older women get when they’ve spent their whole lives around dangerous men. She carried herself like she knew things other people didn’t.
“You disappeared,” she said, coming to stand beside me.
“I needed air.” I admitted. I could smell her strong perfume before she even got to me.
She looked at me how a mother would look at her daughter with her deep chestnut-colored eyes and long, thick brown hair. “No mamacita, you needed silence.”
“That too.”
