Just as quick as we arrived, the hospital hallways filled quickly with police, security, and my shadows who had arrived seconds behind the ambulance. Reporters were already crowding outside the entrance trying to get footage, but the hospital staff and officers kept them back. I already imagined what these headlines would look like. Anything pertaining the Royals, they made it bigger than just a regular story.
Carmen was taken into a private trauma suite and the doctors immediately started running tests. They checked the baby’s heartbeat first and when the monitor finally picked up the steady rhythm of it I felt like a brick had been lifted from my chest and I could take a deep breath and breathe again.
“She’s going into shock,” one of the doctors explained while they started an IV. “Her blood pressure dropped, could be from the stress or the impact of the fall. We’re stabilizing her now.”
I stood beside the bed watching every move they made watching their ass like a hawk waiting for one wrong move. After a few minutes the room finally got quiet enough for the machines to be heard in a steady rhythm. Carmen’s breathing was finally getting steady again and her eyelids fluttered as the fluids began working through her system.
I pulled a chair close to the bed and took her hand again. “You scared the hell out of me,” I told her quietly.
She tried to smile but it came out weak. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.
“You bet not.”
Outside the room the hallway had turned into a fortress. My men stood at every corner and the police had locked down the entire wing so nobody without clearance could get through. Somewhere down the hall I could hear officers arguing with reporters who were trying to force their way inside. Chief Martezstepped into the room a few minutes later and leaned against the wall with his arms folded.
“The city’s going crazy outside,” he said. “Every news station in Miami is running the story.”
“Let them,” I replied.
He watched Carmen for a moment before speaking again. “The shooter is confirmed dead. We’ll start figuring out who he was.”
I nodded slowly but my attention never left my wife. I didn’t have to acknowledge what the Chief was saying because deep down inside, I knew that he knew exactly how this was about to go as soon as we found out who was behind this. As a matter of fact, he only said that shit out loud because it sounded good.
The room finally got quiet enough for me to hear myself think, but that wasn’t a good thing because thinking meant feeling, and feeling meant I had to sit with the fact that if Kilo had flinched one second later, if my reaction had been one second slower, I could’ve lost everything on those courthouse steps. Carmen was still weak, still pale, and still coming out of that shock faze. The fluids were helping her, the monitors were steady, and the doctor had already said the baby looked strong, but none of that was enough to calm me down because the image of her lying on that concrete was burned too deep in my head now and in my fucking chest.
I stepped out the room for a minute because the hallway outside had turned into its own kind of battlefield. It wasn’t loud like the courthouse, but the shit was full. Police were at both ends of the floor and hospital security was moving back and forth trying not to look scared, while my shadows had already spread out enough to make sure nobody I didn’t approve of got close to this wing. The news was all over the bottom level of the hospital too, and every time the elevator doors opened I could hear their voices bouncing up from downstairs. They kept sayingher name, kept saying mine, and kept running the same footage over and over like the city didn’t already have enough other shit to worry about. I knew what they were scared of… they were scared of the Royal effect. They didn’t know if they would wake up and the entire city would be painted red.
Dique was pacing when I came out back and forth when I came out. I didn’t even know he was here because he had just flown back in from out of town. He wasn’t saying much, which told me more than words could’ve. That nigga always talked his shit, cracked jokes, laughed at everything, and always looking to have a good time, but right now he was his ass was wearing that glare on his face like a fresh fit. His chain swung every time he turned back down the hall, and he was clenching his jaws so hard, I knew he was gon’ feel that shit later. He looked over when he saw me and asked the only question that mattered right now.
“She okay? I got here as soon as they hit me and told me.”
I nodded. “Yeah, the doctors say she took the hit from the shock. Her pressure dropped too fast, but they got her stable and the baby good.”
He looked down at the floor and let out one slow exhaled breath through his nose, then he rubbed his hand over his mouth like he was trying to wipe anger off his face. “Man,” he muttered. “You mean to tell me none of the shadows saw fake press nigga too close to her?”
“They ain’t know enough to stop it,” I replied, not because I blamed them, but because I wasn’t in the mood to lie for comfort. That’s just some shit I didn’t do and truthfully it was too many reporters out there with cameras, that nigga blended in just like the rest.
He looked up at me quick, processing what I said, but he knew what I meant. We all knew what I meant. In our world, after it happened was too late.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m standin’ here wantin’ to peel skin off a muhfucka.”
One of the shadows came up then and handed me a phone. “Boss, Tone downstairs, he just got here.”
Tone wasn’t supposed to be nowhere near this hospital tonight. He was supposed to be home with Shona and the baby. Shona had just pushed that little girl into the world and Tone was supposed to be sitting somewhere in his draws with a bottle warmer in one hand and his daughter in the other. That was the whole reason I had stepped back from leaning on him too hard the last couple of days, he earned that time. But then again, Tone been my brother longer than he’s been anything else and brothers like him don’t know how to hear this kind of shit tied to your name and stay home.
I took the elevator down myself without sending for him or making him come up to me. Soon as those doors opened on the lower level, the rush hit me all over again. Reporters were posted outside the glass doors trying to catch a glimpse of anybody tied to the case. When they saw me, they acted like I was a dick they wanted to suck the meat off of. The hospital had metal detectors and extra officers at every entrance now, but that didn’t stop microphones from being shoved in faces every time a doctor or nurse walked too close to the public side. Through all that noise, Tone stood off to the side near the vending machines, with a hoodie on, Miami hat sitting low on his head, and two of our men near him like they’d been waiting on me to get downstairs before anybody said or did the wrong shit.
He looked tired, worn out like being a new daddy was whooping his ass. Yeah, his tired was the kind of tired that comes from having a newborn at home with no real sleep, and then on top of that getting hit with breaking news that somebody tried to kill your people while you were heating up formula and changingshitty diapers. His eyes met mine and there wasn’t no greeting, no hand slap, half hugs, or none of that shit.
“How sis holding up?” he asked.
I gave him the same answer I gave Dique. “Stable, and the baby good, she’s still just weak though.”
He looked up toward the elevators and nodded. “Good.” He said, and good could mean a thousand things depending on how he said it.
“You supposed to be home,” I told him.
He gave me a look that made it clear he thought I had lost my damn mind even saying that shit out loud. “I was home. Then they cut into regular TV with ‘breaking news’ and showed yo’ wife on the ground in blood. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Rock my baby and hum lullabies?”
