Page 11 of Dom 4
He stood up and took the pen. “Yes, ma’am. I’m on it.”
I waited until he signed, then I took the folder back. “Good, now go home. Don’t talk to nobody else about this case. If the Feds come sniffing around, you don’t answer a single question without me.”
Kilo nodded again, backing away toward the door. “You somethin’ else, Mrs. Royal.”
I smiled. “I know.”
When the door shut behind him, I sat back down, rubbing my temple. My reflection in the glass stared back at me wearing the power suit with the baby glow just barely showing, however the name “Royal” was now louder than ever and the law was my kingdom, but being married to a King came with a price, and the whole world just found out what that looked like.
I exhaled long and hard, checked my phone for missed messages, and then leaned back in my chair. “Back to work,” I sighed. The headlines could keep talking all they wanted but I still had lives to save.
After Kilo left, the whole office seemed a little too still. I leaned back in my chair for a minute longer, staring at the door as if someone else would be walking through it and then looked toward the city through the tall windows once again. I turned from the glass and sat up straight, running my hands down my blouse to smoothen it. My stomach was still flat, but I could feel the changes already. Every move I made now mattered more than ever. I wasn’t just protecting my name anymore; I was protecting a legacy.
I pulled open my desk drawer and took out the black encrypted laptop that I had gotten built just for shit like this. It was a brand name and no logo which meant no trace. It was just matte black steel full of power encrypted inside of it. It lit up in blue code that changed every few seconds, and I typed the new sequence from memory until the screen opened up to a web of files only, I could navigate.
The Royal system glowed across the screen with the offshore accounts, the clean wires, the real estate fronts and all of the quiet connections to everything that made the empire run like a smooth criminal. I wasn’t in this world to be a trophy. I was the reason Dom slept at night knowing the Feds would never touch his money or him and if they did, he wouldn’t be down long.
I clicked through a few reports, with my eyes sharp and focused making sure that all shipments cleared, all payments reconciled, and all offshore accounts were secure. The Feds were still spinning in the dark chasing loops I built just to waste their time. I smiled to myself because I could picture the confusion on their faces when every lead led back to nothing but shell companies and fake executives. Nobody knew how many nights I’d sat right here building that maze from scratch, coding names, scrubbing trails, moving paper through hands too clean to trace. Carmen Royal wasn’t just Dom’s wife; I was the reason his enemies couldn’t find their way through the smoke on any given day.
I closed the laptop slowly and slid it back into the drawer before locking it. The click ticked through the quiet office. I grabbed my purse, the thick Watkins case file, and my keys. When I stepped out of my office, the noise hit me before the damn doors even closed behind me. The lobby was busier than usual, full of clients, interns, and reporters pretending to check their phones but in reality, watching every move I made. I adjusted my bag on my shoulder, pushed my Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses higher on my face and kept walking.
My security was already there waiting. They didn’t say much, they just fell in stepping in front and behind me like shadows that moved when I did, just like they were supposed to. The taller one, Reese, nodded once toward the glass doors at the front where a few people had started coming closer as the cameras flashed from the outside.
“Mrs. Royal, are you representing Trent Watkins again?” one of the reporters called out before I even reached the elevator.
“Is it true the Feds reopened his case under new charges?” another shouted with his deep voice bouncing off the marble walls.
I didn’t look their way as my heels continued to click steady on the floor with each step and strut making a statement. “No comment.” I simply replied with my tone cool and stern enough to let them know that I wasn’t playing any games.
“Mrs. Royal, what about the article this morning? Do you have a response?”
Still walking, I gave a polite half-smile that that said I wasn’t answering and they knew better than to keep trying. Reese opened the glass doors, and the humid Miami air came in thick. Outside, a cluster of photographers were near the curb with flashes popping like lightning.
I took a slow breath and kept my eyes straight ahead. “Stay close,” I mumbled to my security, and they immediately came in a little tighter around me as we crossed the sidewalk. One of the cameras caught the light just right, and for a split second, I saw my reflection in the lens but none of it could touch me unless I let it.
Someone shouted another question, “Are you planning a public statement?!”
I stopped for the first time and turned just enough to look into their eyes, and said, “When I have something to say, you’ll know it came from me, not your gossip.”
The driver opened the back door of the BMW, and I slid in, once again smoothing my shirt as I sat. The tinted glass window went up blocking the chaos outside. I finally let out a small sigh of relief feeling calmness around me again.
As we pulled away from the curb, I glanced back one time through the window. The reporters were still trying to get their last shots and people were shouting my name like they owned a piece of it or something. I turned my head back toward the road and pulled out my phone checking the messages lighting up my screen. Everyone wanted to know something today whether it bestatements, cases, or interviews but none of them mattered right now. I was focused on staying two steps ahead like I always did.
The car eased out into the flow of traffic, and I had my head leaned back against the seat, with my eyes half closed, trying to feel settled again. That peace didn’t last long before my phone lit up across my lap with Dom calling me. Just seeing his name made the pressure in my chest soften a little bit. I slid my finger across the screen and brought it to my ear. “Hey,” I answered barely above a whisper. I felt myself feeling like a real wife now, on a different kind of vulnerable level.
His voice came in low but still had that tone that made any woman’s pussy get wet. “Wifey, I seen that headline.”
I already knew which one. “Mhm, me too husband.”
“They had you all over the fuckin’ news,” he continued. “That was supposed to be our moment, not for them vultures to feed off. You was never supposed to be put on no damn platter like that. I’m sorry, baby.”
I looked out the window, watching the skyline blur on by as the late sun started to turn everything gold. “Dom, don’t apologize. I knew who I married. I knew what came with the name Royal.”
He got quiet for a second, and when he spoke again, his voice had softened a little bit. “Still… I don’t like it. You sacred to me, Carmen and ain’t nobody supposed to have a piece of you unless I say so.”
That made me smile. “I’m fine, I promise. You know I don’t break easy. Let them talk, I’m still handling business.”
“I know you are,” he said, sounding all proud. “Ain’t nobody like you, ma. You the calm in all this shit.”
