That one did it. It took whatever little life was still left in her face and killed it. She looked down again, opened her mouth, and took the pills from my hand without another word and it wasn’t because she trusted me now. She just simply had nothing left to fight for. I handed her the glass and she finished it. Then her legs almost immediately got weak.
I caught her before she hit the floor and carried her to the couch, laying her down carefully like I was placing something breakable on the couch. Her hair spread out over the end of the cushion with one arm hanging off the side. Her breathing had changed already, and it was even slower, it wasn’t gone yet but close enough to see the rest. I moved through the room then with a purpose. I wiped what needed wiping and touched what needed touching.
I took her phone, opened the messages between us, deleted anything that hinted at me coming there, then scrolled farther back and left enough loneliness behind to tell the story I needed told. She was a woman carrying too much and a woman drinking alone in a private house nobody knew she was at.
I took one of her own robes from the chair by the staircase and draped it halfway over her legs, so the scene looked less posed, and more truthful. Then I set the wine bottle and pill bottle on the table near her hand. Shit, it didn’t have to be neat, but it needed to be believable.
When I came back around in front of her, she was barely conscious with her eyes half-open and breathing shallow. She looked up at me one more time, and whatever she was trying to say never fully came out the only thing changing was just the shape of my name on her mouth. I stood there over her for a second and then I leaned down and pressed two fingers lightly to the side of her neck and her pulse was weak but still there and that wasn’t enough for me.
I looked around the room one more time, then bent over and took one of the decorative pillows from the far end of the couch and placed it over her face so there would be no marks left where they shouldn’t be. I was leaning over her while the music continued to play and the fountain outside kept running like nothing was happening. Her body twitched a few times, and her hands came up weakly, slower than they would’ve if she hadn’t already swallowed enough to dull everything, then they fell back.
I held it there until she stopped moving and still held it a little longer after that. By the time I pulled back, she was completely still. I set the pillow back where it belonged, not exactly perfect, but just close enough, and looked down at her. She looked peaceful to me. Now she actually looked like she had gotten what she wanted all along.
I looked around the room one more time and the placement of everything from the wine bottle, the pill bottle, the glass, her phone, and her body. The soft lighting was still isolating the property. Everything looked like a woman who had too much and still somehow not enough. Everything looked like she did it to herself. I stepped outside after that and pulled the encrypted phone out.
“Yeah,” Tone answered immediately.
“Get ready.”
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
“You handle it?”
“Yeah.”
I looked back through the glass doors at the room one last time before I turned away from it. “Get the jet ready, I’m coming.” I told him, and that was that.
CARMEN ROYAL
The mansion felt too big without Dom in it, and that was the first thing that got on my nerves because I hated how much I could feel his absence in a house that was never truly empty. People were still there as the maids moved through the halls with baskets of folded laundry and fresh flowers. Security checked in from outside. Drivers came and went through the garage.
Somewhere downstairs, one of the televisions was always on, and the kitchen was never fully quiet because somebody was always wiping a counter, polishing glass, or moving a pot from one burner to another. Still, when Dom wasn’t there, the whole place felt different. It was as if the walls knew he was gone. I hated that I had gotten so used to him being in every room of my life that the second he stepped out of it, the whole damn house felt off balance.
I knew where he was, or at least I knew enough. I knew he was in Colombia. I knew who he was there for. I knew exactly what kind of conversation he was probably having and what kind of role he was probably playing, and by that point I really didn’t care what he had to do in order to get it done.
I had already gone through all the emotions I was going to go through over that. At first, the thought of Victoria having access to even a piece of his time had gotten under my skin in a way I didn’t like admitting out loud. I knew Dom didn’t want her, I knew better than that because I knew my husband. However, I knew Victoria was the type of woman who could turn a phone call into a fantasy, a fantasy into a delusion, and a delusion into a problem.
She was the kind of woman who would stare at a half-open door and convince herself it was love inviting her in. And by that point, I didn’t care if Dom had to sit there and pretend to be softer than he was, flirt if he had to, sit closer than he wanted to, or let her believe whatever she needed to believe just to lower her guard. I did not care; I wanted it done.
I wanted peace! I wanted to stop feeling like every few weeks there was another threat, or another name, or another enemy, or another reason for me to wonder who was watching us and who was waiting for their chance to strike. I wanted my baby to come into this world with as little chaos around us as possible, and if somebody had to disappear to make that happen, then so be it.
So, I tried to keep myself busy. That was the only thing that had been working for me lately when my mind started going too much. If I sat still too long, I started thinking. If I started thinking, I started imagining things as far as Dom getting there, Victoria smiling too hard, or Dom looking around some big house with that unreadable face he wore when he was already three steps ahead of everybody else. Then my thoughts would slide into darker places from there, and I didn’t have the emotional energy for any of that. So, I decided to move around.
I started in the nursery because that room had become the one place in the mansion that could make me feel soft and terrified at the same time. The door was already cracked openwhen I stepped in, and for a second I just stood there with one hand on my stomach and let myself look at it.
It was beautiful with soft cream walls, a fancy white crib, and shelves lined with books and stuffed animals as well. The rocking chair was in the corner near the window. Little neutral color outfits were hanging in the closet because nobody knew what the baby was and me and Dom still wanted it that way. There were folded blankets, little gray socks, bibs, tiny washcloths, and more gifts than any one baby had a right to already own. Candy D was still buying things every chance her and my father-in-law got. O’Shynn and Dique were the same way, and I can’t even thank my law firm enough because they were sending gifts every chance they got. I walked farther into the room and picked up one of the little onesies folded on the dresser, rubbing the soft fabric between my fingers while the baby had a party in my belly. It wasn’t a hard kick, just a lot of movement, enough to make me smile and rub my stomach slowly.
“Your daddy better come home in one piece,” I whispered, and hearing my own voice in that room made me miss him more than I wanted to.
That was enough of that though. I retrieved my phone and decided to facetime Kilo. He answered on the first ring looking healthy, but he was still in the hospital because he had some therapy and rehabilitation he had to go through. It was by the grace of God he was alive and walking, but he had an ugly scar running from the center of his chest to his lower abdomen. We spoke every other day, and he was surely more than a client now after taking that hit for me. When he watched the story on the news and heard about the Riverside murders, he didn’t have to question what happened because he knew and what was understood didn’t have to be explained. When he saw them bring Dom in, he knew that wasn’t anything to worry about.
“Carmen… Mrs. Royal.” He said sitting up in bed shirtless wearing his scar like a badge of honor. He was still extremely handsome, and it was crazy how many women were fighting for his time. He was eating what looked like some Jello because eighty percent of his foods still had to be soft for the time being.
“Killer Kilo,” I teased him with a light smile as I looked around the nursery. “How are you? You’re looking good, skin is back glowing.”
“He smiled showing off his gold teeth. “Aye, Mrs. Royal, when you got the ladies showin’ as much love as these bitches…” he stopped and caught himself with a laugh. “My fault, but you know what I mean, they showin’ the boy love. Trying to treat me like a king and shit.”
