Page 15 of Dom 5: The Finale
I leaned my head back against the tub. “Dom…”
He shook his head. “Nah, I’m serious. You can work, I already know you not gon’ stop working, but work from here for a little bit.”
“I have a firm to run as well Dom.”
“You got a whole office in this house too. That’s what you pay your assistance top dollar for. They can handle it.”
“That’s not the same thing.” I argued.
“It is for right now.”
I looked at him again and the look in his eyes told me he didn’t give a damn about what I was saying. “You can’t lock me in the house.”
“I can do what I want.” He winked.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“And you almost got killed. I hate to keep reminding you. Until the score is even, you stay here. If you have to leave, you already know the shadows coming, but you need to stay away from that firm from now. I can’t risk another breach.”
That shut me up again because every conversation somehow kept coming back to that. He looked down into the glass for a second before speaking again. “I just need you close to me for a few days.”
The way he said it made something soften inside of me and I didn’t want to keep going against him although he knew I never would. I softened up because right now he wasn’t being weak in front of me, but because he sounded honest. I looked at him sitting there with that drink in his hand, still carrying everything from yesterday all over his face, and I knew this wasn’t really about him trying to control me. This was about fear… this was about him almost losing me and our child. The very reason he didn’t want to love me or have any kids was unfolding right in front of his eyes, but I knew he wouldn’t say it.
“I’ll think about it,” I said softly just teasing to break the tension.
His eyes landed on mine. “What that mean?”
“It means I’ll think about it.”
He smirked a little. “Hardheaded.”
“You love it.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I do, but you know I laid down the law and that’s what it is. Come out when you ready, I locked therest of my day in here, cause tomorrow…” he stopped and caught himself. “Let’s just enjoy this day.”
That was all he said before he walked out leaving me to myself again.God I love that man,I thought to myself resting my head back on the tub staring at the ceiling again.
VICTORIA BLANCA
“Everybody keeps looking at me like I’m supposed to break,” I said, letting my eyes move around the table slowly. “I can feel it every time one of you look at me too long.”
Nobody answered me after that. They just sat there in silence with liquor glasses in their hands and their cigars burning while hanging in their mouths, wearing their dark pressed suits, and expensive watches that shined bright under the lights. There were men from Colombia, some from Miami as well and other places. Most faces I recognized and some I didn’t. These were all men who had been loyal to my uncle longer than I had been alive. Some of them looked offended that I said it out loud and some of them looked embarrassed because I was right. The estate had been full since sunrise.
The expensive cars were lined up in the front of the property, security stood near every entrance, as women moved through the house carrying trays of food and drinks nobody was really touching, and flowers were everywhere as well. They were white flowers, red flowers, and flowers leftover from the Funeral.
My uncle’s portrait sat on an easel near the fireplace in the main room, blown up so large it almost looked like he wasstanding there with us. He looked exactly the way he always did wearing an expensive suit with his gold rings. He had that hard expression that made people uncomfortable even when he wasn’t speaking. I had buried him and the house still didn’t feel real without him in it and actually nothing felt real. Not the people suddenly calling me La Reina, not the men standing every time I walked into a room, not the chair I was sitting in now at the head of the table where my uncle used to sit either. That was probably the strangest part of all of it, the chair. The same chair he’d sat in since I was a little girl.
I hated it and loved it at the same time because the second I sat in it, I could feel everybody in the room looking at me differently. They weren’t looking at me like Victoria anymore, nor as the niece and surely not like the woman they used to smile at and flirt with when my uncle wasn’t looking. Now they were looking at me like they were waiting to see what kind of ruler I would be.
I sat back in the chair slowly and crossed one leg over the other, allowing the slit in my black dress fall open over my thigh. The dress was fitted and simple and my hair was pulled back sleek and tight. The diamonds sat in my ears and around my neck, but not too much because I didn’t want to be too flashy. I looked down at my uncle’s ring on my finger and rolled it one time with him on my mind before I began to speak again.
“You all think I’m too emotional for this,” I said.
One of the older men near the end of the table finally shook his head. “No one said that La Reina.”
“You didn’t have to. I see it all over your faces ”
He looked down into his glass and I liked that.Good!I thought to myself, because that meant he knew I saw through him.
