Chapter Five. Eshe #2
Carefully, she lifts the strap of a black tote over her head and lets it fall to the floor.
Then she follows my instructions and stretches her arms out on either side of her.
Tucking my gun behind my back, I cross the space between us and quickly but efficiently pat her down.
Satisfied she’s not carrying, I step back and nod.
“You good.” I cock my head and watch as she lowers her arms back to her sides.
“Now, you told Dakari you had some valuable info for me. I don’t like my time wasted.
Especially when I can be home streaming the new season of P-Valley.
So whatever you tell me better be worth me missing Uncle Clifford swinging around a pole, or I’m going to be very angry.
You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” I deepen my voice, Bruce Banner–ing her.
“I understand.” A low, melodic voice caresses my ears a second before she lowers her hood, revealing herself to me for the first time.
I study the older woman standing in front of me.
Even though she’s a stranger and I’m certain I’ve never met her before, she seems oddly familiar.
Gray hair brushes her shoulders in a sleek bob.
Fine wrinkles fan out from the corners of her dark eyes and small mouth as well as crease her rounded cheeks.
With her slim body clothed in a flowing black top, leather pants, and boots, she could be anywhere between fifty and seventy.
She is the epitome of Black don’t crack.
Even her voice is a husky rasp that’s both sensual and weighted with age.
“Thank you for meeting with me.”
“Don’t thank me yet. What am I doing here?”
She releases a soft sigh, but her dark gaze doesn’t waver.
“I apologize for all of the dramatic subterfuge, but I couldn’t risk my identity or my meeting with you to get to the wrong ears.”
I cross my arms over my chest, impatience crawling through me. “And who are the wrong ears?”
“Your aunt. Abena.”
Although I knew the information had to do with Abena, I still stiffen at this woman’s revelation. Suspicion joins impatience for the ride, and I narrow my eyes on her.
“What’s your name?”
A brief hesitation on her behalf and then, “Laura.”
I snort. “Don’t shit about you say ‘Laura.’ But fine. We’ll go with that.” I shrug, although my suspicion burrows deeper at her lie. “So, Laura, what about my aunt? And how do you know her?”
“I don’t know her personally. I’m a bartender at the Thirty-Third.”
The name of that club, the one my mother took her last breath in front of, sends a bolt of rage racing through me. I inhale a deep breath, hold it. Ten seconds later, I slowly release it.
Nope.
That did shit all to douse the murderous fury lighting me up.
“Go on,” I grind out.
She bows her head, staring at the floor for several moments before returning her attention to me.
“A couple of nights ago, I delivered drinks to the back room where Abena often meets with members of your family. That night, they were joined by a man I hadn’t seen in the club before.
Usually, when I enter the room, they stop talking, but not this time.
” She pauses, swallows, and I glimpse the fear in her eyes. “I wish they would’ve stopped.”
“Why?” I press when she hesitates. Urgency pours through me, pounding in my veins. Urgency and hot anticipation. “What did you overhear?”
“They were talking about a shipment arriving at the port. I wasn’t paying much attention until I heard ‘girls.’ The man said ‘a new crop of girls.’ I knew then they were talking about—”
“Sex trafficking,” I finish.
She nods. “Yes.”
My throat squeezes closed, and my breath rushes inside my head like waves crashing against jagged rocks.
The rage that swept through me seconds earlier was a spring rain compared to the tempest beating inside me now.
I lower my arms to my sides, my fingers curling into tight fists.
Fists aching to crash into Abena’s face and body until she resembles a sack of flesh and pulverized bone.
Sex trafficking.
The Mwuaji has its hands in a lot of shit.
Guns, loan-sharking, theft, drugs. There aren’t too many things we draw the line at criminally.
But selling women and children into sexual servitude and slavery is one of those bold red lines.
As a matriarchal family where women rule, we would never involve ourselves in profiting off the sale of our own.
And we have no affiliation with organizations or other families who do.
Violating that code is punishable by death.
So, to find out Abena, the oba, is betraying her own family in one of the worst ways imaginable …
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, my voice even, calm, belying the vicious storm of disgust and anger roiling within me. “Why come to me with this?”
I really want to know because part of me feels like it’s too convenient that this information is falling so easily into my lap.
The older woman lifts her slender, surprisingly unlined hand to her neck, the long fingers circling the base of her throat. A diamond ring and wedding band wink at me in the dim light.
“My niece disappeared two years ago after answering an ad for a new job. She was beautiful. Kind. So innocent at nineteen in a way that made me and my sister—her mother—worried for her.” Laura’s eyes briefly close, and a spasm of emotion passes over her face.
When she meets my gaze again, pain swamps the dark depths.
“She wasn’t so beautiful or innocent when her body was found in a dumpster eighteen months after she went missing.
Her body showed visible track marks on her arms and bruises on her wrists and ankles—evidence she’d been tied down or cuffed for long periods of time.
The medical examiner also discovered she’d … she’d been…”
“You don’t have to finish. I get it,” I murmur.
She clears her throat. “Anyway, that night, I reached out to Dakari. He’s friends with my oldest nephew, and I knew he was involved with your family. I spoke with him, and he made me contact you and share what I overheard.”
I nod, digesting everything she said. Everything sounded plausible. Even if I doubted her story a little, there’s no way I can take the chance of letting those women slip away into a trade that destroys. And I’m not even talking about death.
“What’re the details of the shipment?”
“It’s arriving at eleven o’clock two nights from now, at the East Boston DPA,” she informs me.
I study her for several long moments. “How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” I ask, not caring if I offend her. Shit, I don’t know her like that.
“I figured you’d want proof.” She bends down and scoops up her tote bag to pull out a palm-sized golden apple.
“Cameras aren’t allowed in the Thirty-Third, but Abena has the back room wired, and it records everything that happens there.
Security goes on break every night at nine thirty.
I managed to get in the control room and download the conversation and sneak it out in this.
” She extends the golden apple toward us.
“They check us when we arrive and leave, but no one scans the apple. Every employee and person entering the club must show theirs like a membership card. I carved out a hole in the bottom to slip the flash drive inside.”
I take the apple and turn it upside down. Sure ’nuff, there’s a circle scored into the base.
“What do you want for this information?”
“Nothing.”
I scoff. “Boo, no one lives rent-free. So I repeat, what do you want?”
Laura stares at me, and then her gaze dips. Got her.
“I can’t go back to work. Sooner or later, they’ll figure out it was me who snitched. I need for me and my family to be moved out of Boston to somewhere safe.”
“You got that,” I immediately say. “When are you scheduled to work next at the club?”
“I’m off today and tomorrow.”
“Good.” I nod. “Good. Give Dakari all the details of who we’re moving. I’ll have you out and set up, at the latest, two days from now.”
She exhales, and her shoulders drop. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you so much.”
“Yeah.”
I turn around and walk out the same way I came in, confident that Tera is covering me. I start walking in the direction of our bikes, and minutes later, Tera appears beside me, her stride matching mine.
“What do you think?” I ask after several moments of heavy silence.
She stuffs her hands in the pockets of her jacket.
“I don’t know, Eshe. On one hand, she sounds credible. And Dakari vouched for her. But on the other…” She frowns, shaking her head. “This seems a little too … neat.”
“Bitch, right?” I buck my eyes at her. “I was thinking the same thing. Someone serving Abena up on a silver platter to us? My word was ‘convenient.’”
“Still, we have to check it out. We can’t afford not to. For those women and to speed up our timeline of taking out Abena.”
“Yeah.” I lightly squeeze the golden apple, looking down at it. “Meeting tomorrow at my house. Call everyone and let them know. We can’t go into this without a plan.”
“Got it.” We near the dumpster, and I snatch the tarp off the motorcycles. Tera grabs her helmet and looks at me, eyebrow arched. “Where’re you headed now? You know, since you’re supposed to be dead ‘n’ all. Don’t think I forgot about that.”
I laugh, grabbing the handlebars and rolling my ’Busa out into the alley.
“I’m taking my Walking Dead ass home.”
“Good. Call me when you get there.”
I jerk my chin up at her and grin.
“Aw, fuck.” She groans, then puts on her helmet.
Snickering, I mount my bike. A half hour later, I’m parking the ’Busa in my garage and pressing the button on my key fob to bring the door down.
I have several homes, and none of them are on or near the Mwuaji compound.
Once I was old enough, living there wasn’t an option anymore.
It becomes exhausting constantly having to be on guard. Exhausting but necessary.