Now I’m just like her. Only I got more power. That world, The Queen remembered, would accept a quiet, passive Asian ornament. But they rejected the bone colored China that was actually black on the inside.
Right now, somehow, the Morenos were guilty of racism by association. Looking at them right now, and feeling their very bad vibe, roused up all the horrible feelings that The Queen had kept buried for more than a year.
Suddenly, a red mist of rage in The Queen’s mind cast a sinister haze over this creepy cast of characters. All the anger, disappointment, and sadness that she had felt when Brian, and Tiffany and their parents kicked her out of their lives came surging up in a tongue load of cuss words that she now knew how to launch with precision and power.
Naw, hold that. These muthafuckas ain’t Brian or Tiffany. They just punks cut from the same sleazy, back stabbin’ cloth.
Behind her, Knight must have sensed her angst. Because she heard him speak in her mind, Keep complete and constant control of your emotions. “Thank you,” The Queen said to the auburn haired Moreno.
“I’m Red,” he said, his long, hot fingers still gripping hers. “These are my brothers, Marco and Liam. We’ve been greatly anticipating this encounter with the singular woman who could meet Knight’s superhuman standards of excellence.” Red nodded at Knight, who was still behind her. The man gripped The Queen’s hand harder and bowed toward her.
The Queen allowed him to continue holding her hand as she stared into his eyes. They were like a marquis flashing DEVIL. The attractive shade of hazel coloring his irises did nothing to hide the violence and betrayal and greed that roiled in his soul. In fact, an aura of malice radiated around the three brothers so intensely. The Queen could almost see pale green vapors rising up around them, like she’d seen in a picture book around an evil dragon that Mommy would read to her as a little girl.
In that story, the beautiful princess always defeated the dragon with her charms, so she could free the handsome prince inside the dragon’s scary cave. In the end, the prince and princess tamed the dragon as their pet; he even sang sweet songs instead of breathing fire.
That was their plan with Moreno. But he didn’t breathe fire. No, he spoke with an accent that to anybody else, would be a dramatic smoke and mirrors type distraction to trick them into thinking he was an international aristocrat.
It didn’t work on The Queen, though. Working with Daddy at his business, she had met authentic rich people and royalty who spoke with beautiful accents from all over the world.
She could see right through this fake, British wannabe. She bit her lip to stop a sudden burst of laughter. In her eyes, despite his expensive suit and impeccable grooming, he was a Eurotrash perpetrator who deserved nothing more than to get double crossed so Babylon could keep all that it had and get whatever else it wanted.
“These are my partners in charge of operations here in southeast Michigan,” Moreno said. He nodded toward the heavyset brunette guy and the skinny blond chick. “We met on holiday in Monaco, when they were celebrating their honeymoon at my favorite casino. They both possess brilliant business minds, thanks to their pedigreed family backgrounds.”
The Queen froze.
The guy and the chick stared back with equal intrigue. Brian and Tiffany. Those snobby, racist punks were working for a gangster now? Was this man the same dude she’d seen at the fancy parties with her friends from her white life? And was there a connection to Daddy’s death?
The Queen’s insides reeled with shock. If any of them identified her, they would be able to trump her power play by threatening to tell the feds exactly where she was. Plus that would crush Knight’s leverage because they would hold all the juice in the deal.
That would kill us. And Knight has no idea how much more risky this operation just got.
The Queen smiled.
Ain’t no way in hell they can recognize me right now. None of ’em.
She looked nothing like she did a year ago. She now sported a deep, honey brown complexion, fifteen extra pounds of thickness and she spoke completely different than how she used to. Now, she was tough, assertive, nasty, and possessed a sexual aura that could dominate anyone; man or woman.
I am someone else. I am The Queen. And I’ll crush all their racist asses.
“How y’all doin’?” She nodded toward them. Her former boyfriend and best friend had never seen Victoria in this light before. Even CoCo was unrecognizable from her days working with her Daddy when she went by the name Marlene.
Brian and Tiffany were staring. If they had recognized her, it didn’t seem like they were planning on saying anything.
Backstabbing punk-ass muthafackas. They deserve each other.
Knight stepped forward to shake Red’s hand. He pulled out a chair for The Queen so that she could sit close to Red.
“We’ve got a proposal that creates a triple win for all of us,” Knight said as he sat beside The Queen. “We keep an open mind and work together. Then the billions are ours for the taking.” He looked over at The Queen before continuing, “We propose that immediately following The Games, we create a collaboration.”
Red’s gaze lowered for a second. He nodded then looked back into her eyes. “Tell me more.”
“It’s essentially a situation where you keep yours, we keep ours, but together we create something much more powerful.”
Brian and Tiffany were staring very hard at The Queen. They can’t possibly know who I am.
She took a good look at Brian and noticed how terrible he looked. All the weight Tiffany had lost, Brian had found, times ten. It distorted his face, thickening his nose, his lips, and the skin around his blue eyes, which still glinted with the same malice.
“Why should we trust you?” Brian asked, twirling his gold ring imprinted with the Martin’s family coat of arms. His voice raked over the scars he had left on her soul.
She imagined herself getting up from the table, walking around the Moreno Triplets, and raising her stiletto heel with the lightning speed and lethal force that Lee Lee had taught her. Her heel would bash straight into his nose and he’d shut the fuck up.
Yeah, I will find the chance to whip some revenge on that muthafucka. And he won’t even know what hit him.
“Trust,” The Queen said playfully. “What do you feel in your gut right now?”
Brian let out a sexy laugh. “I don’t want to get crass while we’re doing business. Because what I feel in my gut has nothing to do with trust.”
“I believe it does,” she says. “You feel sex.” The word sex came out of her mouth in such a seductive and powerful way that everyone at the table visibly winced.
“And sex is the name of this game,” The Queen said. “Trust that.”
Knight watched her speak. His poker face hid his expression from the others, but The Queen saw a sparkle of pride that she was doing her thing. Teamwork makes the dream work baby.
As her seductive words hung in the silent, still air, Brian grinned. Tiffany’s nipples poked against the chest of her tight suit jacket.
“Trust is not a question,” Red said to Brian. “If it were, we would not be sitting here right now. The question is”—he turned to The Queen—“how will this collaboration work?”
“We structure events based on the already established territorial lines,” she said. “Anything you host within the city limits, we split fifty-fifty. Anything we host in the suburbs, we split fifty-fifty too.” The Queen radiated a smile from her eyes. “And to make it fun, we add a high-stakes gamble to the mix to show our good will.”
Liam shifted in his chair, casting a nervous glance at Red, who remained perfectly still.
“I like gambles.” Red cast a hungry ogle down on the tops of The Queen’s titties. “Tell me more.”
The Queen said, “In the past, Babylon has banned Moreno Enterprises from participating in The Games.”
Red’s lips tightened as he began grabbed his ponytail and began sliding his hand on it. “This year,” The Q
ueen said, “to celebrate this historical collaboration, we invite you to participate in The Games. As you know, there’s a million dollar prize for each team that can perform in each event with the best style, endurance, and technique.”
The triplets grinned all at once.
“We bring our own security,” Liam said nervously with that same whack accent. “We don’t go into that territory—”
Red cut his hand through the air. “Winner gets the convention circuit, Detroit, New York, Miami, L.A., and Chicago. Male and female.”
The Queen cast a charming gaze at him. Hell naw! That’s mine!
But the Morenos weren’t going to win The Games anyway, so it was a moot point to oppose it.
“Bet,” Knight said. “Then we make the same toss at next year’s Games. Upping the ante will make for more exciting competitions.”
“And hotter sex,” Marco said, holding a martini glass so that the red liquid swirled over the edge onto his hand. He licked it slowly, staring at The Queen.
“Let’s add a little more excitement to the deal,” Red said, devouring The Queen with his eyes. “The winner gets an evening alone with this Cleopatra of the Knight.” Red raised his eyebrows to underscore this scandalous question as he looked at Knight.
The Queen could feel Knight’s rage so strong, she heard his thoughts echo inside her mind.
He’s through, Knight was thinking. This muthafucka betta enjoy his last gulps of oxygen.
Knight didn’t move. His face remained cool and calm. And he let out his most charming laugh, the kind that Daddy would always use when he was annoyed as hell at a client. “All men should strive for your level of confidence,” Knight said with a charming, almost chuckling tone. “However, this territory is not open for negotiation. Right now. I’ll have to discuss your proposal with The Queen in private and get back with you on that.” Knight glanced at The Queen. “I’m sure you can appreciate that it takes teamwork to make the dream work,” he said, turning back to Red. “She may in fact be open to your request.”
The Queen let her lips part as she widened her eyes at Red. His waxy beige cheeks grew pink.
“I like your style,” The Queen said, smiling at that disrespectful muthafucka.
“Security,” Brian said. “We need to work out protection for us as we watch and our teams as they arrive, compete, and leave with several mill.”
Red nodded back to the enormous black man behind him. “Nikolai handles that. Our only duty at this time is to agree to this historical collaboration that will fill the coffers of both Babylon and Moreno Enterprises with even more riches. And perhaps bring with it some extraordinary opportunities for pleasure.” Red raised a shotglass full of light brown liquid.
“To the deal of the millennium,” he said. Without waiting for anyone else to raise a glass, as The Queen and Knight had not even been served, he chugged back the shot. He did not wince before he said with glistening lips, “The truce is a new beginning for all of us, my brother.”
“Bet,” Knight said.
For the next twenty minutes, they chatted about The Games, the weather, and the upcoming wedding.
“Excuse me,” The Queen said. “I’m going to the ladies room.”
Tiffany stood. “Me too.” She was so skinny that when she turned sideways in that white pantsuit, she almost disappeared against the wall. She had no ass; the dark red pinstripes on her pants made her backside look like a wishbone.
Pong followed as The Queen left the room. She took long strides through the restaurant, loving the way men and women froze to stare at her. She was a diva and radiated sex power that made every person in the room stare at her as she walked.
All hail The Queen. Yeah, her ego was out there. But she was lovin’ it.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” Tiffany said, taking quick, tiny steps to catch up and keep The Queen’s pace. “Ever.”
Yes, you have. We used to be best friends, bitch.
“What was your name again?” The Queen asked. “Red never mentioned you and your husband’s names.”
“I’m Birdie; he’s B-boy. And we’re not really married.”
As The Queen pushed open the bathroom door, she saw in her peripheral that Brian was going into the men’s bathroom. She didn’t have to look to know that Pong would wait outside the women’s lounge to listen for any problems and escort her back to Knight.
When she entered, another woman came in from a door at the opposite side of the restaurant.
Be careful, Celeste said. This bathroom isn’t as secure as you thought. She thought about letting Pong know that, but she had Smith & Wesson strapped to her waist, so she’d be fine. Even with tiny Tiffany in tow.
The Queen dashed into a stall. Lately it seemed she had to pee a lot.
“Does everybody call you The Queen?” Tiffany asked from another stall. “I mean, like what’s your real name? I guess something about you seems so familiar.”
All the negative emotions that Tiffany’s speech cadence was rousing inside The Queen made her pussy ache. She needed sex to pound down these thoughts and feelings. But the girl with whom Victoria Winston had shared so many secrets and pledged to be best friends for life, kept clanging against her senses.
“When my best friend died last year,” Tiffany said, “it was so tragic. You remind me of her.”
“How’d she die?” The Queen forced the words up and out like sour, slimy chunks of vomit.
“Oh, my gosh! It was so tragic, like,” Tiffany continued, “her dad, he died, and she got sent to live in the worst part of Detroit. And she, couldn’t handle it. Her dad had been like, really into some shady deals that she helped him hide from the IRS. Red says Dan Winston was really a shady dude who did him wrong.”
The Queen wanted to puke. Daddy did business with Moreno? Had that gangster threatened her father when the feds closed in with their audit? Had they threatened to hurt him or his three kids? The Queen choked out the words. She had to relieve these feelings, quickly. “Did him wrong, how?”
Tiffany let out a disgusted sigh. “Oh, I’m not supposed to talk about this, but they’re all dead, so it doesn’t matter. Red had hired Mr. Winston to handle some of his deals. But the money got mixed up and the IRS clamped down—”
The Queen coughed. Just like other people craved a cigarette when they were stressed, and some folks smoked a joint, while others gambled, The Queen needed to calm herself by cumming. She pressed her middle finger to her clit. Yeah, the ultimate mind mellower. “Mmmmmm,” she moaned softly.
“You okay?” Tiffany chirped while hitting the toilet paper dispenser and unrolling it.
“Mmmmm-hhmmmm.”“Well,” Tiffany said, “it all worked out because I remember my friend said her dad had her shred some papers. The feds never found anything on Moreno, but he was highly pissed.”
The Queen’s fingers danced over her clit with lightning speed. Her mind swirled with thoughts of Knight’s giant dick slamming up into her slippery hole and banging, banging, banging until The Queen couldn’t think straight or walk across the room or even say her name. Yeah, right now she needed love to smash away this pain. And shut Tiffany the fuck up.
“So my friend, she was so sweet, but she killed herself. They found the body of a girl who fit her description inside her dad’s mansion, like, a few weeks after the funeral.”
The Queen gasped. She shoved the fingers on her other hand up into her pussy, fucking herself so that she wouldn’t have to let those words register.
They think I killed myself? And they found a body in my childhood home?
This was the first she’d heard of that. A year ago, she had followed news reports about herself and the feds’ movement on her case. But after a while, as she immersed deeper into the Babylon world, she stopped paying attention to media lies about Victoria Winston.
Truth was, that girl was in fact, dead. And reincarnated as The Queen. But whose body had they found in the Winston’s abandoned mansion? Could it have been her sister Me
lanie? After all, The Queen had not seen her since the funeral, when Melanie had vowed to enter a convent.
“It was weird,” Tiffany said over the rustle of clothes that must have been her pulling her pants up. “They showed the girl’s picture on the news and said it was Vikki. But I woulda bet money that it was her sister Melanie, ’cause Vikki had eyes like yours but Melanie had brown eyes, and the girl on the news had brown eyes.”
The Queen stabbed her fingers inside the creamy heat between her legs to numb her pain. She wished she had four hands so that she could work her pussy and cover her ears all at once. So she wouldn’t have to hear Tiffany’s mile-a-minute chatter that was jackin’ her cool.
“Plus the news said she hung herself from the banister, but I heard it was blunt force trauma to the head.” Tiffany let out a nervous laugh. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I guess ’cause I don’t have anybody else to talk to about it.”
Who would kill Melanie to trick the world into thinking Victoria were dead?
Duke. No one else cared.
The Queen let her fingertips circle her clit, ’round and ’round, to still the horrific hurricane in her mind.
But Celeste spoke loud and clear, Duke had them find a female body in the mansion so they’d stop tracking you. And he must have done it before Knight had rolled back into town.
The outrage of Duke killing her sister, and anguish of knowing that her sister was dead, made her ache from head to toe.
So The Queen tickled her swollen pussy with expert precision on that fire spot at the tip of her clit. That was the most sensitive place of all. And it protected her from having either, the energy, the ability, or the desire to think about the fact that Duke had committed murder to protect her new position in Babylon.
Sex in the Hood Saga Page 39