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 stillstiffen 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 ofthatclub, 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 thetempest 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.
