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 myWalking Deadass 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.
Fuck survival of the fittest. It’s survival of the cruelest. The fucking craziest. Survival of the one most willing to burn all this shit to the ground if it means getting what you want.
Pulling out my phone, I lean against my Charger. Humming, I navigate to a folder on my phone and find the app I’m searching for. One tap, and several squares fill the screen. It’s a video feed of the obodo. Nef and Maura secretly installed several cameras around the compound, and so far, no one has discovered them. Thanks to those tiny devices, I am able to monitor the foyer, throne room, kitchen, Abena’s study, and the hallway right outside her bedroom. The video feeds haven’t provided anything earth-shattering. Yet we have been able to ferret information regarding shipments, meetings, alliances. And we’ve taken advantage of that info, disrupting deliveries, sabotaging meets, planting rumors—well, lies—to damage any possible alliances. Calling in a bomb threat or two. I study my screen, and after several minutes, I close it out since nothing of import is going on.
I tap the screen and open up a new video feed.
