All Hail the Queen Read online

  Not once during the melee had Yani gotten close enough to the scene for Naeema to even remember he was there. She gave him one last glare and then jerked the driver’s side door open to climb onto the seat.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  Naeema gripped the wheel and shifted her eyes from the bright red rear lights of the ambulance to the three women sitting in the SUV’s backseat. The one in the middle with a waist-length black weave with burgundy tips was Fevah. All three were crying, shivering, and clutching one another’s hands.

  Naeema could care the fuck less . . . or at least she wanted to.

  She looked at them and back to the red lights of the ambulance getting smaller in the distance. Fuuuuuuck. “That’s my husband that was shot,” she said, turning back around to accelerate the SUV forward. “I have to get to the hospital.”

  “Wait . . . what?”

  Naeema flexed her shoulders in irritation as she sped like crazy to catch up with the ambulance. I should have rode with him. Why didn’t I ride with him? Tank, please hold on. Please.

  “I want to go home. Take me the fuck home,” Fevah said, hitting the back of Naeema’s seat.

  Naeema lifted one hand from the wheel long enough to shoo her words away like aggravating flying pests.

  “TAKE. ME. THE. FUCK. HOME.”

  Naeema’s lips tightened in anger. She opened the armrest and pulled out Tank’s Glock. She pressed it between the wheel and her hand as she continued to dip and weave around the traffic, as she stayed pressed to the ambulance’s tail. “My motherfucking husband was shot trying to protect you and I am going to the hospital,” she said, her eyes shifting to them in the rearview mirror and back to the busy traffic-filled street ahead of her. “Either shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. Choice is yours.”

  The three women all resumed their crying.

  The ambulance breezed through a red light. Naeema stopped just long enough to check for oncoming traffic before she ran it. Tank. Please hold on.

  POW! POW! POW! POW!

  She blinked with each echoing memory of gunfire.

  Her eyes dipped down to the blood on her hands. She bit her bottom lip as a tear raced down her cheek and salted her mouth.

  “I’m the hottest chick in the game . . .”

  At the ringtone, Naeema took her eyes off the bright lights of the hospital up ahead in the distance to look at Fevah in the rearview mirror as she answered her iPhone.

  “Yes, I’m still in the SUV.”

  The ambulance made a sharp left and Naeema followed.

  “They canceled the premiere?”

  POW! POW! POW! POW!

  Naeema flinched again.

  “Tell the police I am safe and we’re pulling up to—”

  “Bellevue Hospital,” Naeema provided as she eyed the sign on the corner detailing directions to the medical center.

  “This shit is crazy, yo,” Fevah said to whomever was on the phone. “I could’ve died tonight.”

  “Word,” one of her friends co-signed sadly.

  Naeema pulled the SUV into a parking spot next to the ambulance.

  “The fuck we gon’ do now, Fevah?”

  “They sending a car for me.”

  Naeema gripped the door handle but she stopped at the loud snorting coming from the rear of the SUV. She glanced back just as Fevah sniffed again and pinched her nose before she passed a thick glass vial of coke to one of her friends.

  Coke was meaner than weed but Naeema wasn’t judging a damn thing. Right then she would gladly smoke a fat blunt to ease all the emotions beating her the fuck down.

  “Nobody followed us. Stay in here. It’s bulletproof,” Naeema told them before she took the keys out of the ignition.

  “You know y’all fired, right?” Fevah asked, wrapping her fingers around the vial.

  “Bitch, please,” Naeema drawled. “You know we quit, right?”

  She grabbed her bag before she rushed from the car just as the EMTs lowered Tank’s stretcher from the ambulance.

  POW! POW! POW! POW!

  “How is he?” Naeema asked, as she slid her bloody hand into Tank’s as she ran alongside the stretcher inside the emergency room’s open double doors.

  “Alive . . . barely.”

  Tank’s face was covered with an oxygen mask and there was an intravenous line in his arm. His eyes were closed. His breathing was slow and labored. Blood soaked his clothing and the stretcher. The bullets tore jagged holes in his flesh.

  “Tank, I’m here,” she said to him. “I’m here, baby.”

  She felt someone undo her hand from his. She held the fuck on even as her body went weak with fear and her shoulders sunk as she cried.

  “Ma’am, please. Let go of him.”

  Naeema uncurled her fingers and moments later their touch was broken. She stumbled backward as she watched him until the doctors and the stretcher disappeared from her view behind double doors. She trembled and felt as if she stepped out of her own body.

  She couldn’t wrap her brain around never seeing Tank alive again.

  “No. No,” she gasped. “No.”

  POW! POW! POW! POW!

  She squeezed her eyes shut but then opened them quickly as the image of Tank’s shooting began to replay against her closed lids. Clear. Vivid. Brutal.

  Tank was shot.

  She bit her bottom lip to keep from screaming at the top of her lungs with all her fear and rage.

  Tank was shot.

  She felt her knees go weak and she didn’t stop her body from sliding down the length of the wall until she sat on the floor with her feet spread wide.

  POW! POW! POW! POW!

  Naeema drew her feet in and wrapped her arms around her chest. She sat her chin in the groove between her knees and closed her eyes. The image of Tank’s body riddled with bullets was replaced with the graphic scenes of her son’s body from the crime scene photos. Scenes of his brutal death.

  I can’t lose Tank too.

  She stroked the wide gold band of the ring she wore—her son’s ring. The same ring she made his killer kiss in the moments just before she shot him to death without remorse. She looked down at the ring now covered with the blood of the man she loved.

  Tank’s shooter would pay too.

  She rose to her feet and took a seat in one of the waiting room chairs.

  In the midst of her misery her anger gave her strength. Not much. But some. Enough. For now.

  6

  “Tonight, the shocking attempt on the life of Chasity Williams—better known as platinum-selling rap artist Fevah—has rocked the entertainment world. While arriving here at the Ziegfeld Theater for the premiere of her first major film, the vehicle Fevah was exiting was bombarded with gunfire and her bodyguard was shot and critically wounded during the incident. He is currently in surgery at Bellevue Hospital Center with no recent updates on his condition. Police are investigating the shooting but have no leads on just who wanted the popular hip-hop star’s light put out far too soon. This is Maria Vargas reporting for WCBL Live 8 News . . .”

  Naeema closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. The shooting had been at the top of the news for the last six hours since it happened. Every broadcast. Every channel.

  She was tired of looking at Fevah fans laying out flowers and teddy bears at the sight of the shooting as though the bullets intended for her had actually pierced her flesh and left her on a surgical table for the last six hours.

  Two police detectives had been to the hospital to question her but for Naeema it was more about finding out what they knew. So far she could fit it all inside a motherfucking thimble.

  The door to the small waiting room opened and six men filed in. Every last one had a powerful presence even as their expressions were tight with the same anger and pain she felt. She eyed each one. Quari, Kyle, Linx, Frasier, Darren, and Amir. Tank’s team. All except Grip, who was on his way back from his mini-vacation, and Yani, who was smart to stay away. When those bullets starting flying his whack on-duty self flew in the opposite direction. Fuck his lame ass.

  Amir sat Tank’s duffel and her overnight case next to her feet. “Thanks,” she said, giving a small smile to the dude who was built like a linebacker for the National Football League.

  “No problem, Naeema,” he said.

  She had sent him to the hotel to gather their things and check out.

  The men all took a seat and looked at her.

  “What’s going on with Fevah?” she asked, staring off at a crack in the paint on the wall as she used her thumb to turn her son’s ring on her finger.

  “She hired a new security team and they wouldn’t let us in to question her,” Linx said, his blue eyes almost clear enough to be turquoise.

  Naeema felt her gut burn with anger. “I guess Tank taking her bullets as she shut the door to protect her hip-hop-pop ass wasn’t good enough,” she said, biting her bottom lip.

  “Exactly,” one of the men agreed.

  “Who?” Naeema asked. “Who did she hire?”

  “I’d have to find out,” Linx said, looking disappointed that he couldn’t provide an answer to a very simple question.

  Naeema said nothing as she looked away from the stout white man with a blond buzz cut. She knew he would get the answer and just because she asked. Tank was their boss—their leader—and she was his wife. Their deference for Tank transferred to her because they knew her well and they knew she wanted the gunman—or gunmen—just as badly as they did. If not more so.

  She looked at Frasier—a light-skinned man with a bald head, freckles, and a beard.

  “The police did a damn good sweep of the scene and nothing was left behind. They have all the bullet shells,” he told her.

  “Where were they?” she asked, her look intense.

  “The markings on the ground say it was someone right in the crowd,” Frasier said. “I texted you the pictures.”

  Naeema nodded. She wasn’t ready to see them yet.

  “We have to find out who wanted Fevah dead,” she said, stating the obvious. “And I could care less why. Like seriously I don’t give fuck if they want her dead because she shot their mother. I don’t give a fuck.”

  The men fell silent and all shifted to some sort of comfort in their seats.

  “And let me make something clear,” Naeema said, eyeing each one with eyes cold enough to chill them to their bones. “Tank would take a bullet for any of you and if your asses won’t do the same then you’ll be on the outside looking in just like Yani.”

  “But Yani said—”

  Naeema sat up straight in her chair and pierced Amir—the newest member of Tank’s staff. “I don’t give a flying fuck what his punk ass said. I was there,” she said, her eyebrows dipping with her anger. “If you want to sacrifice you’re motherfucking job to protect his then have at it, Amir. The floor is yours, my hitta.”

  From the corner of her eye she saw a couple of the men slightly motion with their heads for him not to fuck with it.

  “Nah, I’m good,” Amir said.

  “Good,” she stressed, keeping her face stoic even as she felt a wave of tears creep up on her. These men respected her but she knew they expected to see some sign of weakness and she absolutely refused to fulfill any fucking dreams. She’d save her tears for when she was alone.

  “And in local news Councilman Victor Planter is being heralded for a recent move that would bring a significant number of needed jobs to the city of Newark. The councilman made a stipulation clear that bids submitted for construction within city limits must include an agreement to hire local workers from the city. Many residents hope other politicians follow Councilman Planter’s lead and prove that the residents of Newark and their well-being matter beyond just the revitalization of the downtown area. Councilman Planter had this to say today at a groundbreaking for a new hotel in Newark . . .”

  “That shit sounds good on paper,” one of the men said.

  Naeema glanced up at the bald-headed, dark-skinned black man in a suit speaking on the television.

  “I’ll have to see it to fucking believe it,” Quari said. “Plenty of brothers want and can use that work.”

  “Plenty of white brothas too, Quari,” Linx said. “We all are struggling right now.”

  “Right. Right.”

  Naeema said nothing as the news moved to the shooting. They were running the story into the ground. She was pressed to get her thoughts together. To get her mind right. Every question had an answer. Every lock had a key. It was all about making the connections. Putting it all together. And above all—for her—following her instincts. They hadn’t failed her yet since she learned to respect them.

  To help weed out her son’s killer she had to go undercover as Queen using wigs, a fake-ass background, and plenty of lies. For months she lived among a band of thieves and got so lost in the game that she didn’t know if she was coming or fucking going. She doubted she needed to go that deep with it but she was pretty sure that Queen could come in handy again.

  “Text me Fevah’s address and don’t worry about contacting her directly again,” Naeema said, going back to twisting the ring on her finger.

  I got it.

  “We did it, Mrs. Cole.”

  Naeema looked up at Tank as they stood together on a white sand beach in the Bahamas under the floral-covered altar with the gentle breeze causing the white material draped across the top to billow in the air.

  “Yes we did,” she said, thinking her husband looked hella good in his khaki linen suit with a cream silk V-neck tee.

  She smoothed the hand he didn’t hold over the waist of the ivory lace bustier dress she wore. The halter top with the back out and the hem just below her ass was wild for a wedding at a church but it was just the right fit for a man like Tank and a woman like Naeema on a beach in the Bahamas. Just the two of them.

  Their union was all about Jay Z and Beyoncé’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” Method Man and Mary’s “You’re All I Need,” and Biggie’s “Me & My Bitch.” Any of ’em could have been their theme song and right then, just moments after getting married, they both felt like they could say “fuck the world” because they had each other’s back like no one else could.

  Tank tugged at her hand as he turned to walk down the aisle that she walked toward him just minutes ago. With one last look at the turquoise water Naeema followed behind him with her straw high-heel sandals in her hand. Her shoulder-length ebony curls bounced and the long gold beads she wore hit against the shorter necklaces nestled in her cleavage above the sweetheart neckline. When she stumbled Tank stopped and scooped her thickness up into his arms to carry her the rest of the way down the aisle.

  “Mrs. and Mr. Cole,” she said, reading the words tattooed on her left ring finger. It had been worth the pain to brand herself his and only his. He had the same tat. They’d gotten them done that morning before heading out for the flight to the Bahamas for their intimate wedding weekend at the Atlantis.

  Fuck rings. Rings could be removed.

  Naeema pressed a kiss to his smooth cheek. She shaved him last night as she sat naked in his lap. “You can put me down, Tank,” she said as he continued across the beach with her in his arms drawing the stares of the few people they passed.

  He shook his head. “Never. I always got you, Naeema,” he said. “Always.”

  That look in his eyes when he said it and the feel of the strength in his arms as he held her took Naeema’s breath away. There was a time she thought a man would never respect her enough to wife her and now she had one that made her believe that for forever and a day she could rely on him.

  “And I got you, too,” she swore, stroking his mouth with her thumb before dipping her head in close to kiss him deeply.

  “Always?” he asked in that hot little space between their mouths as they paused in their kissing.

  “Always . . .”

  “Mrs. Cole?”

  Naeema blinked as she was brought back to the present by the nurse standing in the waiting-room entrance. “Yes?” she asked as all the men rose to their feet.

  “Your husband is out of surgery and the doctor will be out in a moment to update you,” she said, placing a hand to her chest as though all the men staring at her made her nervous—in a good way.

  Naeema rose to her feet. “He’s alive?” she asked, her heart pounding.

  The nurse nodded. “Yes.”

  Thank you, God.

  “When can I see him?” Naeema asked, fighting back tears of relief.

  “He’s in post-op but we have his room ready if . . . if you want to clean up,” she offered gently.

  Naeema looked down at her blood-stained clothes and nodded. Up until that moment, not knowing if Tank was at least alive, Naeema hadn’t given a fuck about leaving that hospital to change clothes. She tucked her pocketbook under her arm and turned to get their bags.

  Amir and Linx already had them in their hands.

  Tears swelled up and Naeema dropped her head as she fought not to let a tear fall. She didn’t have family. Her grandfather died years ago. Her son was murdered. Her husband was fighting to live. Sarge never left the house and she wouldn’t ask him to. She didn’t really fuck with female friends anymore.

  In that moment these men were all she had and she was grateful for them. “Thanks,” she said, blinking her lashes like crazy as she shook her head.

  No one said anything but they all stood there waiting for her to make the next move for them to follow. She released a long breath through pursed lips before she turned and followed the nurse out of the waiting room with her head held high.

  The men all followed close behind.

  Naeema glared across the bedroom at Tank sitting on the edge of the bed in nothing but his boxers. She barely had on much more in her bright green lace teddy. They both were pissed the hell off.

  Naeema was hot as fish grease because Tank was just getting home after they just argued the night before about the same shit.

  Tank was furious because he was tired and just wanted to come home to a happy wife and some sleep—neither of which panned the fuck out for him.