Page 8 of Devil's Queen
Shoving away from my desk, I head back downstairs. Tinley and Cheyenne are still working on the bike, and it’s looking good.
“Hey,” I call out, catching their attention. “Looks like you two actually did a good job.”
Tinley grins. “Of course we did. You didn’t think we could handle it?”
I smirk. I had my doubts. “You missed a spot,” I call out, smirking as Tinley glares at me.
“Very funny, Prez,” Cheyenne mumbles, going back to buffing the chrome.
“You’ll get over it.” I laugh.
“Rude.” She smiles.
“Everyone else in the conference room?”
She nods her response. I pivot, heading toward the room with her and Cheyenne on my heels.
When I walk into the conference room, I can feel the room’s energy shift. I take my seat, nodding in acknowledgment to the other officers. The brick façade brightens with the rising sun coming through one of the windows.
“Why do we always have to have meetings so early?” Harlow mutters as I pass her. “I was at the club all night.”
I pause at the comment. “I thought you were off last night.”
“I was supposed to be, but Auntie Kay called in sick. I volunteered. Good thing too. The new girl came in high as a fucking kite and picked a fight.”
“You took care of it?”
“I did.” She nods.
Bayou Belles had been one of our newer acquisitions. Harlow had been a dancer there for years while putting herself through nursing school, and when the old owner, Auntie Kay, had decided to sell it, we snapped up the opportunity. Though, despite her attempt to retire, she still helps out a few nights a week managing the dancers.
So many of the women we’ve helped over the years worked in the sex trade. They’d been beaten, raped, and worse by evil men who wanted them for their bodies and nothing else. Bayou Belles gave them a safe place to work without having to sell their bodies. We had strict rules, and if you broke them, you were out. Simple as that. Compassion only goes so far when the person doesn’t want to get clean or follow the rules.
“Auntie Kay, okay?” I ask, heading for my chair and settling into my spot at the head of the table.
“Touch of the flu. She called her voodoo priestess and was waiting for her priestess to drop off her gris-gris bag. I’m going to check on her after the meeting.”
Grabbing the gavel from the table, I smack it on the wooden disk before me.
“Any updates on the girls?”
“Doing well,” Tinley remarks. “They were released from the hospital, and they’re back on the road to Tennessee.”
“No trouble from Mom?”
“None. She wanted me to relay her heartfelt gratitude for finding her girls.”
The woman had come to Harlow at the club. Like so many others before her, she was desperate. The police had truly done all they could do at that point, but it wasn’t good enough to find her girls. Too many fucking times innocent lives were stolen away because the police weren’t fast enough or the red tape for the bureaucracy bullshit stole precious hours away from trying to find them. We didn’t have to worry about that. Between the club and Tinley’s job at the welfare office, we had more than enough work to go around for us. Each of us had tragedy in our lives. Tragedy we wanted to spare others from if we could.
“Is there anything else that needs our attention right now?”
Maya, our newest member, shifts nervously in her seat. “It may be nothing, but there’s been some rumblings that there has been a shake-up with the Zulu Kings.”
I lean forward in my chair. “Go on.”
“Wolff is out. Mutiny, from the way I understand it.”
My stomach sours at the mention of the rat bastard’s name. He’d taken my father’s throne the second he died, and he was the one who issued the orders to my mom and me.