King Divas

Welcome back to Memphis, where when the sun goes down, shit starts popping off. The three major female gangs ruling the gritty Mid-South are the
Queen Gs
—who keep it hood for the
Black Gangster Disciples
. The
Flowers—
who rule with the
Vice Lords
. And the
Crippettes
—mistresses of the
Grape Street Crips
.

 

Rules are: There are no damn rules. Survive the game the best way you know how. If you want to be king, show no remorse. Memphis's divas are as hard and ruthless as the men they hold down. Your biggest mistake is to get in their way.

Also by De'nesha Diamond

 

 

Anthologies
Heartbreaker
(with Erick S. Gray and Nichelle Walker)
Heist
(with Kiki Swinson)
A Gangster and a Gentleman
(with Kiki Swinson)
Fistful of Benjamins
(with Kiki Swinson)
The Ultimate Heist
(with Kiki Swinson)

 

 

 

 

 

Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

The Memphis struggle continues . . .

Special thanks to our heavenly Father, who blessed me long before I had the common sense to realize it. To Granny, who continues to inspire me, though it's from up above now. My sister Channon “Chocolate Drop” Kennedy—you're still the best. My beautiful niece, Courtney—I love you.

To Selena James and Marc Gerald, many thanks for being by my side through troubled times.

And of course the fans, who have been loving the series from day one. You don't know how much your love and support have sustained me.

Best of Love,

De'nesha

Ta'Shara Murphy
was once a straight-A student with dreams of getting the hell out of Memphis, but she took a detour from her dreams when she fell in love with Raymond “Profit” Lewis, the younger brother of Fat Ace. The war between the Vice Lords and her sister LeShelle's set, the Gangster Disciples, puts her between a rock and a hard place. When she failed to take her sister LeShelle's warning to heart, she was unprepared for the consequences.

 

LeShelle Murphy
is Queen G for the Memphis Gangster Disciples. Not only does she love her man, Python, but she also loves the power her position affords her, and there is nothing that she won't do to ensure that she never loses any of it, which includes doing whatever it takes to keep her younger sister in line and handling the many chicken heads pecking at her heels.

 

Willow “Lucifer” Washington
is Fat Ace's right hand and as deadly as they come. A true ride-or-die chick to her core. The latest explosion between the sets will have her true feelings bubbling to the top, and when she's forced to step up and lead, she proves that you don't need a set of balls to wash the streets with blood.

 

Maybelline “Momma Peaches” Carver
, Python's beloved aunt, believes and acts as if she's still wildin' out in her twenties. With an arrest record a mile long, Peaches is right in the thick of things, but when old family secrets start coming home to roost, her partying days may be far behind her.

 

Shariffa Rodgers
is the ex-wifey of Gangster Disciple Python. She was kicked off her throne and nearly beaten to death after getting caught creeping. Now married to Grape Street Crip leader Lynch, Shariffa not only wants payback, she wants her new crew to take over the entire street game.

 

Qiana “Scar” Barrett
is a Vice Lord Flower and the younger sister of Vice Lord soldier Tombstone. She's long been in love with Profit and will do anything to see Ta'Shara removed from his arm. She crossed enemy lines to forge a deal with Queen G LeShelle. When she didn't complete her end of the bargain, her chickens came home to roost.

 

Captain Hydeya Hawkins
is the new Memphis police captain unraveling the secrets and corruption of her predecessor. But the straight-arrow cop has a few secrets of her own.

T
he Power of Prayer Baptist Church is filled with the sounds of gunfire. Bullets splinter the wooden pews and shatter a few stained-glass windows. Between the steady firing, my nephews Terrell and Mason sling the word
muthafucka
back and forth. Dribbles's loud ass screams like the crazy white woman she is and Terrell's dangerous cousin, Diesel, is blasting by his side. What Dribbles and I had hoped to be a joyous reunion between the two estranged brothers who have for decades been rival gang chiefs with the Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples has now descended into total chaos.

And I'm lying here with a damn bullet in my side.

Stop. Please.
My desperation only rings inside my head because it takes too much damn energy to get my mouth to work.
Am I dying?
While I wait for God to answer, I realize that the possibility doesn't scare me. Not like the last time, when I was cold and sick in my nana's old house, where I waited for Alice, my baby sister, to finish me off after she kidnapped me. If anything, I'm disappointed. I had hoped that this family could finally heal its deep wounds.

Mason a.k.a. Fat Ace, who up until a few months ago we'd believed to be long dead—sold when he was a baby to some trifling drug dealer by Alice, for a couple of crack rocks—had been, all this time, growing up across town under the Vice Lords' protection. The Vice Lords—our street family's mortal enemy. And Mason isn't just any Vice Lord soldier, he is the damn chief. Mason's older brother, Terrell, known on the street as Python, is the Gangster Disciples' head chief and has been mourning his brother's absence all these years.

When I learned the truth that Mason had actually been kidnapped by Alice's white crackhead best friend, Dribbles, it was too late. All of Memphis had seen him and Terrell killed in a fiery crash off Memphis's Old Bridge on every local news channel. But like two phoenixes, the brothers had somehow survived the crash—only to now be trying to kill each other over a horrible misunderstanding. After I'd entered this church and prayed for guidance to get through this meeting, I'd been shot—not by Mason who'd showed up minutes later, but by my old frenemy and neighbor, Josephine Holmes. That old fat bitch believed I was moving in on her imaginary man, Pastor Rowlin Hayes.

After Josie wobbled her big ass out of here, Mason and Dribbles showed up and tried to help, but when Python came in and saw Mason covered in my blood, all hell broke loose.

It's like watching a war of giants. The three men, all six-four to six-five, are stacked with muscles and littered with tattoos. Diesel stands out because of his light honey-brown complexion, pale eyes, and
GQ
looks. But he's as deadly as the brothers Mason and Terrell when it comes to power.

The two brothers are harder on the eyes. Both are dark black with scars and purpling second and third degree burns all over their bodies from that fiery car crash. The one thing that stands out about Mason is his one brown eye and his one milky-white-colored eye.

A bullet zings across my cheek, splitting it open.
Get behind a pew.
But that takes energy. Energy that I don't have. I'm stuck lying here in a pool of my own blood in the Power of Prayer Baptist Church.

“Please. Stop,” I croak.

“You're a dead nigga,” Terrell roars, his face a demonic mask as he fires off more shots.

Diesel sprays bullets in Mason's general direction.

Dribbles screams—but the men show no mercy.

Mason slings Dribbles behind a stone partition on the church's stage before turning and firing back.

I work my mouth to say something, but I can't get the words out.

Two bullets slam into Terrell's muscular thighs. He tumbles and bends a knee, but his finger never eases off the damn trigger.

Diesel is nailed in his left shoulder, but it may as well have been Nerf ball bullets. He continues firing and advancing forward as though he didn't feel a thing.

I have to do something—anything to stop this potential carnage.
I'm too weak to do anything other than pray.
Please. Lord, please.

Terrell and Diesel's clips are empty. The cousins go for their backup clips, and Mason chooses that moment to fire shots while he drags Dribbles toward the back of the church.

“Get that muthafucka,” Terrell barks.

“I'm on it, cuz.” Diesel slaps in another clip and races after Mason.

“Nooo,” I croak, choking on my own blood. The devil keeps messing with me, threatening to take my nearly seventy-year-old ass out. But I didn't survive one hell with Alice only to be taken out, right here in the Lord's own house. No. I refuse to go out like this. I search within my soul for strength.

Terrell kneels besides me. “Aunt Peaches, can you hear me?” He rolls me over onto my back. Pain rips through my entire body. It's all I can do to hang on to consciousness. “We're going to get him. Don't you worry,” he promises. His large black eyes glisten. “There's no fucking way that I'm going to let him get away with shooting you. You hear me?”

I smack my dry lips, but my tongue feels as if it's too large for my mouth and my words get buried in my throat. It breaks my heart. I reach up and touch his scarred and burned face. It's important that he calms down and listens to what I have to say, but all I manage to do is paint his cheek with my blood.

“Don't die on me, Peaches. You're all I have left.”

“That's not true,” I choke out, thinking of his new wife, LeShelle. She wasn't who I wanted for him, but at least from time to time she acts as though she truly cares for him. “I'm not going anywhere,” I whisper, trying to convince him as well as myself.

“Please. I don't know what I'd do without you.” He leans over until our foreheads touch and his hot tears splash onto my face.

Terrell, a mountain of a man, pulls me into his lap and rocks me.

In the distance, tires squeal and shots are fired. This whole meeting couldn't have gone any worse.
Tell him. Tell him before it's too late.
I suck in a breath, but my body rejects it as I choke.

“Easy. Easy. Take it easy,” Terrell says. “I'm not going anywhere,” he promises.

He thinks I'm going to die. It's written on his face.

“Lis—listen,” I croak. “He didn't do it.”

“Shh. Shhh. Don't try and talk right now. I got you. Rest.”

Rest.
I close my eyes. My soul longs to rest, but I can't. I have to get the truth out. “Mason.”

“Shh. Shh. It'll keep,” he tells me.

“But—”

“Help is on the way,” he promises. “I'm sure someone has reported the gunfire.”

Frustrated, I slide my bloody hand from his face over to his lips to get him to hush. “Please. Let me get this out,” I say, panting and choking over what air I manage to inhale.

The floor trembles as Diesel rushes back into the church.

“Did you get him?” Terrell asks.

I roll my head toward Diesel.

He shakes his head. “Sorry, cuz. They got away.”

Relieved, I slump in Terrell's arms. What strength I have evaporates to the point that I can barely keep my eyes open.

At long last, the familiar wail of the police sirens catches my ear.

Diesel taps Terrell's shoulder. “Look, cuz. We have to get you out of here.”

“I'm not going any damn where,” Terrell barks. “I'm not leaving her here like this.”

“There's nothing we can do for her,” Diesel says, like my ass has already transitioned
.

Terrell stiffens his jaw and shakes his cousin's hand off of his shoulder. “I said that I'm not leaving her.”

I'm touched by his loyalty—and as much as I want him to stay, he can't. “Terrell, baby,” I whisper. “G'on now. I'm going to be fine.”

He shakes his head. “No. I can't do that.”

“It's okay.” I pause, swallow, but end up choking again.

Terrell beats himself up. “Damn. Damn. We should've gotten here sooner.”

“Don't do that. I'm going to be all right. You'll see.”

Terrell searches my face.

I'm an excellent poker player and put on my best, most earnest face, and even flutter on a smile that I don't feel. “I promise. I'm going to be all right. I'm going to pull through this. But if you stick around all you're going to accomplish is going to jail.” He knows it's true. He's the most wanted man in Memphis for not only killing the daughter of the late captain of police, but for kidnapping the son that he had with the girl. If he's caught, they'll give him the needle.

The sirens grow louder.

Diesel touches his arm again. “You go, cuz. I'll stay with her.”

Terrell glances over his shoulder and up at him. “Yeah? You'd do that for me?”

“Of course, cuz. We're family.”

Terrell nods, but he doesn't move to get up.

“Go,” I tell him.

He's torn. It's written in every inch of his body language.

“Go,” Diesel urges. “I got this.” He kneels down beside Terrell. “Get out of here, man.”

Terrell hesitates. My hand falls from his face. “Go.”

Misty-eyed, Terrell's gaze shifts between me and his cousin. At long last, he climbs to his feet. “I'm counting on you, cuz.”

“I won't let you down.”

“I won't let you down, either,” I say. “I promise.”

Terrell nods and slowly backs out of the church.

Relieved, I exhale and close my eyes. I need to rest for a minute. As darkness descends, I remember that I didn't tell Terrell about the shooting. “Diesel,” I say, licking my lips and forcing my eyes open again.

“Yeah, Aunt Peaches?”

“You have to tell Terrell something for me.” I grip his arm. “Promise me.”

“What's that?”

“Mason didn't do this,” I pant. “He didn't shoot me. That damn Josie that lives across the street from me did this shit. Mason showed up afterwards. You gotta tell Terrell.”

Diesel's eyes turn green. His eyes have always been like a mood ring: at times they appear blue and other times green. “What?”

“You have to tell him. I don't want him going after his brother over this. You tell him, all right? Stop the war between those two. They're brothers. We have to heal this family.”

My surge of strength ebbs away while the sirens grow louder.

Diesel shakes his head. “No. I don't think I'll tell him that.”

Confused, I peel my eyes open again.

“You see, I need for old cuz to take out Fat Ace. Kind of clear the field, if you know what I mean. If I tell him that Fat Ace had nothing to do with your shooting, he'll go back to wanting to meet and bond with that nigga for old times' sake. Nah. I need this new cuz out of the picture before I lose even more of my investments.”

“But . . .”

“And I can't have you ruining my plans either.” His beautiful eyes go ice-cold. “I'm really sorry about this, Auntie. It's not personal.”

Before I can ask him what the hell he's talking about, there's a loud
POW!

I jump as hot lead slices through the center of my body—and before the next wave of pain hits, everything goes dark.