Boss Queen: A Trap Love Story

By Porscha Sterling

Raised in the mean streets of Harlem, Queen Cavelli was a daddy's girl to the core until her father, Julius, was gunned down at her sweet sixteen birthday party where her mother was also kidnapped by his murderers. Days later, her brothers were arrested by the Feds and she was left alone with no way to support herself. Then Andre enters her life and tries to help her set things right. 

Although Queen is hesitant to trust anyone, she can't ignore his boss nigga status, impeccable swag and thug mentality. Soon he becomes everything she needs and teaches her the rules of the streets as well as the rules of the heart. With him by her side, Queen gets control of her father's empire but when jealousy rears its ugly head in the form of a childhood enemy of Queen's who has her eyes and affections set on Andre, things start to go very wrong. 

Tiffany has hated Queen since grade school when she first laid eyes on the pampered princess whose family was treated like hood royalty everywhere in Harlem. When she sees the relationship that Queen has with Andre, someone she had been sweating for months, she can't help but want to ruin everything Queen has going. And although she's nothing but a hoodrat, she has a sister in high places who could help her with her plans. 

Kelis is an NYPD officer in East Harlem with a secret of her own; her baby daddy is Trinidad, a notorious dopeboy in the same area she patrols. When she lands a promotion that puts her on a case, she is ecstatic until she realizes she may be hunting the man she loves. But Trinidad has another secret, which he shares with Kelis' ratchet sister, Tiffany.

Formerly published under the title, 'Us Against the World'.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Royalty Publishing House
• Release date: Jul 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781734399455

Porscha Sterling

PORSCHA STERLING is an influencer, publisher, and national bestselling author who is widely considered the exemplar of self-publishing success in the digital age. Winner of the SHEEN Magazine Literary Excellence Award, she’s best known for her book series Bad Boys Do It Better.   Sterling holds an MBA, which helped her in the development of her publishing company, Royalty Publishing House, a stronghold in the African-American literary community, publishing many top-selling novels in the urban, contemporary romance, interracial romance, and women’s fiction genres. Sterling has also partnered with fellow best-selling author and publisher, Leo Sullivan, on the launch of a mobile app, known as the LiT Reading App, which connects readers with exclusive material from independent authors. To find out more information about Porscha Sterling, visit all of the social media outlets at @Porscha_Sterling and her website, PorschaSterling.com.

Book preview

Prologue

The Day a Thug Stole My Heart

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Whap! Whap! Whap!

Chanel started pummeling me with punches. My face stung as her flesh connected with mine. No longer held down and unable to fight, I returned the hits as hard as I could. I didn’t want to hurt her but I had to get her off of me. Chanel had never been a fighter, whereas I’d fought my way through most of my life, so it was easy for me to get the upper hand.

Get off my daughter, you slut ass bitch! Mrs. Sanchez yelled, charging at me. From the corner of my eyes, I saw Sanchez sitting next to a corner watching the whole thing silently.

My neck jerked forward as Mrs. Sanchez grabbed me away from Chanel by the hair. As my fingers were ripped away from around her neck, I saw that she had a busted lip and nose. It hurt me to see what I’d done but I didn’t have a choice.

Chanel! I swear I didn’t do it. I swear he raped me! I yelled out, but I could tell by the fire in her eyes as she wiped at the blood on the side of her face that she wasn’t hearing me.

My legs scurried to keep up as Mrs. Sanchez drug me by my hair all the way to the front door. I twisted and writhed under her grasp as I tried my hardest to get away but she wasn’t letting up.

You dirty bitch! she yelled as she walked out of the front door with my hair still wrapped around her fist. Your mama is probably turning in her fuckin’ grave because of yo’ hoe ass!

Doors started opening and lights were switched on in the hall as people came out of their apartments to investigate and see what all the commotion was about. I continued to fight at Mrs. Sanchez, but she dodged each attempt I made to get her to free me. Wrenching my hair even tighter around her fists, she drug me down the stairs all the way from the fifth floor where they stayed to the first floor.

I lost my footing a few times; my equilibrium was off being that my head was contorted in such a way that I really couldn’t tell which way was up, down, left or right. My ankles bled from the cuts made as she drug me, allowing them to scrape the stairs. I sucked in a breath as I endured the stinging from me ankles, the cut on my thigh and the migraine that was taking hold from the hair pulling.

Here! she yelled as she tossed me away from her. I landed with a thud onto the muddied ground in front of the projects.

By this time, nearly two dozen people were standing outside of their apartments looking with curiosity and humor at the sight.

THIS is what you deserve you, nasty little bitch! You always thought you were better than everyone but what about now? Who you got now, you spoiled bitch! The next time someone offers to help your sorry ass, I bet you think twice about fuckin’ their man! she yelled out.

She turned to walk away, but then she stopped as if something had occurred to her. Turning back towards me, she hacked up a wad of spit and mucus and spat it directly into my face. With a satisfied smug look on her face, she turned on her heels and trekked away, leaving me behind as everyone stared.

I wiped the slimy spit out of my face as I heard whispers all around me.

Oh, Shit! Is that Queen Cavelli?

I knew she was nuttin’ but a damn hoe. Bitch always prancing around like her shit don’t stank.

Her daddy was a god in these streets. How the fuck he raise a hoe like that?

Well, his dick seemed to like hoes so it makes sense that it made one!

Yeah, her mama was stuck up too with her rigid, dry pussy ass. That’s why the nigga was always cheatin.’

Everything in my body told me to find out who was saying what and punch them until they couldn’t remember how to speak. But my body was tired. I had no more fight left in me.

QUEEN!

Letting out a heavy sigh, I tried to muster up all the energy in me so that I could at least throw another punch. Standing on my wobbly legs, I turned to face Chanel but was caught in the face by an object that felt like it cracked a hole in my skull.

Smack!

You lucky I at least let you keep that shit! But it’s only because I wanna make sure you got enough dough to get your ass outta here! Chanel yelled out.

I looked down on the ground at the object that she’d thrown at me so hard my ears were ringing. It was my clutch purse. The hard object inside must have been my phone. Leaning down, I grabbed it off the ground and stood up slowly. Chanel took one last look at me, a hurt and angry frown on her chocolate brown baby doll face. Then her bottom lip trembled as if she were about to cry.

I opened my mouth to proclaim my innocence once again, but then I let my mouth clamp shut. There was no point. She wouldn’t listen. No one would. I looked out at the people standing around. They wouldn’t believe me either. Ever since Julius had been killed, Sanchez had taken his spot. He’d easily won their loyalty and approval by giving out gifts to the ghetto; food, furniture, money, even free product to the junkies. No one would turn on him. They wouldn’t snitch on him to the police and they wouldn’t turn against him and take the word of a fallen hood princess either. He was their new savior.

Suddenly a pair of eyes caught my attention. Just when I thought I was at all-time low, it got even worse. At that time I felt like it was the worst thing that could ever happen to me, but it was actually the best.

As my eyes connected with Andre’s compassionate stare, I felt like everything around me disappeared. No one was around me. It was only he and I standing there in the middle of the ghetto. Him in all of his sexy glory; looking just as perfect as he had earlier when everything was right and just as I’d wanted it. And then there was me in all of my shame; hair knotted, matted and tossed all over my head, skin cut and bruised, right eye swollen shut, sports bra pulled at an angle, exposing one of my breasts and dingy, ripped pink shorts, mired by mud and partially dried semen.

And then it happened finally. The tears came. The pity in his eyes stirred something in my soul and the dam broke suddenly. Falling back down in the mud, I opened my mouth and let out a deep, guttural sob that came straight from the gut. I cried out for everything that had happened in the past month: the murder of my father at my sixteenth birthday party, the kidnapping of my mother, the imprisonment of my brothers, the rape from his best friend, and the loss of my own best friend. I truly had nothing and no one, and I cried into the mud for everything that I’d lost.

Queen… he called out to me but wrapped in the sound of my own sobs, I couldn’t hear a thing.

Queen, he said again. I felt a presence, his presence, above me but I couldn’t stop. Pulling my arms around my stomach, I pulled myself into a fetal position and continued to cry.

Suddenly, I felt arms pulling me up from the ground and mud as he cupped me in his arms. Blinking back the tears, I looked up at him and saw that he had a stern look on his face but his eyes were black and he was clenching and unclenching his jaw yet again. I wanted to ask him what that was about but I couldn’t. Suddenly, I was so tired and I couldn’t even utter a word.

The last thing I remember before I drifted off to sleep was being wrapped inside of a jacket and placed on the black leather seats of his blue Bugatti.

1

Hood Rich

Iwas born on August 3, 1994 with Da Brat’s Funkdafied playing in the background on repeat. My daddy set my mama up with a private suite…one fit for the queen that he said she was. Everything was all white for as far as you could see – white linen was draped from the ceiling and my mama wore a crown made of platinum and diamonds as she pushed me out with ease.

We lived in the hood so some called us ‘hood rich’. My daddy, Julius, was a hustler whose name commanded fear and respect out of even the most fearless gangsters. He provided my mother, Lamora, with everything that she wanted and anything she asked for. Except for one thing: a home outside of the dangerous streets of East Harlem. He refused to move away from the ghetto because he said he was a product of the hood and raised in the streets. No matter how much money he made, he refused to leave. He always said he’d be damned if he would take all his money and move to some white neighborhood where they didn’t want him when he could live in Harlem on Bullet Boulevard, ‘where all his compadres lived’ and get treated like a King.

According to Lamora, I didn’t cause her any pain in birth, which meant that I would give her hell for the rest of my life. I came out in silence. I didn’t cry at all; not even when the doctor popped me on the ass. Julius said that he grabbed me away from the doctor to make sure I was alright and I smiled up at him. According to him, that very moment was when he knew I would be his favorite. When he sat me in Lamora’s arms, I cried until he picked me back up again. I’ve been a daddy’s girl since day one.

Her name’s Queen, Julius declared as he handed me to Lamora. He never asked questions, he made commands. Baffled at his statement, she blinked twice and stared back at him.

I thought we agreed Ja’Brea would be her name, Lamora reminded him, wanting to stick to the tradition of naming all of her children with J names.

Queen is her name, he affirmed. He turned his back to her and pulled out his cellphone as a signal that the conversation had ended, and she looked down at me.

Queen it is, she stated, kissing lightly on my forehead. She was determined to love the daughter that she had longed for since the birth of my two older brothers. Lamora says that at that moment, I stretched my arms up to her head and reached for her crown. My eyes had immediately become captivated with the sparkles and the flash of the diamonds set in the custom-made headpiece.

You’ll have your own in due time, Julius had said as he watched me struggling to control my movement towards the crown.

My crown didn’t come easy, and I had to body a lot of niggas to get to the top. But he was right; I did finally get my crown and there ain’t a person alive who can take it from me.

2

Family Over Everything

Julius never told me exactly what he did for a living, but he didn’t have to. The streets always talked and he knew it. When I was only eight years old, a little girl in my class by the name of Kisha decided to tell me. Kisha never liked me but at the time I didn’t know why. I later found out that it was because her mama had an issue with Lamora for reasons that I didn’t understand at the time.

That’s why your daddy a drug dealer, she said with her nose curled up. Her big doo-doo braids hung down over her caramel face as she looked at me. She had a black dirt smudge on her tattered red shirt, and her black jeans looked as if they were two sizes too small on her thick frame. Her shirt was much too small as well and her plump belly peeked out of the bottom and wiggled as she snaked her neck at me.

My daddy ain’t no drug dealer! I said through my teeth. I knew that the only reason she was opening her mouth to me had to be because she was jealous because I was always sportin’ the flyest shit. My hair was always done and my shoe game was exquisite thanks to Julius who made the money and my mama, who had the fashion sense of a high end designer.

Unt huh! He a drug dealer because that’s what my mama told me. He bringing the whole neighborhood down and my mama said that…

SMACK!

Before I knew it, I had gotten into my first fight that eventually turned into many. I reached out and slapped Kisha right across the face, smacking the rest of the words right out of her mouth. I didn’t want to hear anything else about what her ‘mama’ had to say. In my mind, they were all haters like Lamora often told me and didn’t have the right to say shit about my family.

As soon as I got home, Lamora scolded me for getting in a fight with the daughter of one of my father’s work partners, but when I told her what Kisha had said her mother said about Julius, I saw the anger invade Lamora’s face immediately, and she told me that I was right for giving her the business.

Later that night, Lamora and Julius argued for what felt like hours as she threw dishes at him and screamed for him to Keep his hoes in line. I cried myself to sleep more from the fact that they were yelling than anything else. I thought it was my fault for telling her what Kisha had said, and I promised to keep all negative things I heard about Julius to myself. I had no idea at the time about his infidelities.

Unfortunately, what I couldn’t control was my slick ass mouth and it stayed getting me into trouble. My parents had raised me to always expect the best and to demand the most, but the one rule that was above everything was that no one was to ever say anything against family and get away with it.

My oldest brother’s name was Juwan and the other one was Jawell; both J names like my father, Julius, who was known as ‘Ju’ to everyone else but my mama. Both were fine as could be: Juwan was 6’5. He was tall and slender like a basketball player and had a caramel complexion like my father with light brown eyes. He was on the thin side, but kept his body fit like my daddy demanded of his sons. Jawell was shorter, only about 5’11, but he was stocky and thick, built like a running back. He was chocolate brown like Lamora but had hazel eyes that kept the young chicks in the hood fighting for his attention.

But Julius had raised them to be soldiers so they weren’t worried about getting no pussy. Trust, they got pussy but their mind wasn’t on it. And any chick they messed with knew that if she acted out she would get replaced, so most of them kept quiet and played their position. It was a privilege to even be rumored to be messing with the Cavelli boys so, whenever someone got the chance to do so, she didn’t risk that spot of prestige by getting out of line.

Both of my brothers had their eyes on taking over my father’s organization one day and they worked day and night, by his side, running the streets. Women didn’t factor in to what they were trying to do because they were too hungry. Only one of them could rule and they knew they had to prove themselves to my daddy in order to get to that top spot. Once they got there, they would worry about bringing a woman into the picture. Until they got there, the only women they were concerned with were me and my mama.

One day when I was fifteen, a girl named Tiffany who went to my school started talking reckless about me because her boyfriend had started sniffing around me for some ass. I wasn’t stuttin’ him at all. He couldn’t afford my taste. His daddy was a truck driver for the city and although he made decent money to some, he couldn’t compare to the shit my daddy was bringing in. I was used to eatin’ at five star restaurants and watching movies on the projector in our home theater. What could her little boy give to me?

Tiffany caught an attitude because she heard that I had let him carry my books and walk me to class that day. Although to me, it was done more out of a joke than anything else, she thought it meant that I was trying to push up on her man. So later on that day after school, Tiffany and her friend Toni, who looked more like a man than the overweight, mannish-looking female she was, decided that they wanted to confront me about it at the bus stop after it dropped us off home.

As soon as I got off the bus, I nearly ran smack-dab into Tiffany, who was standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. Her long expensive weave was the envy of nearly every girl in the school except me, because I had my own hair that looked just as good as her store-bought locks. She had a smooth cocoa complexion that almost sparkled in the sunlight, and round brown eyes with long eyelashes. She sported nice attire for the average girl; she was decked out in a pink Baby Phat jumpsuit and some pink and white Nikes. But I wore Chanel, Prada, and Gucci, so she didn’t impress me.

Tiffany was a cute chick but I knew I looked better, so I wasn’t thrown off by her at all. Toni, on the other hand, stood next