Belle

by Treasure Hernandez

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Named for her beauty, Belle Dubois is as sweet as can be. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she is always given the best-until her world is turned upside down. When she away in her second year of college, she receives a call informing her that her parents have been murdered. She soon finds out that they were broke, and subsequently, so is she.

With no home and nowhere to go, Belle is whisked under the wing of a woman named Aria, better known by her stage name, Passion. Before she knows it, Belle becomes a part of an underground world that she knows nothing about-one filled with bright lights, sexy clothing, and shiny poles. The money starts to pour in, and soon Belle loses herself in the very same fantasy she gives every night.

Her heart has a void that only money can fill, but when she meets a handsome brother named Kidd Bryce, her perspective begins to change. He shows her a side to life that she didn't know existed. Just when she is about to say goodbye to the fast life for good, her past comes knocking on her door.

The night Belle's family was murdered, everyone was supposed to die . . . including her. In a race against the clock, she must find out who ordered the deadly hit in the first place, and why, before her own time runs out.

Release date: October 29, 2019

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“Sometimes life isn’t kind to any of us, and time is limited. We don’t know why the Dubois family was taken from this earth so soon. All I can say is the devil is working. You hear me? The devil is working! So in this great time of pain, we ask you, Lord, to wrap your heavenly arms around each and every shoulder in this congregation today. We ask that you catch every tear falling and ease every aching heart. We send a special prayer today to our sister Belle in this tumultuous time. Remind her that through this great loss she still has been granted with the gift of life. . . .”

At that moment, Reverend Ingram’s words seemed to run together, and Belle Dubois lost track of what he was saying. She never thought in a million years that she’d be sitting in the front row, staring at the lifeless bodies of her family lying in three caskets. Her mother, her father, and her 7-year-old brother were all gone, just like that. The veil connected to the black hat on her head covered the despair all over her face, but it did nothing to help the aching pain in the pit of her stomach.

Just a week ago, Belle was away and enjoying the college life in Texas. Her parents had just bought her a new all-white 2018 Chevrolet Camaro, and life couldn’t get any better. That was, until it got a whole lot worse. Belle had just returned to her dorm room after a night out when she got the call that turned her life upside down.

Her entire family had been murdered in their sleep.

She flew home as fast as she could, but she didn’t even remember the trip. Everything after that phone call was a blur, even talking to the detectives in the interrogation room. There was one thing the detective said that rang over and over in her head: “We think whoever did this was after your father. Your mother and your brother were just casualties in the crossfire.”

Her father, Lucas Dubois, was a very wealthy man and had a heart of gold. Same with her mother. Belle didn’t know who would do such a thing to her family. Whoever it was had to have been pretty sick and sadistic to kill a 7-year-old kid.

“Oh, Luca,” Belle whispered as she stared at the smallest casket before her. “I love you forever.”

Tears ran down her face in a warm stream, and she felt a strong arm wrap around her shoulders. The gesture should have been a comforting one, but when she saw that the arm belonged to her uncle Karan, she pulled away and jumped to her feet. Shooting a glare his way, she gathered her things and stormed out of the church, suddenly needing to be alone. She couldn’t take it. Not only had she lost her family, but she’d lost everything else, too.

“Belle!” she heard her aunt Sinthia shout, but it was too late.

Belle couldn’t stand it any longer. Even when she was sitting with her back to the entire church, she could feel all eyes on her. She couldn’t even grieve in peace. The last five days of her life had been a complete nightmare, and the things she was feeling inside she wouldn’t wish on anybody. Once out of the church, she threw the black veil from her face and bent over with her hands on the knees of her black dress. She gasped for air as if she’d just emerged from a pool after being under too long. She didn’t care about the air nipping away at her damp cheeks on that cold Nebraska day. All she wanted to do was get as far away as possible from the North Omaha church.

“Belle!”

Belle straightened up and whisked around to see that her aunt Sinthia, Uncle Karan’s wife, had followed her outside. Belle returned the concerned look on her aunt’s face with a glare of her own.

“Belle! Why did you run out like that?”

“Leave me alone, Sinthia. Go back in there with your crook of a husband!”

“Now you wait a good minute, young lady! You will not speak about your uncle like that, especially on a day like this! I don’t think Taina would appreciate you acting this way.”

“You mean on the day that he stole everything my father owned?” Belle shouted. When she saw the shocked look on her aunt’s face, she scoffed. “Yeah, that’s right. I know everything! The lawyer paid me a visit right before I left for the funeral. He told me that my father died before he could finish his will. He also told me that because I am not Lucas Dubois’s biological child, I have no right to any of his businesses or his money. Can you guess where all of that plus his assets will go? Can you guess, Auntie? You. You and your husband. That bastard put our house on the market yesterday! My family isn’t even in the dirt yet! I have nothing! No home. No family. I have five hundred dollars to my name because my accounts have been frozen. So fuck you! Fuck you and your husband. And don’t you ever say my mother’s name again if you know what’s good for you. After today, neither of you will ever see me again!”

Belle didn’t wait for her to say another word, but even if she had, no words would come. Sinthia could do nothing but place her hand on her chest and watch Belle storm off to the only thing she had in the world: her car.

Once the door to the Camaro slammed closed, Belle angrily hit the steering wheel with her gloved fists. Snatching the hat from her head, she threw it to the side and began to scream. She was feeling every human emotion at one time, and it felt as if she were going to explode. She was lost, had nowhere to go, and had no real family to call on.

She’d lost track of how long she was sitting in her vehicle, sobbing and crying, when finally she stopped and pulled down her visor to get a good look at her face. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

“My Belle, my beauty. You will always be the most beautiful girl in any room you walk in.”

Taina’s voice sounded in Belle’s head. It was something she’d told her daughter since she was old enough to walk. She always told Belle that she was a different kind of gorgeous. Some would even say her beauty was out of this world. Taina had been very easy on the eyes herself, but her looks were nothing compared to Belle’s. That was why she gave her the name in the first place.

Although Belle had taken Taina’s brown skin and curvy figure, she had other exotic features, and she never knew the origin of them. Taina always claimed to have been slightly wild in college. Therefore, she could never pinpoint who Belle’s father was. That meant Taina would never know where her amber eyes, her slightly pointed nose, or the long, fine hair on the top of her head came from. It was something that used to eat away at Belle as a kid, but when Taina married Lucas when Belle was 5 years old, none of that mattered anymore. She finally had a dad to love her and give them the life they deserved. Lucas loved Belle like his own flesh, so it was only fitting that he give his last name to her too.

If Lucas could have seen her now, he would have lifted her chin and said, “Head up, buttercup. The world would love to see you fail. But we are Duboises, and we don’t fail.”

Belle wiped away the remaining tears on her face and blinked her eyes until her vision was clear. She couldn’t believe that God could be so cruel. She didn’t want to live in a world without her family. Why couldn’t she have been killed too? She looked back at the church. People had started to file out and clear the way for the pallbearers. Belle contemplated going to the gravesite to pay her last respects, but when she started her car, she didn’t follow the others.

“I have to get out of here,” Belle said to herself.

There was nothing left in Nebraska for her, and it was time to say her final goodbye. She drove in the direction of the interstate, not knowing where her final stop would be. Texas was out of the question. The only reason she’d been there was for school, and she couldn’t even imagine going back. She had no destination. She just paid attention to the road and blasted her music so that the faces of her family wouldn’t flood her mind. The only time she stopped was to get gas.

When the sun was completely gone and the moon had taken its place, she had arrived in a hick town in Illinois. A sign on the side of the highway said that there was a gas station up ahead called Jim’s Fuel, Dine & Go. Something told her to keep going to the next exit, but her gas hand was warning her that if she didn’t fill up again soon, she wouldn’t make it anywhere. She also really wanted to get out of the funeral clothes she’d had on all day.

She veered off on the exit that led her to Jim’s, and she parked at the nearest pump to the door. There were a few trucks and Jeeps parked in front of the station, but mostly there were motorcycles. Checking her surroundings, she saw that all of the roads were dark. Across the street from the gas station was a junkyard that looked as creepy as a cemetery. She could hear old rock and roll songs coming from the building when she stepped out of her car. She popped her trunk with the car remote in her hand and from it got a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved cream shirt, a pair of Chanel boots, and her red bubble coat. She shut the trunk and took a deep breath.

Just get in and get out, she told herself. You don’t know what type of time these white folks are on.

As she made her way to the front door, she noticed that the majority of the men dining inside had turned their attention to her. The way they were peering at her through the glass was making her uneasy. She pulled the door open, and instantly the smell of grease hit her and reminded her that she couldn’t even remember the last time she put something in her stomach. Still, she would take her chances elsewhere.

The place was set up like something she’d seen in a movie. One side was the gas station, where you could get all of the things a person would need for the road, while the other side was set up like a diner from the fifties. The two waitresses even wore blue and white checkered dresses with red aprons. Belle tried not to be bothered by the fact that, besides her, they were the only other women in the building. She pulled two $20 bills out of her pocket and pushed them toward the tall, lanky clerk. His graying blond beard was unkempt, and although the hair on his head was long, there was a shiny bald spot at the top of it. He had all of his teeth, but that didn’t say much given that they were all yellow. His name tag read JIM, so naturally Belle assumed that he owned the place.

“Can I put forty on the Camaro out there?” she asked and pointed to her car outside.

“Anything for something as beautiful as you,” Jim said and winked. “What you doing out this way by yourself, sugar?”

“Just passing through and needed some gas.”

“Well, if I were you, I’d be more cautious about stopping into strange places. This town is full of wolves,” he said with a chuckle. Behind Belle, many of the men in the diner began to howl.

Belle glared behind her and was met with even more cringeworthy stares. She clenched her jaw and swallowed the spit in her mouth before turning back toward the clerk.

“I can handle myself,” she said.

“Oh! Well, lookee here, fellas, we have a lady here who can handle herself!” Jim shouted to the guests in the diner. They returned his declaration with whistles.

“Where is your bathroom?” Belle asked.

“Down that hallway right there,” he said and pointed down a hallway to her left. “Be careful, that knob is a little tricky.”

Belle turned before she saw his sly smile or his eyes travel down her entire body. Her feet made their way on the tiled floor to where he’d directed her. When she finally found the bathroom, she flicked the light on and was pleased that it was cleaner than what she expected. Shutting the door behind her, she locked it and began to undress. The music in the diner seemed to grow louder, but she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was hurry up and get dressed so she could go pump her gas. Belle had just fastened her jeans and was about to put on her shirt when she heard the knob twist and the door open. Instantly Belle covered herself up and whisked around.

Standing behind her were Jim and two other men from the diner. One was a redhead while one was completely bald. The things they had in common were that they were both big in size and they both wore leather. The redhaired man’s eyes went to Belle’s cleavage. He licked his lips while the other grinned sinisterly at her.

“I’m not done yet,” she said, trying to hide the fear in her voice.

“I warned you about that knob, didn’t I, sweetheart?” Jim said. “The lock don’t work.

“I said I’m not done yet,” Belle repeated.

“I saw the plates on your car,” Jim said, ignoring her again. “Nebraska, huh? You’re a long way from home. Fellas, what do you say we give this beautiful young thing right here a nice, hearty welcome? Bob, tell me, when’s the last time you had some nigger pussy?”

“It’s been a while, Jim,” the bald man said and watched as Belle backed away from them until her back was on the opposite wall. “But I can’t help but wonder if this one here is as sweet as what I remember.”

“She looks like she’ll be sweeter,” the redhaired man said, licking his lips and unbuckling his belt. “There is nothing like a pair of chocolate nipples in your mouth with black pussy around your cock.”

“Please,” Belle begged, covering herself with one arm and putting the other up in a stop motion. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Of course we don’t have to do it. We want to,” Jim said and flicked the lights off.

Belle screamed and tried to fight them off in the dark, but it was no use. They just laughed at her as they fondled her body. She felt a hand cup her crotch while another pulled her breast out of her bra.

“No point in screaming, sugar,” she heard Jim say in her ear. “Those sons of bitches out there don’t care about what we do to you. They’re waiting for their turn.”

His breath smelled like whiskey and cigarettes, and at that point Belle was sobbing while the men had their way with her. She felt two different mouths around her nipples at the same time while someone was trying to tug her jeans down. She screamed one last time in hopes that someone in the establishment had a heart.

By the grace of God, the door to the bathroom burst open and the lights flicked back on. “You sick white motherfuckers!” a woman’s voice shouted. “Kidd, go get Jay and them! They back here tryin’a rape some girl! Bring the fires!”

The next few moments of Belle’s life seemed like a blur. The men on her were pulled off, and she was able to see a young black woman around her age standing there and pointing a gun at them.

“Get out!” she barked at the men, and all but Jim listened.

“Hey, hey! This is my establishment, and you need to get the fuck out of here!” Jim yelled.

The woman sneered, and her eyes traveled to his unbuckled pants. “It’s not hard to figure out the kind of shit that goes on here,” she said. She aimed her gun at his crotch and fired.

Jim’s high-pitched screams were like nails on a chalkboard. He gripped his bleeding penis in his hands as he fell to the ground, yelling in agony. The young woman turned to Belle, who had finished getting dressed, and threw the bubble coat at her.

“Put that on,” she instructed, and when Belle did, she took her hand. “Let’s go. Stay behind me.”

As they walked, the woman kept her gun drawn until they were out of the hallway and far enough away from the bathroom. In the diner, there were two grown black men pointing automatic guns at the guests while another was waiting for the young woman. He was a handsome guy with thick black waves on top of his head. His thick sideburns made way to a well-kept short beard on his face. He looked at the young woman holding Belle’s hand and grabbed her by the shoulder.

“You good?” he asked her.

She nodded. “I shot that motherfucker in the dick,” she said with a grin. “So yeah, I’m good. She’s the one you should be worried about.”

“Are you good, mami?” he asked, and Belle nodded.

“I didn’t get to pump my gas,” she said in a low voice.

The guy looked at her with shock in his eyes and then back toward the hallway where Jim was still shrieking in pain. “Those men just tried to hurt you, and all you’re worried about is putting gas in your car?”

“Yes,” Belle said and pulled her hand free. She turned to the young woman and nodded. “Thank you for saving me. But I have somewhere I have to be.”

She moved past the guy and walked out of the gas station to her car. Her hands were shaky as she pumped her gas, half surprised that Jim had even put her money on the pump. When she was done, Belle put the nozzle back on its holder and bent slightly to close the door to the fuel tank of the Camaro. When she stood straight again, the young woman who had saved her was blocking the driver’s door.

“You left these,” she said and handed Belle the clothes she left behind.

“Thank you. You all should go before they call the police,” Belle suggested and went for the door handle, but the woman slid her butt over to block that too.

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” she said. “None of the cameras in there wo. . .