Empress Creed

by Tarris Marie

Genres: African American Urban; African American Women's Fiction; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

When two outlaw lovers from opposite sides of the war face off, their second chance at happily ever after will come at a cost only one crime king and queen pin are willing to pay.

Empress reigns as 1930’s Chicago’s cunning Queen Pin, yet sultry Dulce Ella Monroe still longs for freedom from oppression her criminal empire provides. But when rivals threaten all that the influential and glamorous Empress built, her last hope of defense walks through the door in sharp-shooting ex-lover Snipes Creed, now a foe for hire bound to the enemy.

A decade ago, Perry Savage had stolen Dulce's heart before battles abroad stole their chance at happiness. Discharged into Depression’s bleak landscape, taking on the alias Snipes Creed elevated Perry from destitute veteran to contract fixer extraordinaire. But no success could eclipse memories of the one who got away.

Facing off on opposing sides yet still bound by unbreakable passion, past promises, and present perils, Snipes and the notorious Empress must determine if their romance can rise again or if devastation will strike when luck inevitably runs dry. For two scarred souls gambling everything on last bets placed in the name of love and legacy, only one question remains: will Chicago burn them both before they burn Chicago down?

Release date: January 21, 2025

Publisher: Black Odyssey Media

Print pages: 288

Sample

From the Soul of the Author

Before the aspiring Hollywood actress Pearle Monalise Brown became an art thief in the 1990s-based tale Blaque Pearle, Dulce Ella Monroe hailed as Empress, an ambitious queen-pin and fashion designer from Chicago’s South Side during the Harlem Renaissance. Empress resurrected as a spin-off character from Melodic Masterpiece, who took flight in my imagination, and like all my anti-heroine protagonists, she began whispering her crime story in my ear.

I was raised by my grandparents, who’d been born and bred in the Midwest during the 1920s. I grew up listening to their music and watching the films that captivated them during their youth. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Louis Armstrong, and The Ink Spots were musical staples in our house and blasted through the speakers of my grandma’s record player every day. The films Stormy Weather, Imitation of Life, and Cabin in the Sky were typical VHS “movie night” picks from my granddaddy. I was a nineties girl, rocking finger waves, a Sony Walkman, and Baby Phat, but the art, fashion, and glamour of the Harlem and Chicago Renaissance eras were engrained in my blood.

My granddaddy recognized early that I had been bitten by the artistic bug, and although we couldn’t afford the dance classes I had begged him for, he bestowed a gem to me that I didn’t recognize as priceless until over thirty years later. He placed in my hands what I consider the Holy Grail for my artistic journey. It was a book called Brown Sugar, written by Donald Bogle. Brown Sugar was filled with over one hundred photographs of African American women artists from the past and present, detailing over one hundred years of their influence and contributions to the world. Tears are falling as I write this because of what that did to my soul. That day, my granddaddy also shared with me the creed he lived by: “If there’s something you want to be good at in this world, Tarris, watch how the great ones did it before you, listen when someone is trying to teach you something, and read all you can about it.”

While writing Empress Creed, I thanked God for our stories, told by us and for us, that were preserved through our elders, historians, musicians, and artistic creators. I am grateful to my grandparents, who passed down their experiences to me. I was blessed to have grown up in a home filled with records, books, and films that encompassed the works of independent artists and filmmakers who inspired me. I read memoirs, watched documentaries, and immersed myself in the stories of others––all which I utilized to place my imagination in the 1930s to write this story.

Empress Creed is a women’s crime love story set in the urban Midwest during the Great Depression, but the message I want to convey is that you are a royal descendant of God, born free and worthy to reign in this world no matter who you are or where you come from. Never forget it.

Prologue

This is America.My Country ‘Tis of Thee?

DULCE ELLA MONROE

October 1933 ~ Chicago, Illinois

I stepped out of Southway Hotel, and instantly, my toes went numb. The hostile wind cut through my dress and penetrated deep into my bones. It was Halloween, and Indian Summer had officially ended. While I had been engulfed in the romantic arms of Perry’s midnight flames, Mother Nature had freed the hawk to spread its freezing temps around Chicago.

I glanced down at the bag tapping against my leg. Inside were Perry’s records, souvenir platters from the best night of my life. The tunes from Duke Ellington and the “La Bohème” baritone suddenly resurrected the feelings I couldn’t escape. Perry’s tantalizing touch, especially the smooth roughness of his soft, callous hands, was forever imprinted in my mind. We had danced hours before, but the memory was as warm as chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. The thought emitted a sudden burst of heat that momentarily thawed my chill. I took a deep breath, still smothered in his fancy Parisian perfume and intoxicated by his love. But I had to snap out of it. Perry Savage was a king, looking to rule the love of a queen, and I was Empress. Unlike the love lesson Meek-Meek had tried to hammer into me, protection from a man was not my goal in life.

How could I relinquish my dream of running an empire before having tasted the throne’s power?

The sun anxiously awaited its chance to brighten the deep blue sky, sending only a shred of the dimmest UV rays from below the horizon. Alone on the sidewalk, I only heard the clicking sound of my heels on the pavement. Chicago had never felt like a ghost town, so I sensed hidden preparators in the shadows. I picked up the pace and reached inside my pocketbook, craving a calming puff from my ciggy. Instead, I received the cool comfort of my hammer. I gripped the cold steel and kept moving.

At the corner, there was a boutique that always had dresses on display in the window fancier than the spiffy rags at Marshall Field & Company. I had never shopped at the boutique because the owner was known to dislike Negroes admiring her Parisian-inspired fashions. Besides, I designed everything I wore. Therefore, I would never step a pinky toe inside her shop…but the light bulbs were screaming from her sign hovering over the sidewalk. It was the only other thing that seemed alive on the street. The distance between me and the corner felt too distant, and everything was eerily still, like the Field Museum sculptures.

Where are the dames and gents of this bustling town?

To my left were lonely streetcar tracks, empty car machines, and a buggy with no horse. To my right, a barbershop, candy store, and food market. All were dark inside, with “CLOSED” signs and the window blinds shut.

I thought there were more lamp posts on this street.

Steamy haze snaked from the sewers, and I was relieved at the thought that something other than me and glimmers of light exuded energy on the block. Suddenly, a clack echoed behind the click of my heels. I refused to turn around and began to trot into a running walk. A steady rhythm of clickity-clack, clickity-clack got louder and faster until the clacking stopped. I kept clicking, though.

Immediately, a gun cocked from behind me, and a deep voice commanded, “Freeze, Empress. You know what this is. Turn around.”

I lifted my hands. “What kind of fella pulls a pistol on a lady?”

He snatched my hammer from my hand, and I turned around. Never trust a goon in an overcoat. Those words repeated inside my head as I remembered Tommy’s warning from the day before about the white man. He had a lifeless face, still as the movement on the street. His gold and pearl revolver was aimed directly at me.

“Funny how broads want to be ladies, but they act like goons,” he said. “Like I had told you and your mob yesterday, man or woman, white or colored––they are all the same to me. A mark is a mark, you see.”

“I see, but had you mentioned the jive about me being a mark yesterday, our encounter would have gone differently.”

Still icy with his expression, he grunted. “About face.”

I turned, and he urged me forward with the cold barrel pressed against my spine. After another aggressive nudge, we were on the move. I looked to my right and left; nothing else was alive until we stopped at a naked cherry blossom tree that waved with the wind.

“Take a left,” he mumbled.

We turned down what looked like the longest alley in Chicago, stopping halfway at a dimly lit light pole. There was a loud crack, followed by glass shattering from close behind. I flinched. He had busted the bulb, and we were covered in darkness. I froze, not budging.

“Go,” he demanded.

We moved forward and ended our journey at a dead end. He kept the barrel pressed between my shoulder blades until my breasts and cheek were smashed against a brick wall.

“Dead at a dead end,” I uttered.

“Tell me where Countess stashes her lottery slips and dough.”

“Hell, I don’t know.”

Clink.

I winced, losing all the breath from inside my body. I knew that sound. He had pulled the trigger. I turned around in terror.

“Hey, mister! Are you looney?” I yelled.

His gun was point-blank. My chest heaved, and beads of sweat surfaced from my pores. What had been dark in the alley was starting to come to light. I saw the whiteness of the man’s skin, which seemed whiter and scarier than the day before. His lips were bluer like they’d been frostbitten overnight, and his eyes were hidden beneath the widest-brimmed hat I’d ever seen. He reached inside his pocket, removed a bullet, and placed it inside the golden chamber. Then he spun it like a merry-go-round.

“Two choices. Truth or die.”

“What sick game are you playing?”

“Roulette, and the odds are still in your favor, Empress. I need the stash house location of Countess’s dough and slips.”

“You have the wrong dame.”

Click.

“God!” I yelled.

It was the first time I had called the Lord’s name. My stomach dropped to the concrete, and two solemn tears crept down my cheeks from behind my eyelids. One was for the love I’d lost, and the other for my present fear.

I stared down the golden barrel as his trigger finger awaited his next command. The rest of his hand was tightly wrapped around the glimmering-pearled butt of his revolver.

The roulette hitman hoisted another silver bullet into his other hand from his pocket and uttered my name barely above a whisper.

“Empress.” Then, he asked the question that had been swirling inside my mind. “How do you wager the value of your life?”



I was a gambling dame, born as Dulce Ella Monroe, raised by a blues singer, prostitute, and pimp. Yet, I wanted to believe I was worthy enough to possess the sovereignty of an Empress. As a Negro American born three decades after Reconstruction, my odds of success were slim to none. I was bred on the South Side of Chicago with little faith in God’s protection and entrusted luck with my destiny. I placed high stakes on the value of my life and depended on chance to solidify my future. I wagered my fate in the illusive embrace of Lady Luck instead of the loose lips of Uncle Sam and his rhetoric, “All men are created equal.”

Long before the stock market crash of 1929 ignited the Great Depression, Negroes were suffering from suppression. I grew up crammed within the confines of Chicago’s “Black Belt” as Negroes fled the southern fields of Jim Crow. On my block, day and night had switched positions for many of us because our parents had been employees of the red-light district. We had loathed the virtue the streets had to offer until we saw something that couldn’t be unseen or felt that which couldn’t be unfelt. Untainted, we played hopscotch, jacks, and kickball and used our imaginations––the same as the kids of the opposite hue from the opposite side of the tracks. Until our vices were resurrected from the scars of our generational curses, we were oblivious to the red-lined covenants, crime, and poverty that had kept us bound.

The world had shown us, “All is not fair in love and war,” especially for Negroes. So, I avoided the enslaving sun that had burned my ancestors’ backs and took my chances in the criminal underground. I feared love, not believing it had power strong enough to conquer the soul of humanity.

Honoring the creed “In cash we trust,” I was like most gamblers, addicted to the thrill of winning and falling prey to the seductive jackpot bestowed to the most cunning. I worshipped Lady Luck and her uncertainty like admirers hailed Mona Lisa and her crooked smile. Still, if Lady Luck were a real dame, I’d whoop her ass for oppressing us after we built this country. But luck, like those of whites, had checkmate in the game of life, and I, like my fellow colored pawns, was unprotected by the Negro American plight.

Chapter 1

Babybird

DULCE ELLA MONROE

May 1922 - Chicago, Illinois

Before love conquered my soul, love tamed my heart. Caged but free, I was a fearless wild child. The first time I felt true love was on an unseasonably hot morning in May when I was ten years old. Amidst a scuffle, my rage that had boiled over dissipated into drops of humidity, and my conscience, which had temporarily departed, was melting back into my body. I could feel the silky hairs from the previous night’s hot comb press coiling into ringlets. My nose detected the sulfur hidden underneath the violet scent in Madame C.J. Walker’s Hair Grower, my greasy scalp sizzling from the burning sun. I was hot as hell, and sweat beads ran river streams down the nape of my neck to the soles of my feet.

With my arms restrained, I was surrounded by a jeering crowd of kids while Leon lay on the ground, his lanky legs tightly curled into a ball. I swung my foot like I was playing kickball, and the tip of my Mary Jane rammed into his keister. As he yelped like a wounded pup, the kids screamed with more taunting laughter.

Out of nowhere, a woman with the loudest, sweetest voice shouted, “Set her free!”

“If we let her go, ma’am, she will kill him.”

My friend, Beloved, was right. Leon would be dead if she and her half-twin sister, Treasure, hadn’t double-teamed me.

Leon hopped up from the ground and windmilled his wild arms before two boys grabbed him. He had missed his last chance to redeem himself from the whipping I had just laid on him like the “Galveston Giant” boxer, Jack Johnson. Leon furrowed his nappy brows that had grown into a long bridge across his schnozzle.

“That’s why you can’t read, you lame-brained, dumb Dora,” he spat while struggling to break free.

My arm, slick with sweat mixed with Vaseline, slid through Treasure’s fingers. I charged forward, but Beloved threw herself around my legs.

“I’ll show you dumb right across the other side of your kisser, blabbermouth punk,” I spat back.

“Whoa!” a woman yelled over the cheers.

The crowd hushed and parted like the Red Sea. Stomping through the tide was a beautiful, motherly dame with rich, dark skin and an apple-shaped face. The chiffon from her blue dress flowed around her, making her look like an angel. She held a stack of papers in one hand and, in the other, a switch off the crab apple tree, freshly stripped of its ripe leaves.

She stopped directly in front of me. Her celestial presence covered me as a protective spirit that whispered, Peace, be still. Immediately, there was a melody in my heart, and it was the softest, clearest sound I’d ever heard. With only a smile, she put me at ease.

Beloved and Treasure released me, and I didn’t move. The love in the woman’s eyes remained, but the look on her face transitioned into Steven’s character, Hyde, and told us all, “Don’t’ fuck with me” as she shifted her gaze around.

“Break it up, or I will whip the black off your bottoms all the way to the schoolhouse door.”

We took off running, and Beloved and Treasure waved. “Bye, Lil’ Empress!”

I waved back, and when I turned to give the woman one last look, she had gone. Splitting off from the other kids, I shook a leg home.



I lived in a 3-bedroom bungalow with seven other people. Our red brick home was a flat, rectangular-shaped box with limestone accents, concrete steps, and a pint-sized porch no one cared to sit on. Our living room always smelled like salted pork and cigarettes. In the corner was a green couch with a plastic covering that glued to our skin during the heated months. Next to the sticky couch was Butta’s soft brown chair and small table that housed his newspaper and his small radio. Everyone knew to never touch his shit.

Butta was boss, and we called him Daddy. He occupied the largest bedroom at the front of the hallway and maintained bathroom priority. If anyone, except me, was in the middle of a stream, they had to stop the flow to allow him to use the toilet. Butta was always a cool cat towards me, but he was a barking pup to everyone else. As I grew up, I learned Butta was a counterfeit hypnotist with limited mind control.

Two lively women, always dressed in fine silk dresses and fancy accessories, shared a room across from Butta. I rarely saw them since they didn’t like being around children.

The smallest room at the end of the hallway was where Audrey “Meek-Meek” Monroe and I slept. We spent most of our time together snuggled in a twin bed. Meek-Meek was my mother and beautiful to me. Her chocolate skin was smooth as velvet, and her body was curvy and plush. She had the softest eyes whenever she awakened from a dream, but after a few blinks, they hardened back to stone.

Everyone, including me, called my mother Meek-Meek. She received her nickname from Butta because she rarely spoke and whispered whenever she did talk. All I’d known about Meek-Meek was that she was born down south, shipped to Chicago, and worked as a prostitute. She had refused to disclose anything else about her life.

Meek-Meek and I shared our small space with Miss Jonesy and her infant twins, Jim and Tim. Beloved was Miss Jonesy’s daughter, but she lived on the next block with her biological daddy, his wife, and Treasure. Beloved and Treasure were born one day apart and looked almost identical. It was no secret they were half-sisters, but their mother had touted them around as twins. So, after eight continuous years of them dressing alike, everyone referred to them as such.

Beloved and Treasure were my only friends, and on dreary days, we would all play together. On sunny days, unless they were going to school, they were sentenced indoors, shielding their already brown-skinned pigment against what their mother deemed “a tarnished tan.”

Before I entered our house, I heard Jim and Tim’s piercing screams. Through the front-screened door, I saw Butta, sweaty and panic-faced, pacing the living room floor. He was flopping the babies in each arm like rag dolls. Butta was high-yellow, very tall, and always dressed sharp as a tack in bright colors and snazzy hats. His eyes were slanted like a cat, and he had a distinct gap between his teeth.

Relief swept across his face when I walked inside.

“Thank God,” he said. “Take these. I don’t do babies.”

He placed them in my arms and plopped down on his chair. Then he lit a cigarette and exhaled the cloud while resting his ashy dogs on the coffee table. The smoke quickly filled the steamy living room like a sauna.

I wrapped Jim and Tim like a mummy, and they quieted once I placed them on the couch and opened all the windows.

“Where’s the sitter?” I asked.

“She quit. Maybe you can take her place.”

“Me? I’m just a kid.”

“Age ain’t nothin’ but a number. Never turn down an opportunity to make scratch. You can remove any obstacle in your path with enough dough. Tell eggs in your way, habla moolah, and watch them attempt to break down the gates of heaven for you. Even the whitest cracker under the whitest sheet respects the color green.”

“What?” I asked, looking confused.

“It’s a piece of cake.” He removed a shiny quarter from his pocket. “In this world, no dough means no go, amigo.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but one quarter would afford me a piece of candy every day from the corner store for the next two weeks, so I was keen. I nodded as he placed the coin in the palm of my hand.

“Swell! Thanks, Daddy.”

“Be savvy, Lil’ Empress. Your time is worth every dime, so don’t waste any minutes on broke niggas’ jive.”

Butta had given me the name Lil’ Empress when I was a baby. He was a self-proclaimed descendant of an African king and deemed me the descendant of an empress since I had been the only female to possess any power over his heart.

He would tell me, “The only dame more powerful than a king is an empress, so remember to own that name when you run your game.”

Butta reclined back in his seat and closed his eyes.

I walked over to him and asked, “Are you my daddy?”

“Hell no.”

I was surprised and confused. “Then who is?”

“Beats me.”

“Is Meek-Meek my mama?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you Meek-Meek’s daddy?”

“I’m her pimp daddy.”

“What’s a pimp?”

“Why are you asking so many questions? Who’s been jive talking counterfeit in your ear?”

The brawl between Leon and me started because he had been spreading nasty rumors. He had said Meek-Meek was my sister and teaching me how to be a floozy and claimed Butta was my pimp. I didn’t know what was true, but I did know I was nobody’s floozy, and I was taught name-calling meant ass-whooping. So, I whooped his ass.

Butta burst into laughter. “You did Leon’s ass right. From now on, call me Butta to avoid confusion.” He put out his hand, and I gave him smooth five. “Tell your mama to answer your other questions.”

I nodded.

Suddenly, there was an aggressive knock at the door. Butta quickly grabbed his gat from under his chair and peered out the window next to the screen door. His cigarette flapped between his lips as he opened the door.

“Why are you banging on my door this early in the morning, lady?”

“My name is Ethel, mister, but everyone calls me Mama Lee. I’m new to the neighborhood and looking for business.”

“You’re a little too refined to work for me, but come in.”

Mama Lee walked inside, and it was the same woman who had broken up the fight between me and Leon earlier. She saw me and smiled, then handed Butta and me one of her papers. As I looked at it, I knew Leon had been right about one thing about me––I couldn’t read. She pointed to the words after watching me struggle for a moment.

“This says Mama Lee’s No Baby Blues Nursery. I watch children and charge fifty cents per day.”

Butta handed her one dollar. “Lil’ Empress, this dame understands marketing. I respect the hustle, and today is your lucky day, Mama Lee. I have two babies that need sitting.”

She pointed at me. “What about the gal?”

“What about the gal?” he asked.

“Doesn’t she go to school?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Listen, dame, no mo’ convo. You, Lil’ Empress, and all your questions need to fade so I can get some shut-eye.”

With that, he turned, walked into his bedroom, and slammed the door.

Mama Lee tucked the dollar bill inside her bosom and smiled.

“They call you Lil’ Empress, but what’s your real name, sugar?”

“Dulce Ella Monroe.”

“Wow! That sounds like the name of a star. Where’s your mama?”

“Work.”

“Do you and your mama live here?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Call me Mama Lee,” she said while picking up Jim and Tim from the couch. “Do you know where the babies’ things are?”



Mama Lee, who had moved in down the street, opened her front door. I immediately noticed unpacked boxes filled with albums and books scattered across her living room floor when we stepped inside. The scent of fresh lemon zest and sugar tingled my nose, and I smiled. Mama Lee opened the ice box and poured us two glasses of freshly squeezed lemonade from a pretty crystal pitcher.

“Are you a teacher?” I asked.

She took a long gulp. “I’m a singer who loves to read.”

“Can you teach me to read?” I asked hesitantly.

“Sure, sugar.”

Mama Lee grabbed a couple of children’s books and took me to school in her living room. I was known for my sharp memory and zipped through the ABCs like lightning. She couldn’t believe how quickly I was catching on. The more she fed my brain, the more I devoured.

When the twins got fussy, she turned on the record player. Bessie Smith began to sing about being “Down and Out” while Mama Lee hummed along. After quieting the babies’ cries, she placed them on the couch and grabbed two boas from a box . . .