The Widow's Cold Ledger

Regina Okafor ran the numbers for her husband's family for eighteen years. She was never told what she was counting. When Marcus dies at his desk at fifty-seven, Regina inherits the books, the house, and a phone call from a man who has been on the other side of those numbers since 1893. For fifty years, Black families on Cleveland's East Side have been paying a percentage in blood for a protection nobody asked for, arranged through churches, funeral homes, and a credit union. Regina's mother-in-law signed it in 1974. Regina has one skill: she reconciles accounts. So she does. The council refuses the audit, the creditors refuse the dollars, and the only way out is the one thing Marcus never did. Take it public. A dark mafia vampire romantasy about a widow, a very tired creditor, and a fifty-year debt finally coming due.