CHAPTER 3
The Package
“Something that belongs to the Carters.”
The man’s words kept replaying in my mind as I stared through the beauty supply store window.
The black truck was still parked across the street.
“Nesha, take the kids to the back,” I said.
“What’s going on?”
“Just do it.”
She grabbed Amaya’s hand and motioned for Jayce to follow her.
“Momma, where you going?” Jayce asked.
“I’m not going anywhere. Go with Auntie Nesha.”
“But—”
“Jayce.”
The look on my face let him know not to argue.
Once they disappeared into the back room, I pulled the gun from my purse and tucked it inside the waistband of my jeans.
The driver’s door of the black truck opened.
A tall man stepped out wearing a gray hoodie and black jeans. He didn’t look like a cop, but that didn’t mean shit. Half the police I knew looked more like drug dealers than the men they arrested.
He crossed the street slowly with his hands visible.
I unlocked the door but didn’t open it.
“What the fuck you want?” I asked through the glass.
“To talk.”
“Then talk.”
“Not through a door.”
“That’s the only way you talking to me.”
He looked over his shoulder before reaching inside his hoodie.
I lifted my gun.
“Easy,” he said.
He slowly pulled out a white envelope and held it against the glass.
My name was written across the front.
KEYSHIA CARTER
“Who sent you?”
“I was paid to deliver this.”
“By who?”
“Open the envelope.”
“Who sent you?” I repeated.
His eyes moved toward the security camera above the door.
“You don’t have as much time as you think.”
He slid the envelope beneath the small opening at the bottom of the door and walked away.
“That’s it?” I called after him.
He didn’t turn around.
The truck pulled away from the curb and disappeared at the end of the block.
I stared at the envelope on the floor.
Every instinct I had told me not to touch it.
I grabbed a pair of disposable gloves from behind the counter before picking it up. The envelope was heavier than it looked. Something hard was inside.
I carried it into my office and locked the door.
Inside was an old silver key, a Polaroid picture, and a folded piece of paper.
The picture showed three people standing outside a warehouse. Two men and a woman.
One of the men had his back turned. The other wore a dark suit and sunglasses. The woman stood between them, but somebody had scratched her face out.
On the back of the picture, somebody had written:
THE CARTERS DIDN’T BUILD THEIR EMPIRE ALONE.
Beneath the sentence were three sets of initials.
R.C.
D.C.
K.C.
My chest tightened.
K.C.
Keyshia Carter.
I turned the picture back over and examined it closer. It looked old—at least ten or fifteen years—but I recognized the warehouse behind them.
It was on River Road.
My father used to work there.
At least, that was what my mother always told us.
I unfolded the paper.
Storage facility on Cane Run Road. Unit 317.
Go alone.
Use the key.
Do not tell Rome.
I read the last line three times.
Rome.
My cousin Rome Carter had always been more like a brother to me. We grew up together, fought together, and sometimes even made money together. But over the past few years, Rome had changed.
Or maybe I had.
There were things happening inside our family that neither one of us talked about. Missing money. Dead relatives nobody wanted to explain. Names that made the older Carters go silent whenever they were mentioned.
And now somebody was warning me not to tell him.
I took a picture of the note with my phone, then immediately deleted it. I didn’t know who was watching, but I wasn’t taking chances.
A knock sounded against the office door.
“Key?” Nesha called. “You good?”
I put everything back inside the envelope before opening the door.
She stood there holding Amaya. Jayce was beside her, staring up at me.
“I need you to keep them for a little while.”
Nesha frowned. “Where are you going?”
“To handle something.”
“Does it have anything to do with Dre?”
“No.”
“Key, you just had some strange man pull up outside your store, and now you’re leaving?”
“I won’t be gone long.”
“Then tell me where you’re going.”
“I can’t.”
Her eyes dropped to the envelope in my hand.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t be holding it like that.”
I slipped it inside my purse.
“Nesha, please.”
She stared at me for a moment before shaking her head.
“You’re gonna get yourself killed one day.”
“Not today.”
“How do you know?”
I didn’t have an answer.
I kissed both of my children and promised them I would be back soon. The worried look on Jayce’s face stayed with me as I walked out of the store.
Before pulling away, I checked beneath my car and looked inside the wheel wells. Rome taught me that years ago. If somebody wanted to track you, they didn’t have to follow closely anymore.
I didn’t find anything.
Still, I took three different streets and circled the block twice before heading toward Cane Run Road.
The storage facility sat between an abandoned gas station and a tire shop. A rusted metal fence surrounded the property, and only half the security lights appeared to be working.
I parked near the exit with the front of my car facing the road.
Just in case I needed to leave fast.
Unit 317 was near the back.
The silver key slid into the lock perfectly.
I looked around once more before raising the metal door.
A single black duffel bag sat in the center of the otherwise empty unit.
I laughed nervously.
“Y’all got me fucked up.”
There was no way I was walking inside without checking the corners first.
I used the flashlight on my phone to search the unit. No cameras. No wires. No people hiding in the shadows.
At least none that I could see.
I stepped inside and crouched beside the bag.
The zipper opened slowly.
Stacks of money filled the top.
My heart started beating faster.
I lifted one bundle and found another layer beneath it. Then another.
There had to be at least two hundred thousand dollars inside.
But the money wasn’t what caught my attention.
At the bottom of the bag sat a thick brown folder and a brick wrapped in black plastic.
I knew exactly what the brick was.
Cocaine.
I pulled out the folder.
The first page contained a list of names, addresses, and telephone numbers. Some of the names I recognized. Business owners. Police officers. Drug dealers. A judge.
Others meant nothing to me.
Several names had red lines drawn through them.
My uncle’s name was one of them.
He had been dead for nine years.
I flipped to the next page.
It was a photograph of Rome standing beside a car. The picture had been taken from across the street without his knowledge.
The next picture showed a woman in an emerald-green suit entering a downtown building. Her face was partly hidden, but the name beneath the photograph made my breath catch.
DYMOND CARTER
I had heard that name before.
Every Carter had.
But nobody spoke about her openly.
The final photograph was of me dropping Jayce and Amaya off at school.
A red circle had been drawn around my children.
I dropped the folder.
My hands started trembling, but fear quickly turned into anger.
“Who the fuck are you?” I whispered.
A cell phone rang inside the bag.
I almost reached for my gun before realizing the sound was coming from beneath the money.
I dug through the bundles and found a small burner phone.
“Hello?”
“Now you understand why you were chosen,” the distorted voice said.
“You put a circle around my fucking kids?”
“To get your attention.”
“You got my attention. Now tell me who you are.”
“Deliver the bag tomorrow night, and your children stay safe.”
“Deliver it where?”
“You’ll receive instructions.”
“Why me?”
“Because nobody would question Keyshia Carter carrying a bag full of money and cocaine.”
“The police would.”
“Only if somebody told them where to look.”
I went quiet.
That was the plan.
They didn’t need me to deliver the bag.
They needed me to get caught with it.
“You’re setting me up.”
“You’re smarter than Dre said.”
“What does Dre have to do with this?”
“He gave us your name.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“You can kill Dre after the delivery.”
“Fuck your delivery.”
“Then take another look at the picture of your children.”
My stomach twisted.
“If you touch them—”
“We won’t have to, as long as you follow directions.”
The line went dead.
I immediately called Nesha.
She answered on the first ring.
“Key?”
“Are the kids still with you?”
“Yes.”
“Lock the front and back doors. Don’t let anybody inside.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m on my way.”
“What happened?”
“Get them away from the windows.”
I ended the call, threw the folder back inside the duffel bag, and zipped it shut.
As I stood, the storage unit door slammed down.
Darkness swallowed the room.
I rushed toward the door and tried to lift it, but it wouldn’t move.
Somebody had locked it from the outside.
“Open this motherfucker!” I screamed, pounding against the metal.
Footsteps moved away from the unit.
I pulled out my gun and fired twice at the bottom of the door.
The bullets tore through the metal, but the lock held.
Smoke filled the small space.
My phone had one bar of service.
I tried calling Nesha again.
The call failed.
I called Tasha.
It rang once before the signal disappeared.
I searched the walls for another way out, but the unit was solid concrete on three sides. Whoever locked me inside knew exactly what they were doing.
The burner phone rang again.
I answered.
“You ready to take the play now?” the voice asked.
“Let me out.”
“Say yes.”
“Fuck you.”
The lights inside the storage facility suddenly went out.
Even the thin line of light beneath the door disappeared.
Then I heard something scraping against the concrete outside.
A can rolled beneath the door.
The smell hit me immediately.
Gasoline.
“You have ten seconds,” the man said.
I looked at the duffel bag, then down at the gasoline spreading across the floor.
All my life, I had promised myself that nobody would ever force me to do anything.
But this wasn’t just about me anymore.
They knew where my children went to school.
They had pictures of Rome.
They knew about Dymond.
And somehow, they knew secrets about the Carter family that had been buried since before I was old enough to understand them.
“Okay!” I shouted. “I’ll do it!”
The call ended.
Seconds later, I heard the lock being removed.
The metal door lifted.
Nobody was standing outside.
I grabbed the duffel bag and ran to my car.
As soon as I threw it into the trunk, a message appeared on the burner phone.
TOMORROW. 7:00 P.M.
WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS.
Then another message came through.
It was a picture of Jayce and Amaya inside the beauty supply store.
The photograph had been taken less than five minutes ago.
Beneath it were six words:
DON’T MAKE US VISIT THEM AGAIN.
I jumped inside my car and sped away.
I didn’t know who was behind this.
I didn’t know why they were targeting the Carters.
But I knew one thing for certain.
Dre had sold me out.
And before this was over, one of us was going to die.