CHAPTER 10
The Man Who Sold Us
“Which one?”
My father’s smile remained in place as he looked from me toward the office where Nesha was bleeding.
I tightened my grip on the gun.
“The one you shot.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question.”
“You think this shit is funny?”
“No.” His eyes dropped to the duffel bag in my hand. “I think it’s unfortunate.”
My father took one step forward.
I aimed at the center of his chest.
“Take another step and see how unfortunate it gets.”
The men surrounding him lifted their weapons.
Behind me, my mother’s people did the same.
Guns pointed in every direction.
Nobody moved.
One nervous finger could turn the warehouse into a graveyard.
My father raised one hand.
“Lower your weapons,” he told his men.
None of them listened.
His smile disappeared.
“I said lower them.”
Slowly, their guns dropped.
My mother stepped into the hallway behind me.
“Don’t trust him, Keyshia.”
My father laughed.
“That’s rich coming from a woman who let her daughters bury an empty casket.”
“Your daughters?” I asked him. “Since when do you claim us?”
“Since the day each of you was born.”
“You didn’t even tell me Nesha existed.”
“That wasn’t my decision.”
My mother moved beside me.
“Don’t you dare put that on me.”
“You knew about Valerie.”
“You paid her to disappear.”
“I gave her enough money to raise my child.”
“You gave her silence money.”
My father looked at Nesha through the office doorway.
“She was never supposed to be part of this.”
“But you shot her anyway,” I said.
“I didn’t shoot Nesha.”
“She saw your face.”
“She saw me after she had already been shot.”
Nesha tried to stand.
Her knees buckled.
I rushed back into the office and caught her before she hit the floor.
“Don’t move.”
“He’s lying,” she whispered.
“About what?”
“Everything.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down.”
Nesha pressed her hand against her wound.
“He was inside the truck when they took the package.”
“You said he shot you.”
“I said I saw his face.”
I stared at her.
“Then who pulled the trigger?”
“I don’t know. They came from behind.”
My father remained in the hallway.
“Now can we stop accusing me of things I didn’t do?”
“You still led them here,” Nesha said.
“No. You did.”
Her eyes moved toward the duffel bag.
“The tracker,” she whispered.
My mother grabbed the bag from me and dropped it onto the floor.
“Everybody move back.”
One of her men approached with a knife.
He cut through the plastic surrounding the brick of cocaine, then carefully pulled the package apart.
A small black device sat inside.
A green light blinked twice.
Then red.
“That’s not ours,” my mother said.
My father laughed.
“You’re slipping, Karen.”
“Shut up.”
Her man removed the device and examined it.
“This isn’t only a tracker.”
“What is it?” I asked.
He held it closer to the light.
“A transmitter.”
My mother’s face tightened.
“What has it been transmitting?” she asked.
“Sound.”
Every conversation we had inside the warehouse had been recorded.
Including Nesha identifying my father.
My mother admitting she ordered Dre’s death.
And all of us discussing the Carter Empire.
Lawson didn’t need the folder anymore.
He had our voices.
The female officer stepped away from the group.
“We need to leave. Now.”
As if the warehouse had been waiting for her words, red and blue lights suddenly flashed through the broken windows.
Sirens surrounded the building.
My father’s men raised their guns again.
“You brought the police?” my mother asked him.
“If I brought them, do you think I’d still be standing here?”
A voice came over a loudspeaker.
“This is the Louisville Metro Police Department. Everyone inside the warehouse, drop your weapons and come out with your hands visible.”
I recognized the voice.
Lawson.
My mother looked at the transmitter.
“He heard everything.”
My father shook his head.
“Lawson doesn’t have the authority to bring this many officers.”
“Then who does?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
The loudspeaker came on again.
“Keyshia Carter, we know you’re inside. You are wanted for escape, possession with intent to distribute, and the murder of Andre Wilson.”
My stomach dropped.
“They charged me with Dre’s murder?”
My mother looked away.
“You knew they were going to do this.”
“I knew it was possible.”
“You had him killed, and now they’re putting it on me!”
“I’ll fix it.”
“How? By pretending to die again?”
Gunfire exploded near the loading dock.
The warehouse windows shattered.
Everybody dropped.
A bullet tore through the office wall above Nesha’s head.
My father’s men fired back.
My mother grabbed my arm.
“Take Nesha and go through the tunnel.”
“What tunnel?”
“There’s an entrance beneath the office floor.”
“Of course there is,” I said. “This family got a secret for every fucking emergency.”
My father rushed toward us.
My mother aimed her gun at him.
“Stay back.”
“If Lawson takes that package, we all lose.”
“You lost the right to say ‘we’ nineteen years ago.”
Another round of bullets ripped through the warehouse.
One of my father’s men fell.
My mother’s man pulled a metal filing cabinet away from the wall, revealing a trapdoor in the concrete floor.
He lifted it.
A narrow staircase led into darkness.
“I’m not going down there without my children,” I said.
“They aren’t here,” my mother replied.
“Exactly. I need to get to them.”
“Tasha has them.”
“Lawson knows where Tasha lives.”
My mother looked at the female officer.
“Call the second team.”
The woman pulled out her phone, but there was no signal.
“The transmitter is jamming us.”
My father stepped closer.
“I can get to Tasha.”
I pointed my gun at him again.
“You’re not going anywhere near my children.”
“They’re my grandchildren.”
“You don’t even know their birthdays.”
“Jayce is eight. Amaya is six. Jayce was born March seventeenth at four twenty-two in the morning. Amaya was born November ninth, six weeks early.”
I stared at him.
“How do you know that?”
“Because your mother wasn’t the only one watching.”
My skin crawled.
All these years, both of my parents had been hiding in the shadows while Tasha and I struggled without them.
“You watched me raise my children alone?”
“You were never alone.”
“You weren’t there.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It is to a child.”
His face changed.
For one second, I saw something that looked like shame.
Then it disappeared.
“We can argue about what kind of father I was after we get out of here,” he said.
“No,” I told him. “We’re going to talk about it now.”
“Keyshia—”
“You sold Momma to the feds.”
His eyes moved toward Karen.
“That’s what she told you?”
“Is it true?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“People only say that when the truth makes them look guilty.”
My mother almost smiled.
My father ignored her.
“Karen had started making decisions that were going to destroy the entire family.”
“So you betrayed her?”
“I made a deal to protect my daughters.”
“By taking our mother away?”
“By keeping her out of prison.”
My mother lifted her gun.
“You told them where the shipment was.”
“I told them about one shipment. One.”
“That shipment had Kendrick’s name on it.”
“I didn’t know Lawson would kill him.”
“You knew exactly what kind of man Lawson was.”
“I knew Lawson was a hungry detective. I didn’t know he was already working for someone else.”
“Who?” I asked.
My father went quiet.
The gunfire outside stopped.
That silence felt more dangerous than the bullets.
“Who was Lawson working for?” I repeated.
My father looked toward the warehouse entrance.
“We need to leave.”
“Say the name.”
“If I say it, you become a target.”
“I’m wanted for murder, my son was kidnapped, my house was raided, my sister was shot, and the police are surrounding us. I think I’m already a target.”
He looked at me.
“The name in the folder isn’t a person.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s an organization.”
My mother’s face changed.
“You told her about the list?”
“No.”
“What list?” I asked.
My father exhaled.
“The people who really control the city.”
“Politicians?”
“Some.”
“Police?”
“Some.”
“Drug dealers?”
“They’re the least powerful people on it.”
The loudspeaker came on again.
“You have sixty seconds to surrender.”
My father looked toward the ceiling.
“They’re not giving us sixty seconds.”
Something crashed through the broken window.
A metal canister rolled across the warehouse floor.
“Gas!” somebody shouted.
White smoke filled the building.
My eyes burned immediately.
Nesha started coughing.
I wrapped one of her arms around my shoulder and pulled her toward the trapdoor.
My mother went first.
Her men followed.
My father grabbed the duffel bag.
“Leave it!” I shouted.
“This bag is the only reason they haven’t killed us yet.”
“It’s the reason they found us!”
“The transmitter isn’t the key.”
“What?”
He reached inside the torn cocaine package and removed a tiny gold object.
It looked like a memory card shaped like a key.
“This is.”
He slipped it into his pocket.
I aimed my gun at him.
“Give it to me.”
“Get Nesha into the tunnel.”
“I said give it to me.”
The smoke thickened.
“I kept this family alive before you were born,” he said.
“And nearly got us all killed tonight.”
A shadow moved behind him.
I saw the weapon first.
“Daddy, get down!”
I fired.
The man behind him dropped.
My father turned and shot twice toward the warehouse entrance.
More officers rushed inside wearing gas masks and tactical gear.
“They’re coming!” my mother shouted from below.
My father grabbed the duffel bag and jumped into the tunnel.
I helped Nesha toward the opening.
She cried out when I lowered her onto the steps.
“I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I’m tired, Key.”
“You waited five years to tell me you’re my sister. You’re not dying before I get the chance to cuss you out properly.”
Despite the pain, she smiled.
“That might take a while.”
“Exactly. So move.”
We descended into the tunnel.
My mother’s men pulled the trapdoor closed above us.
Darkness surrounded us.
The tunnel was narrow, damp, and smelled like river water. A line of dim lights came on along the wall.
“How far does this go?” I asked.
“Half a mile,” my mother said. “It exits near the river.”
“And then what?”
“We separate.”
“No.”
“That’s the safest move.”
“I’m done letting you decide what’s safest for me.”
My mother turned.
“This isn’t the time.”
“It’s the only time we might have.”
My father stood between us.
“Both of you need to stop.”
We answered together.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Nesha laughed, then winced and grabbed her stomach.
Her legs gave out.
I caught her, but her entire body went limp.
“Nesha!”
My mother rushed over and checked her pulse.
“She’s losing too much blood.”
“We need a hospital.”
“She can’t go to a hospital. Lawson will find her.”
“Then find a doctor.”
“There’s one waiting at the river.”
A heavy boom shook the tunnel behind us.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
“They found the entrance,” one of my mother’s men said.
My father pulled the gold key from his pocket.
“If they want it this badly, we use it.”
“How?” I asked.
“We open the accounts.”
My mother stared at him.
“You said the accounts were empty.”
“I lied.”
“Of course you did,” I said.
My father held the key between his fingers.
“The Carter Empire isn’t worth millions.”
“How much is it worth?” I asked.
His eyes moved from my mother to me.
“Almost half a billion dollars.”
Nobody spoke.
Even Nesha opened her eyes.
“All this is over money?” I asked.
“No,” my father said. “The money is only part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“The accounts contain payment records. Every judge, cop, politician, and federal agent who ever took money from the Carters.”
“Including Lawson?”
“Including the person Lawson works for.”
“Give me the key.”
My father closed his fist around it.
“You’re not ready.”
I pressed my gun against his chest.
“My son was kidnapped. My sister is bleeding. The police think I killed Dre. And both my parents came back from the dead in the same night.”
I looked him directly in the eyes.
“I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”
For several seconds, he didn’t move.
Then he placed the gold key inside my palm.
The moment it touched my skin, every light in the tunnel went out.
A phone rang somewhere in the darkness.
Not mine.
Not my mother’s.
My father pulled a burner phone from his pocket.
The screen illuminated his face.
One message appeared.
THANK YOU FOR brINGING ALL THREE DAUGHTERS TOGETHER.
My chest tightened.
Tasha.
The message wasn’t talking about me, Nesha, and Tasha.
Tasha wasn’t inside the tunnel.
It was talking about someone else.
I turned toward my mother.
“You said Daddy had three daughters.”
Her silence answered before her mouth did.
“He does,” she whispered. “But Nesha isn’t the only sister you never knew about.”
The phone vibrated again.
A photograph appeared.
A woman stood outside Tasha’s house with Jayce and Amaya beside her.
I recognized her immediately.
Dymond Carter.
And beneath the picture were four words:
THE EMPIRE HAS AN HEIR.