CHAPTER 13 #2
I landed across the back seat and pulled the door shut.
The medical van sped down the exit ramp with my parents and Nesha inside.
The black SUV followed it.
Dymond watched through the back window.
“They took the bait.”
“You knew they would?”
“I hoped.”
“And if you were wrong?”
“Then we would have been shot together. A beautiful family moment.”
I looked at her.
Even dressed for war, Dymond looked expensive. Her emerald suit had been replaced by black pants, boots, and a fitted leather jacket. Her face was calm, but her eyes weren’t.
She was scared.
Not for herself.
“Where are my children?”
“Safe.”
“That’s not an address.”
“You’ll get the address when this is over.”
I placed the gun against her ribs.
“Try again.”
She didn’t flinch.
“If I tell you and Lawson catches us, your children become leverage again. You’re their mother. I understand why you need to know. But right now, not knowing is what protects them.”
I hated that she made sense.
I lowered the gun.
“What exactly is the lock?”
Dymond reached beneath her shirt and pulled out a silver chain.
A black oval device hung from it.
It was no bigger than a car key, with a narrow gold opening through its center.
“This.”
“You’ve been wearing it the whole time?”
“Since Camille gave it to me on my eighteenth birthday.”
“What did she tell you it was?”
“A piece of my past.”
“And you never questioned it?”
“I questioned everything. She answered nothing.”
That made two of us.
The First Carter Bank appeared at the end of the block.
It had been abandoned since I was a child. The stone building stood between two empty warehouses, its windows covered with plywood and its name barely visible above the entrance.
My grandfather had owned it once.
According to family stories, it was the first Black-owned bank in that part of Louisville.
According to the truth, it had been where the Carter Empire learned how to turn dirty money clean.
Dymond’s driver stopped in the alley behind the building.
Four armed men stepped from another car.
“Your people?” I asked.
“Two of them.”
“What about the others?”
“They work for money.”
“That’s reassuring.”
We entered through a rusted service door.
The inside smelled like dust, mold, and old paper.
Our footsteps echoed through a hallway lined with offices. Faded portraits of men in suits hung crooked on the walls.
Every face carried the Carter name.
Men who had built businesses.
Men who had bought police.
Men who had shaken hands with mayors during the day and ordered murders at night.
At the end of the hallway, we found the main lobby.
Tasha stood in the center of it.
Lawson was beside her.
Uncle Kendrick stood near the vault.
Nobody raised a weapon.
Not yet.
Tasha’s eyes met mine.
Relief crossed her face, followed by fear.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“You knew I would.”
Lawson smiled.
“I told her the same thing.”
I aimed my gun at his chest.
“You framed me for Dre.”
“Dre made choices.”
“You murdered him.”
“I wasn’t in that car.”
“But you know who was.”
Lawson glanced toward Kendrick.
That was answer enough.
My uncle looked older than he did in my memories. His beard had gone gray, and a scar stretched beneath his left ear. But his eyes were the same.
Cold.
Patient.
Always counting.
“You grew up beautiful, Keyshia,” he said.
“You stayed dead a long time.”
“It was safer.”
“For who?”
“Me.”
At least one person in my family knew how to tell the truth.
I turned toward Tasha.
“Give me the key.”
Her fingers tightened around the deposit bag.
“I can’t.”
“You can, and you will.”
“Kendrick knows how to clear your name.”
I looked at my uncle.
“Is that what he told you?”
“He has the original files,” Tasha said. “Videos, payment records, Lawson’s reports—everything proving you were set up.”
“And what does he want in exchange?”
“The key and the lock.”
Dymond stepped beside me.
“He can’t have either.”
Kendrick smiled when he saw the device around her neck.
“Karen’s firstborn.”
Dymond’s expression turned hard.
“You know who my father is.”
“I know exactly who he is.”
“Tell me.”
“Open the vault.”
“Tell me first.”
“Open it, and the truth belongs to you.”
Lawson pulled his gun.
“Enough talking.”
The hired men behind us raised theirs.
Kendrick sighed.
“Detective, violence inside a bank is bad for business.”
“This bank has been closed for thirty years.”
“Business never stopped.”
Tasha looked at me.
“Key, I’m sorry.”
“You already said that in the text.”
“I’m not working with them.”
“It damn sure looks like it.”
“I brought them here.”
“Why?”
“Because this is the only room Kendrick can’t control from a distance.”
She lifted the deposit bag.
“And because the real key has been recording everything since I walked inside.”
Lawson’s smile disappeared.
Kendrick’s didn’t.
“You always were the smart daughter,” he said.
Tasha flinched.
Daughter.
Not niece.
Daughter.
I slowly turned toward her.
“What did he call you?”
Tasha’s eyes filled with tears.
“Key—”
“What did he call you?”
Kendrick answered for her.
“My daughter.”
The room tilted.
“No.”
“Tasha’s father isn’t the man who raised you,” Kendrick continued. “Karen became pregnant before she met him.”
“You’re lying.”
“Ask your mother.”
“That seems to be everybody’s favorite damn sentence.”
Tasha wiped her face.
“I found out when I was sixteen.”
“You knew this too?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you.”
“You had twenty years!”
“I was protecting you.”
“Stop saying that! Everybody who destroys my life claims they did it to protect me.”
Lawson stepped toward the deposit bag.
“Give me the key.”
Tasha moved back.
He grabbed her arm.
I fired.
The bullet struck the floor beside his shoe.
“Touch my sister again.”
Lawson released her and raised his weapon toward me.
Dymond’s men aimed at him.
Kendrick remained calm.
“You kill Lawson, every law enforcement agency in this country will believe you murdered a detective while fleeing a homicide charge.”
“They already think I killed Dre.”
“Then perhaps you should stop making their case stronger.”
I wanted to shoot him just for sounding reasonable.
Dymond removed the lock from her neck.
“What happens when the vault opens?”
Kendrick’s attention shifted to the device.
“The Carter accounts become accessible.”
“All eight hundred million?”
“Eight hundred and forty-seven million, six hundred and twelve thousand.”
Tasha stared at him.
“You said it was two hundred million.”
“I lied.”
I almost laughed.
Of course he had.
Dymond walked toward the vault.
“What else is inside?”
“The name of my father?”
“Yes.”
“Proof?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s open it.”
I caught her arm.
“We give him what he wants, we lose our only leverage.”
“We don’t give him what he wants,” she said quietly, “we leave without knowing who controls the Circle.”
Kendrick gestured toward the vault.
Tasha removed the real gold key from the deposit bag.
It looked identical to the fake one that had cut my palm.
She inserted it into a narrow slot beside the vault door.
A blue light appeared.
Dymond placed the black lock over it.
The devices clicked together.
Nothing happened.
Then a female voice filled the lobby.
“Primary key recognized.”
A glass panel slid open beside the vault.
Inside was a hand scanner.
“Blood authentication required.”
Kendrick looked at me.
“Your turn.”
“Why me?”
“Because Karen built the system for you.”
Dymond’s face changed.
“I thought the empire chose whoever touched the key first.”
Kendrick smiled.
“Karen told you that?”
Nobody answered.
“The system was never searching for an heir,” he continued. “It was waiting for Keyshia.”
I approached the scanner.
Tasha grabbed my hand.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The key has been recording, but once that vault opens, the recording automatically uploads.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know.”
Kendrick answered.
“Every major news station, federal agency, and government office connected to the empire.”
Lawson’s face went pale.
“You said the files could be erased.”
“They can.”
“Before or after the upload?”
Kendrick’s silence gave him the answer.
Lawson raised his gun toward my uncle.
“You set me up.”
“No, Detective. I gave you the opportunity to expose your character.”
Lawson fired.
Kendrick spun and fell against the vault.
Gunfire erupted.
Dymond pulled me behind a marble counter as bullets tore through the lobby. Tasha dropped beside us, still holding the key. One of Dymond’s men fell near the entrance.
Lawson ran toward the side hallway.
I aimed over the counter and fired twice.
One bullet struck his shoulder.
He crashed into a desk but kept moving.
“Stay with Tasha,” I told Dymond.
“Where are you going?”
“To finish what Dre started.”
I chased Lawson through the hallway.
He kicked open a door leading into the old records room.
By the time I entered, he had disappeared.
Rows of metal shelves stretched across the dark room.
“Lawson!”
Silence.
“You framed the wrong woman.”
His voice came from somewhere behind me.
“No. Your mother chose the right one.”
I turned.
Too late.
He struck my wrist, knocking the gun away.
Then he slammed me into a shelf.
Pain exploded through my back.
“You think this is about drugs?” he said. “Dre? That little store?”
He punched me in the stomach.
I dropped to one knee.
“This is bigger than your family.”
He grabbed my bob and pulled my head back.
“The Circle owns judges, prisons, ports, banks. Your mother stole from men who own countries.”