CHAPTER 14
I Choose Blood
“So choose which sister you’re willing to sacrifice.”
Victor Hale’s voice stayed calm while the countdown kept moving.
Police lights flashed through the boarded windows of the bank.
Lawson’s body lay twenty feet away.
Uncle Kendrick was trapped inside the vault.
And Victor Hale was waiting for me to decide which member of my family mattered least.
I tightened my grip around the phone.
“You don’t know me very well.”
“I know more about you than you know about yourself.”
“Then you should know I don’t sacrifice family.”
A soft laugh came through the line.
“Everybody sacrifices family eventually.”
“Maybe in yours.”
I ended the call.
Dymond stared at me.
“What did you tell him?”
“That he can go to hell.”
“Did he say how to stop the explosion?”
“No.”
Tasha clutched the flash drive against her chest.
“We have less than three minutes.”
Dymond looked toward the front entrance.
“The police will shoot the second Keyshia steps outside.”
“Then we don’t use the front.”
“There are officers behind the building too.”
I looked at the floor.
The bank had been built during a time when rich men didn’t trust government, law enforcement, or each other. A family like mine wouldn’t have constructed a vault without building another way out.
“Kendrick came through a tunnel before,” I said.
Tasha looked at me.
“What?”
“When he helped Momma disappear. He moved her out of the hospital and hid her. The old empire properties were connected by underground routes.”
Dymond followed my stare.
“You think there’s one here?”
“I think dead men like escape plans.”
Another announcement shook the building.
“KEYSHIA CARTER, YOU HAVE SIXTY SECONDS TO EXIT WITH YOUR HANDS VISIBLE.”
I looked at the countdown.
02:19
“They don’t know about the bomb,” Tasha said.
“They might be the bomb,” Dymond replied.
Tasha went pale.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Victor controls police.”
“Not all of them.”
“He doesn’t need all of them. Just the ones closest to the trigger.”
I ran behind the teller counter and searched the floor.
Old receipts.
Broken drawers.
Dust.
Nothing.
Dymond and Tasha started checking the walls.
One of Dymond’s men remained near the entrance while the other dragged his wounded partner behind a stone column.
“Thirty seconds!” he called.
“We need more time,” Dymond said.
I looked at Lawson’s body.
His radio was still attached to his belt.
I ran over, grabbed it, and pressed the button.
“This is Detective Lawson. The building is wired with explosives. Pull everybody back.”
Static answered.
Then a man’s voice came through.
“Detective Lawson, confirm your badge number.”
I looked at Tasha.
She shrugged.
The countdown dropped below two minutes.
I pressed the radio again.
“Forget the badge number. There’s a bomb in the damn bank. Pull your people back!”
“Who is this?”
I released the button.
“That didn’t work,” Tasha said.
“It might have made them hesitate.”
A red laser appeared on my chest.
Dymond grabbed my jacket and pulled me down.
A bullet ripped through the plywood covering the window.
Her man near the entrance returned fire.
The outside exploded with gunshots.
“They’re coming in!” he shouted.
The countdown continued.
01:34
01:33
01:32
I crawled behind the counter.
My hand struck something beneath the carpet.
Metal.
I tore back the rotten material and found a brass plate shaped like the letter C.
“Tasha!”
She dropped beside me.
Together, we pulled.
The plate didn’t move.
Dymond examined it.
“There’s no handle.”
“It needs the key,” Tasha said.
She looked toward the vault.
The real gold key was still inside the lock attached to the door.
“Stay here,” I told her.
“Key—”
I ran.
Bullets tore through the lobby as officers forced open the front entrance.
Dymond’s men fired from behind the columns.
I reached the vault and grabbed the key.
It wouldn’t move.
“Come on!”
I twisted harder.
The lock flashed red.
AUTHENTICATION ACTIVE
The explosion countdown appeared above it.
00:58
The vault door shook.
Three heavy knocks came from the other side.
Kendrick.
“Uncle Kendrick!”
His voice was muffled by steel.
“Turn it left twice, then right!”
I followed his instructions.
The key released.
“Can you open the door?”
“No! The system locked me in.”
“We’ll get you out.”
“You don’t have time.”
“Tasha isn’t leaving you!”
“She has to.”
Another volley of gunfire ripped across the lobby.
The countdown reached forty seconds.
Kendrick struck the door again.
“Keyshia!”
“What?”
“Whatever happens, don’t let Victor get that ledger.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t trust the police.”
“I figured that out.”
“I don’t mean the police outside.”
I froze.
“Then who?”
“The police inside your family.”
Before I could ask what he meant, Dymond screamed my name.
I ran back to the brass plate.
Tasha inserted the key.
The floor clicked.
A section of wood lifted.
Dymond pulled it open, revealing a narrow staircase leading into darkness.
00:21
“Move!” I shouted.
The wounded man went first with his partner helping him.
Tasha followed.
Dymond climbed down, then looked back at me.
“Keyshia!”
I turned toward the vault.
Kendrick was still inside.
Tasha’s father.
My uncle.
A man who had lied, betrayed my mother, and helped build an empire that destroyed our family.
But he had also given us the ledger.
And he was about to die alone.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
The front doors burst open.
Men in tactical gear flooded the lobby.
I jumped into the passage and pulled the floor shut above me.
The darkness swallowed us.
Three seconds later, the world exploded.
The force threw me down the stairs.
Heat rushed over my back.
Concrete cracked.
Tasha screamed.
The ceiling collapsed behind us, sealing the tunnel.
For several seconds, I couldn’t hear anything except ringing.
Then someone grabbed my face.
“Keyshia!”
I opened my eyes.
Dymond hovered over me.
Blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow.
“You alive?”
“I think so.”
Tasha crawled toward us through the dust.
“My daddy.”
Nobody answered.
She looked back at the collapsed tunnel.
“My daddy was still in there.”
I reached for her.
She pushed me away.
“We left him!”
“We didn’t have a choice.”
“Yes, we did! We could’ve opened the vault.”
“The lock wouldn’t release.”
“You should’ve tried!”
“I did!”
“Not hard enough!”
She struck my chest.
Then she hit me again.
I let her.
She had carried a lie since she was thirteen.
She had protected a mother who abandoned us.
She had discovered the man she called uncle was really her father.
And minutes later, she had lost him again.
Tasha collapsed against me.
“I just found him,” she sobbed. “I just found out who he was.”
I held her while the tunnel shook around us.
“I’m sorry.”
Dymond looked away.
Her face carried a different kind of pain.
Victor Hale was alive.
She had found her biological father too.
The difference was hers wanted her dead.
One of Dymond’s men turned on a flashlight.
“The tunnel continues east.”
“Where does it lead?” I asked.
“No idea.”
“Then we find out.”
We moved through the narrow passage.
The air smelled like damp stone and smoke. Old electrical wires ran along one wall. Carter symbols had been carved into the concrete every twenty feet, leading us deeper beneath the city.
Tasha stayed close behind me.
She still held the flash drive.
“Is the ledger damaged?” I asked.
She examined it beneath the flashlight.
“No.”
“Good.”
“My father died for this.”
“Then we make sure it matters.”
Dymond walked beside us.
“Victor knows we have it.”
“He doesn’t know where we’re going.”
“Neither do we.”
“That makes it harder to predict us.”
She gave me a sideways look.
“You always this optimistic?”
“No. Usually I shoot people who annoy me.”
“That explains Lawson.”
“Tasha shot Lawson.”
Tasha wiped her face.
“Don’t remind me.”
“He deserved it,” Dymond said.
“That won’t matter in court.”
“If we get what’s on that drive to the right person, Lawson won’t be remembered as a hero.”
“Who is the right person?” I asked.
Neither of them answered.
That was the problem.
Every detective could belong to Victor.
Every judge could be paid.
Every reporter could disappear.
Evidence only mattered when the person holding it lived long enough to expose it.
After ten minutes, the tunnel divided.
One path continued straight.
The other turned south.
A faded sign hung between them.
RIVER ROAD
CANE RUN
My beauty supply store was near Cane Run Road.
The same store my mother had used to move empire money.
The same store where somebody photographed my children.
The same store Lawson had watched for months.
“Kendrick said not to trust the police inside the family,” I said.
Dymond stopped.
“What do you think he meant?”
“I don’t know.”
Tasha looked toward the Cane Run tunnel.
“Maybe there’s something at the store.”
“Or someone,” Dymond said.
My phone vibrated.
I expected Victor.
Instead, my father’s name appeared on the screen.
I answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
“At the clinic.”
“Nesha?”
“She’s in surgery.”
“Momma?”
“Here.”
“Did anybody follow you?”
“The SUV disappeared after the explosion.”
“Listen to me. Kendrick is dead.”
Silence.
Then my mother’s voice came through in the background.
“What happened?”
“The bank exploded. We escaped through a tunnel.”
“Do you have the ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Destroy it.”
I stopped walking.
“What?”
“Destroy the drive right now.”
Tasha stared at the phone.
“Why would she say that?”
My mother must have heard her.
“Tasha, you don’t understand what’s on it.”
“Then tell us.”
“It isn’t only Circle names. It contains every person the Carter Empire ever paid, threatened, or killed.”
“Exactly,” I said. “That’s how I clear my name.”
“No. That’s how Victor destroys all of you.”
“You just told me he wanted the ledger.”
“He wants you to believe that.”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“The ledger isn’t just evidence. It’s an execution list.”
Dymond stepped closer.
“Put her on speaker.”
I did.
My mother continued.
“Every name is attached to an account. If the ledger connects to the empire system, it activates payments.”
“What kind of payments?” Tasha asked.
“Death contracts.”
The tunnel went silent.