CHAPTER 14 #2
“How many?” I asked.
“Hundreds.”
My stomach tightened.
“And Kendrick gave it to us knowing that?”
“He gave you a copy. I don’t know whether he removed the activation program.”
Dymond looked at the flash drive in Tasha’s hand.
“Don’t plug it into anything.”
My father came back on the line.
“Where does the tunnel lead?”
“River Road or Cane Run.”
“Take River Road.”
“Why?”
“Because the Cane Run tunnel ends beneath your store.”
“That sounds like a reason to take it.”
“Keyshia, listen to me. Victor’s people will expect you to go there.”
“Maybe.”
“Then don’t.”
I looked at Tasha.
Then Dymond.
“Where are my children?”
Dymond hesitated.
That was all the answer I needed.
“They’re at my store.”
“I didn’t have another secure location.”
“You told me they were safe!”
“They were. The underground room is reinforced.”
“Were?”
Dymond reached for my arm.
Before she could touch me, a gunshot echoed through the tunnel.
The man walking ahead of us dropped.
The flashlight rolled across the floor.
“Down!”
We pressed against the wall.
Another shot struck the concrete beside Dymond’s head.
Someone was coming from the River Road side.
Dymond’s remaining man returned fire.
“Cane Run!” I shouted.
We ran toward the store.
Behind us, more footsteps entered the tunnel.
Victor’s men had found the passage.
The tunnel narrowed until we had to move in a single line.
Tasha stayed between Dymond and me.
“How much farther?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
A bullet struck the wall beside her.
I turned and fired twice into the darkness.
A man cried out.
We kept moving.
My father shouted through the phone.
“Key, what’s happening?”
“We’re being followed.”
“Turn around.”
“Can’t.”
“You’re running into a trap.”
“My children are at the end of it.”
My mother’s voice came through.
“Victor knows.”
“How?”
“Because I told him.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“What did you say?”
“I told Victor where the children were.”
Tasha stopped running.
“You did what?”
Dymond grabbed her.
“Move!”
My mother began crying.
“He gave me a choice.”
“A choice between what?” I shouted.
“Your children or Nesha.”
Rage burned through me.
“So you gave him my babies?”
“I was trying to buy time.”
“You keep calling betrayal protection!”
“Keyshia, I knew Dymond’s people were guarding them.”
“You didn’t know enough!”
We reached a steel ladder.
Above it was another brass plate.
I climbed as gunshots echoed closer.
The key opened the hatch.
I pushed it up.
We entered the basement beneath my beauty supply store.
The room was empty.
Blankets covered the floor.
Amaya’s pink jacket lay beside one of them.
Jayce’s tablet was shattered near the stairs.
“Jayce!” I screamed.
No answer.
“Amaya!”
Silence.
I ran upstairs.
The store had been destroyed.
Shelves were overturned.
Wigs covered the floor.
Glass display cases were shattered.
Blood stained the checkout counter.
One of Dymond’s guards lay dead near the front door.
I raced through the back hallway.
“Jayce!”
A small sound came from the stockroom.
I kicked open the door.
Amaya sat beneath a desk, hugging her knees.
“Momma!”
I dropped to the floor and pulled her into my arms.
She was shaking but alive.
I checked her face, arms, and legs.
“Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
“Where’s your brother?”
Her lip trembled.
“The man took him.”
“What man?”
“The police man.”
Lawson was dead.
“What did he look like?”
“He had a badge.”
Kendrick’s last warning returned to me.
Don’t trust the police inside your family.
I looked toward Tasha.
She understood before I said it.
“Rome,” she whispered.
My cousin Rome Carter.
A man who had spent years building his own empire.
A man connected to corrupt Detective Marcus Hayes.
A man Dre said Lawson had been asking about.
I pulled out my phone and called him.
Rome answered on the first ring.
“You finally figured it out,” he said.
“Where is my son?”
“Safe.”
“If you touch him—”
“I’m not the one you need to threaten.”
A child cried in the background.
My child.
“Momma!”
My knees nearly gave out.
“Jayce!”
The line went quiet again.
Rome’s voice returned.
“Victor wants the ledger.”
“Tell Victor he can have it.”
Dymond grabbed my arm.
I pulled away.
“I’ll bring it wherever he wants. Just give me my son.”
Rome laughed.
“You still don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Victor doesn’t want you to bring him the ledger.”
“Then what does he want?”
“He wants you to activate it.”
I looked at the flash drive.
“You said it’s an execution list,” I said.
“It is.”
“Whose name is first?”
Rome became silent.
“Whose name is first?”
When he answered, his voice had lost its amusement.
“Mine.”
“Why would you help him if he plans to kill you?”
“Because the list doesn’t choose who dies.”
“What does it choose?”
“Who inherits the empire when the killing is finished.”
I looked at Amaya in my arms.
Her face was pressed against my chest.
“Who inherits it?”
Rome exhaled slowly.
“Jayce.”
My son.
The heir from the photograph.
The child Victor had been watching since the beginning.
“What do you want from me?”
“Plug the ledger into the computer beneath your store.”
“What computer?”
The lights inside the beauty supply store shut off.
A hidden panel opened behind the checkout counter.
Blue light spilled across the floor.
Inside the wall sat a computer identical to the one in the bank vault.
Its screen turned on.
A message appeared.
WELCOME, KEYSHIA CARTER.
Then another.
INSERT MASTER LEDGER TO BEGIN SUCCESSION.
Rome lowered his voice.
“You have ten minutes.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You’ll hear your son die.”
The call ended.
A countdown appeared on the screen.
10:00
09:59
09:58
Tasha held up the flash drive.
“Key, if we plug this in, hundreds of people could die.”
I looked down at my daughter.
Then at the phone where I had heard my son crying.
Victor had asked me which sister I was willing to sacrifice.
But he had been asking the wrong question.
Because there wasn’t a sister, cousin, mother, father, or empire in this world I would choose over my children.
I reached for the ledger.
“I choose Jayce.”