CHAPTER 16
Midnight on the Ohio
We had forty-five minutes to reach the river.
It took twenty-three.
Dymond drove.
I sat in the passenger seat, loading bullets into a second magazine while the Louisville skyline grew larger through the windshield.
Rome lay across the back seat with a towel pressed against his side.
Every few minutes, he checked his phone for another message from Victor.
Nothing came.
“Can you stay awake?” I asked.
“I’m not dying.”
“You’re bleeding through that towel.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“It wasn’t meant to.”
Dymond looked at him through the rearview mirror.
“Tell us everything you know about the boat.”
“Victor bought out the midnight cruise. Staff was paid to stay home. Circle security replaced them.”
“How many men?”
“Last count, twelve.”
“Twelve?” I asked.
Rome nodded.
“Could be more.”
“We have three people, and one of them has a hole in his side.”
“I can still shoot.”
“You can barely sit up.”
“I said I can shoot. I didn’t say I could dance.”
Dymond turned onto River Road.
The Belle of Louisville sat along the waterfront, glowing beneath strings of white lights. Its red paddlewheel was still. Smoke drifted from the tall black stacks.
From a distance, it looked peaceful.
Beautiful.
Like nothing bad had ever happened on it.
That was how traps worked.
They looked safe until the door closed behind you.
“Where are Momma and Daddy?” I asked.
“Tasha said they left the clinic,” Dymond replied.
“And Nesha?”
“Still in surgery.”
My father wanted to come to the boat.
I told him no.
Somebody had to stay alive for my children if I didn’t make it back.
Tasha had taken Jayce and Amaya to another location with my parents’ people. She promised not to tell me where.
For once, I was grateful not to know.
Dymond parked beneath an overpass several blocks from the landing.
Meech’s voice came through her phone.
“I’m in the river cameras.”
“You can see the boat?” Dymond asked.
“I’ve got three angles. Two men on the main deck, four near the boarding ramp, and somebody on top of the pilothouse.”
“Sniper?”
“Looks like it.”
Rome forced himself upright.
“There’s another entrance from the lower dock.”
Meech checked.
“Locked gate. Camera above it.”
“Can you loop the feed?”
“Already done.”
Dymond glanced at me.
“Victor expects me alone.”
“So we let him see you alone.”
“I don’t like the way that sounds.”
“You walk up the main ramp. Rome and I use the lower dock.”
Rome reached for the door.
Dymond locked it.
“You’re staying in the car.”
He stared at her.
“My daughter is on that boat.”
“And if you pass out halfway there, you become another person we have to save.”
“Open the door.”
“No.”
He leaned forward.
“I don’t know what kind of relationship you and Keyshia are building, but you don’t give me orders.”
Dymond turned in her seat.
“I just gave away the only key Victor needed to rebuild the empire. My biological father wants me dead. Twelve armed men are waiting on a steamboat, and I’m about to walk into the middle of them wearing a wire made by a man who still owes me sixty thousand dollars.”
Meech spoke through the phone.
“I told you I’m paying.”
“Not the time, Meech.”
She looked back at Rome.
“So until your organs stop leaking, I’m in charge.”
Rome stared at her for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
“I see why they used to fear you.”
“They still do.”
I unlocked the door.
“Both of you shut up. Rome is coming.”
Dymond frowned.
“He’ll slow us down.”
“He knows the boat. And that’s his child.”
Rome stepped out.
“I knew I liked you, cousin.”
“I’m not doing it for you.”
“You’re still doing it.”
We moved toward the river.
The wind coming off the Ohio was cold enough to cut through my jacket. Music played from speakers along the waterfront, but the area near the Belle had been cleared.
A sign stood beside the walkway.
PRIVATE EVENT
No security from the city.
No tourists.
No witnesses.
Victor had purchased privacy.
Dymond stopped beneath a tree.
Meech attached himself to her earpiece.
“Once you step onto the ramp, I’ll be able to hear everything.”
“If the signal disappears?”
“Tap the device three times. I’ll trigger the boat’s fire alarm.”
“That’s your rescue plan?”
“It’s better than your usual plan of shooting everybody.”
She smiled.
“Barely.”
I touched her arm.
“Victor wants you alive long enough to blame you.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t shoot me.”
“No.”
“You always know how to encourage people.”
“You asked me to be honest.”
She looked toward the boat.
“What if Laila isn’t there?”
“Then we make Victor tell us where she is.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
I checked my gun.
“He will.”
Dymond started walking toward the main ramp.
Rome and I waited until Victor’s guards focused on her.
Two men approached, searched her, and removed the gun from beneath her jacket.
They never found the small blade hidden inside her boot.
At least, I hoped they didn’t.
The guards escorted her aboard.
Meech’s voice came through my earpiece.
“She’s on.”
Rome and I moved toward the lower dock.
He knew the code to the gate.
“How?” I whispered.
“Carter business.”
“That answer is starting to get on my nerves.”
“It’ll get worse before it gets better.”
The gate opened.
We climbed down a metal ladder to a narrow platform near the water.
The Belle towered above us.
A maintenance door sat just past the paddlewheel.
Rome reached beneath the railing and found a hidden latch.
“You’ve been here before?”
“My father used the boat for meetings.”
“Your father is connected to Victor?”
“My father is connected to everybody.”
Another Carter father with secrets.
I didn’t have room in my head for his problems too.
Rome pulled open the door.
We entered the engine room.
The air smelled like oil, metal, and river water.
Old machinery surrounded us. Pipes ran along the ceiling, shaking each time the engines turned.
“You said the boat was supposed to be docked,” I whispered.
“It was.”
The floor vibrated.
The paddlewheel began moving.
Outside, ropes dropped into the river.
The Belle pulled away from the landing.
“They’re taking us onto the water,” I said.
Rome’s face tightened.
“Victor doesn’t plan on bringing anybody back.”
???
Dymond stood alone on the upper deck while Louisville drifted farther away.
Victor Hale waited near the railing.
He wore the same dark suit from the video. No coat, despite the cold.
Five armed men surrounded him.
Laila sat in a chair behind them with her wrists tied.
Her face was swollen.
But she was alive.
Dymond stopped several feet from Victor.
“Release the girl.”
“You look like your mother.”
“I look like myself.”
“That attitude came from her too.”
“Which mother?”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“Camille raised me. Karen gave birth to me. You abandoned me. So exactly which parent am I supposed to resemble?”
“I didn’t abandon you.”
“You just said I was a liability.”
“I kept you alive.”
“By pretending I didn’t exist?”
“Your existence threatened the Circle.”
“You mean it threatened you.”
Victor glanced toward the river.
“When Karen became pregnant, I had already married into one of the most powerful families in Kentucky. A Black child outside that marriage would have destroyed alliances I spent years building.”
Dymond’s expression didn’t change.
“So you chose power.”
“I chose survival.”
“No. You chose yourself.”
Victor studied her.
“I have followed your life from a distance.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“You were intelligent. Ruthless when necessary. You built loyalty among men who trusted no one.”
“I learned that from Terrence.”
“He wasn’t your father.”
“He was more of one than you’ll ever be.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
He hadn’t expected her to reject him.
Men like Victor believed blood created ownership.
That fatherhood belonged to whoever planted the seed, not whoever stayed to raise the child.
“You came here for Laila,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Not Keyshia?”
“She’s innocent.”
“She killed Lawson.”
“Tasha killed Lawson.”
Victor smiled.
“I already know.”
Dymond froze.
Victor pulled a phone from his pocket.
On its screen was a live image of Tasha sitting beside Jayce and Amaya.
“You found them,” Dymond said.
“I find everyone.”
“Where are they?”
“Safe, for now.”
“If you touch those children—”
“You’ll do what? Take my money?”
His smile disappeared.
“You already did that.”
Dymond moved closer.
“Your empire was built on stolen lives. Keyshia returned the money to the people it belonged to.”
“She gave away eight hundred million dollars.”
“That’s why she was always stronger than you.”
Victor’s eyes darkened.
“Keyshia acts from emotion.”
“And you don’t have any. Which one of you do you think people will follow?”
“She has no army.”
“She has a family.”
“Family is weakness.”
“No,” Dymond said. “Family is the reason Keyshia walked into a bank surrounded by police. It’s the reason Tasha killed Lawson. It’s the reason Rome is bleeding somewhere on this boat.”
Victor’s men raised their guns.
Victor smiled slowly.
“I knew he wouldn’t stay in the car.”
Dymond’s eyes shifted for half a second.
That was all he needed.
Victor reached forward and grabbed her throat.
He pressed a gun beneath her chin.
“Tell Keyshia to come upstairs.”
Dymond smiled despite his grip.
“You tell her.”
???
Rome and I reached the crew hallway beneath the main deck.
Meech guided us through the cameras.
“Two men turning the corner in five seconds.”
We stepped into an empty cabin.
The guards passed.
Rome leaned against the wall.
His breathing had changed.
“Let me see your wound.”
“I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that like blood isn’t running into your shoe.”
I lifted his shirt.
The wound looked worse.
“You need a hospital.”
“I need my daughter.”
“You’re not helping her if you die before we reach the deck.”
He grabbed my wrist.
“If I go down, you keep moving.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Keyshia.”
“No.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. Nobody else gets left behind tonight.”
His face softened.
“You really are a Carter.”
“I’m starting to think that’s an insult.”
A door opened at the end of the hallway.
We hid behind a vending cart.
A man in a captain’s uniform walked past.
Meech whispered through my earpiece.