CHAPTER 20
The Bridge Between Blood and Betrayal
“Still believe you can save everybody?”
Victor’s voice came through my phone while red lights blinked beneath the bridge.
My mother stood near the Indiana side with Monica’s gun pressed against her head.
Dymond was beside me.
Rome was bleeding behind us.
Nesha and Tasha were trapped inside the wrecked sedan.
Shay, Meech, and Deon remained in the SUV.
Every person I cared about was standing on a bridge Victor could destroy with one button.
“Yes,” I said.
Victor laughed.
“That confidence will kill your family.”
“No. You will.”
“Only if you force me.”
“You strapped explosives beneath a bridge.”
“And you brought Dymond onto it.”
Dymond reached for my phone.
“I’ll come.”
I pulled it away.
“No.”
“Keyshia, look around.”
“I’m looking.”
“We have wounded people, no cover, and enough explosives beneath us to put half this bridge in the Ohio River.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m handing you over.”
“If I don’t go, we all die.”
“If you do, he kills you first and us second.”
Victor heard me.
“If I wanted Dymond dead, she would already be dead.”
Dymond looked toward him.
“Then what do you want with me?”
Victor stepped closer to the blinking explosives.
“The archive exposed every weak person inside the Circle. Politicians are resigning. Officers are running. Judges are destroying records. By sunrise, only the loyal members will remain.”
“You call that loyalty?” she asked.
“I call it purification.”
“You sound crazy.”
“I sound like a man who understands power.”
“You lost eight hundred million dollars.”
“Money returns.”
“Children don’t.”
Victor’s face changed.
Dymond had found the one place her words could cut him.
Not because he cared about children.
Because she was his child—and she had rejected him.
Monica tightened her grip around Karen.
“Enough.”
Victor glanced at her.
“This is my negotiation.”
“And those are my explosives.”
My mother slowly turned her head.
“You wired the bridge?”
Monica smiled.
“I learned from you.”
“You learned how to run.”
“I learned how to survive.”
“You abandoned your daughter.”
“I kept Janesha out of the Circle.”
“You left her with strangers.”
“I left her with her father.”
“Our father,” I corrected.
Monica looked at me across the bridge.
“No. The man who died inside that church was never Nesha’s father.”
Nesha lifted her head inside the sedan.
Even from several yards away, I saw the words hit her.
“What?” she whispered.
Monica heard.
“He told you he was your father because Kendrick paid him to.”
My mother shook her head.
“Don’t listen to her.”
Nesha pushed open the damaged car door.
Tasha tried to stop her.
“Who is my father?” Nesha called.
Monica stared at her daughter.
“The only man who ever protected you.”
“Kendrick?”
Monica didn’t answer.
That was enough.
Tasha stepped from the car.
Her face lost all color.
“No.”
Nesha looked at her.
“What?”
Tasha’s voice shook.
“If Kendrick was your father…”
Nesha finished the thought.
“Then we’re sisters.”
Not half-sisters through my father.
Sisters through Kendrick.
Tasha and Nesha.
My father had claimed Nesha because Kendrick needed the truth hidden.
Another lie.
Another branch added to a family tree whose roots were watered with blood.
Monica looked almost amused.
“Kendrick had two daughters. One he raised from the shadows, and one he paid me to hide.”
“The seven million,” Nesha said.
“Your inheritance.”
“You called it your payment.”
“It was both.”
“For what?”
“For disappearing.”
Nesha laughed bitterly.
“Every mother in this family believes abandoning her children deserves a reward.”
My mother flinched.
Monica didn’t.
“You lived because I left.”
“No. I lived despite you.”
The explosives beneath us blinked faster.
Dymond lowered her voice.
“They’re distracted.”
“I noticed.”
“What’s the plan?”
I looked toward the SUV.
Meech sat inside with his laptop open.
The cracked command device was connected by a cable.
I raised my hand beside my hip and pointed beneath the bridge.
He followed my gesture.
Then he nodded.
We needed time.
“Tell me why you killed your father,” I shouted toward Karen.
My mother stared at me.
“Not now.”
“Monica says you murdered him and stole the empire.”
“She did.”
Victor smiled.
He wanted the truth spoken.
He wanted us fighting each other before the bridge fell.
But the longer they talked, the more time Meech had.
“Why?” I asked.
Karen looked toward the river.
“My father built the Carter Empire with Victor.”
Dymond turned toward him.
Victor didn’t deny it.
“They moved heroin through Louisville during the seventies,” Karen continued. “Then guns. Politicians. Police. By the time I was eighteen, they controlled half the city.”
“What happened?”
“My father wanted a son.”
“You had Uncle Kendrick.”
“Kendrick wasn’t his son.”
Tasha closed her eyes.
“Does anybody in this family belong to the person who raised them?”
Karen ignored the question.
“My father adopted Kendrick after Kendrick’s parents died. He taught him the accounts but never intended to leave him control.”
“Who was supposed to inherit?” I asked.
“Victor.”
Dymond’s face hardened.
“The empire was supposed to become part of the Circle.”
“Yes.”
“Then you killed your father.”
Karen nodded.
The truth moved through us.
No excuse.
No denial.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I poisoned him.”
Monica kept her gun against Karen’s head.
“She poured it into his birthday drink and watched him die at his own table.”
Shay let out a humorless laugh.
“Birthdays really are dangerous in this family.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked.
Karen looked at me.
“Because he promised Victor his first granddaughter.”
Dymond stopped breathing.
“Me?”
“You were four years old. Your grandfather knew Victor was your biological father. He believed giving you to the Circle would secure the partnership.”
“So you murdered him to protect Dymond?”
“I murdered him because nobody was taking my child.”
Dymond’s eyes filled with tears she refused to let fall.
“You gave me away anyway.”
“To Camille. A woman who loved you.”
“You still left.”
“I chose the mother you deserved.”
Victor stepped forward.
“You chose weakness.”
“No,” Karen said. “I chose somebody who didn’t look at a child and see an investment.”
His face hardened.
Meech climbed from the SUV and held up three fingers.
Three minutes?
Three explosives?
I couldn’t tell.
He pointed toward Nesha.
Then the command device.
He needed her access code.
I moved toward the crashed sedan.
Victor lifted the detonator.
“Stop.”
“I’m checking on my sister.”
“Take another step and the bridge falls.”
I stopped.
Nesha looked at Meech.
He mouthed one word.
Code.
She understood.
“The archive code?” I asked loudly.
Nesha nodded.
“But I can’t say it.”
“Why?”
“It isn’t numbers.”
“What is it?”
“A voice pattern.”
Monica’s eyes narrowed.
“You don’t have the code.”
“Kendrick gave it to me three months ago.”
“He gave you a phrase.”
“In his voice.”
Monica smiled.
“And Kendrick is dead.”
Nesha looked toward Tasha.
“My phone.”
Tasha reached into her purse.
Nesha’s phone had been recovered with her hospital belongings.
The screen was cracked, but it worked.
She opened an audio file.
Kendrick’s voice played through the speaker.
“Blood may build an empire, but daughters decide whether it survives.”
The command device in Meech’s hand flashed.
Monica’s confidence disappeared.
“Shoot him!” she yelled.
Victor pressed the detonator.
Meech hit the final key.
An explosion ripped through the center of the bridge.
The pavement jumped beneath us.
Glass shattered.
Rome’s sedan slid several feet toward the guardrail.
I hit the ground.
Dymond landed beside me.
Smoke covered the road.
But the bridge remained standing.
Only one explosive had detonated.
Meech had disabled the others.
Victor pressed the button again.
Nothing happened.
Dymond stood.
“My turn.”
She fired.
Victor moved behind the black car.
The bullet struck the windshield.
Monica dragged Karen toward the passenger door.
My mother drove her heel into Monica’s knee.
The gun fired.
Karen fell.
“Momma!”
I ran.
Pain tore through my chest, but I kept moving.
Dymond fired toward Victor.
Shay fired from behind the SUV.
Rome climbed from the sedan and used its hood for cover.
Bullets crossed the bridge from both directions.
I reached Karen.
Blood covered her side.
“Where are you hit?”
“Not mine.”
I looked toward Monica.
Blood poured from her leg.
The bullet had struck her when Karen knocked the gun away.
My mother grabbed the weapon from the pavement.
Monica kicked her in the chest.
Karen fell against the guardrail.
Monica climbed on top of her and wrapped both hands around her throat.
I pressed my gun against Monica’s head.
“Get off my mother.”
She froze.
“Keyshia,” Karen gasped, “don’t.”
“Why?”
“She knows where the final Circle council meets.”
Monica smiled.
“You still need me.”
“No,” I said. “We need the command device.”
Her eyes shifted toward Victor.
He had it.
Dymond chased him between the stopped vehicles.
Victor fired behind him without looking.
One bullet struck the pavement near her feet.
Another hit the side of the SUV.
Dymond kept coming.
“Victor!” she screamed.
He turned near the broken section of bridge.
Father and daughter faced each other beneath flashing lights.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“You had my entire life to find me.”
“Your mother hid you.”
“You found Keyshia.”
“I needed her.”
“And you didn’t need me?”
Victor lowered his gun slightly.
“I watched you.”
Dymond’s face changed.
“What?”
“Every birthday. Every school. Every mistake. I watched you build your own crew. I watched men underestimate you. I watched you survive.”
“You could’ve spoken to me.”
“You weren’t ready.”
“You mean I wasn’t useful.”
“You were always useful.”
That was the wrong answer.
Dymond fired.
The bullet struck Victor’s hand.
The command device flew across the bridge.
He rushed her before she could shoot again.
They crashed against the guardrail.
Victor wrapped his hand around her throat.
Dymond struck him with the gun.
He slammed her head against the steel.
I left Monica with Karen and ran toward them.
Victor saw me approaching.