Chapter 26: Uncle Caleb

*Layla

I stared down at the stack of files spread across my desk, chewing my lip nervously. Everything that I’d learned about the truth of what happened to my father had been scary and overwhelming. 

But I couldn’t focus on that right now. These files and the names Olivia selected were the keys to my father's past allies. The names of people powerful enough to keep my mother, me and my unborn child safe.

Taking a steadying breath, I opened the first file and began methodically poring over the dense pages. I was partway through the third file when a name printed in my father's precise handwriting jumped out at me–Caleb Ducret. Ducret… Why did that ring a bell?

Then it hit me like a bucket of ice water. My friend Tamika's uncle Caleb–the one she'd occasionally allude to back in college with a mix of awe and wariness. The Creole crime boss who controlled huge swaths of the city's underworld on the east side.