Chapter 3 - Blood Does Not Lie
Thomas stood so still that the rain tapping the shutters sounded like gunfire.
"Say it again."
Maya laughed once, bitterly.
"Why? So you can pretend you misheard me twice?"
"Rosa is mine?"
"Biologically. Do not confuse that with being her father."
Footsteps pounded downstairs.
Thomas turned, gun raised.
"Boss!" Antoine shouted. "It's me."
Rosa broke free of him and raced into the room.
"Mama!"
Maya dropped from the chair and caught her daughter with both arms.
Rosa began sobbing into her neck.
Thomas looked away.
He had seen men die with less emotion than the scene made him feel.
That irritated him.
"We need to leave," Antoine said. "Three vehicles just turned onto the block."
Maya stiffened.
"Jacques?"
Thomas looked at her.
"You know Jacques."
"I know what he did to my brother."
"What did he do?"
"Not here."
They moved through the back of the house as tires screamed outside.
Antoine led them through a courtyard, over a low wall, and into an alley where a second car waited.
Shots cracked behind them.
Thomas pushed Maya and Rosa down behind the engine block, fired twice toward the gate, then slid into the driver's seat himself.
"Antoine, take the other car. Split them."
"Boss-"
"Go."
The sedan tore away.
Rosa was curled against Maya in the back seat.
"Is he really my dad?" she whispered.
Maya's eyes closed.
Thomas kept his gaze on the road.
"Rosa-"
"Not now," Maya snapped.
"You do not get to order me-"
"I get to order you about my child after your men strapped her to beds and took needles to her for four months."
Thomas gripped the steering wheel.
"I did not know."
"You signed the authorization."
That hit harder than any accusation.
Because it was true.
Jacques had brought him a file. A maid's daughter. Possible exposure to a blood disorder. Unusual genetic markers. Thomas had signed without reading past the first page.
People disappeared beneath his signature all the time.
He had simply never expected one of them to share his blood.
"Why did you come back?" he asked.
Maya stared out the window.
"My brother Gabriel was a reporter. He spent three years tracing your port companies. Relief cargo that never reached shelters. Containers that changed manifests after midnight. Judges receiving cash through fake foundations."
"Gabriel Bennett."
Thomas remembered the name.
A body pulled from the Industrial Canal six years ago.
Maya's eyes met his in the mirror.
"Jacques killed him."
"You have proof?"
"I have more than proof."
"What?"
Maya held Rosa tighter.
"A ledger your mother kept before she died."
Thomas almost swerved.
"My mother?"
"Celeste Rousseau knew what your father built. She copied everything: names, dates, payments, murders. She tried to take it to a federal prosecutor in 1998."
Thomas's voice went flat.
"My mother died in a car accident in 1998."
Maya looked at him for a long moment.
"No, Thomas."
The traffic light ahead turned red.
He drove through it.
Maya whispered, "Your mother was murdered before she could hand over the ledger."
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