After Eight years, Ghenesis Santiago leaves for Atlanta, Ga to try having a relationship with her father and his new family. While having to maintain her senior year in highschool and working with her brother and his Crew under her father's orders...
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Back Room, Warehouse Office – 9:00 p.m.
The warehouse was so quiet you could hear the pipes sweat. That low hum from the fluorescent bulbs overhead buzzed like mosquitoes in the summer, and the box fan Dice set in the corner wasn’t doin’ much but pushin’ hot air around. We’d been in here all night diggin’ through Charles’s old files, paper dust on our fingers, truth hangin’ in the air thick as humidity before a storm. Nico sat cross-legged on the concrete, folder in his lap, brow twisted up like he just read somethin’ he wish he hadn’t.
“Yo… uh… Z,” he muttered, not even lookin’ at me. “This ain’t the right folder, bro.”
I was kicked back in that leather chair, legs stretched, half dozin’ off, but the way he said it snapped me forward quick. “Whatchu mean?”
He lifted that manila file like it might blow up in his hands. “This don’t say distro routes. Shit say: Trial Group: Chemo Gen-X Dosage 3A.”
The words hit me strange. Dice stood from the table slow, his face goin’ hard. “The hell that sound like? Medical testin’?”
I snatched the folder from Nico, flipped it open—then froze. The kind of freeze that lock your lungs in your chest. Name after name, date after date, all typed neat like it was routine: Stage IV Pancreatic. Aggressive Lung. Lymphatic spread. Terminal Breast. And then I saw them names that mattered.
Elizabeth Hawkins. Evelyn Agu.
My mama. Ghen’s mama. Written in black ink like they was just another experiment. One stamped “suicide from depression,” the other “rapid breast cancer.” But this folder? This folder was screamin’ somethin’ else—they’d been part of a trial. Chemo Gen-X.
My hands shook so bad the paper rattled, but I kept flippin’. At the bottom of one memo, bold as sin: Chemo Gen-X experimental doses may cause advanced-stage cancers upon prolonged use. Approved for phase trial funding through Risecore Pharmaceuticals. And stapled to it—wire transfers, fake nonprofits, charity fronts. Over 2.7 million shuffled to a Dubai account like blood money hid behind tax write-offs.
“Z…” Dice said, softer than I ever heard him. “You good, bruh?”
I didn’t answer. Just kept diggin’ deeper, pages whisperin’ back at me. Then Nico pointed to a line. “Yo, look—approval signature right there. Charles Santiago.”
My head snapped up looking down at the signature.
Mason leaned in, scanning. “Damn… his name stamped on every page. Man wasn’t just signin’, he was ownin’ this.”
