My business partner poured 420 pounds of quick-setting concrete directly into the engine bay and cargo bed of my delivery truck because he claimed it "blocked his view of the lake harbor" from our...
Inside our kitchen on 47th Street, the warmth of the stove did little to thaw the cold fear that gripped us. Ruth poured tea with trembling hands, her eyes swollen and red. Maya sat quietly at the table, drawing pictures of our ruined truck on a scrap of paper, her small brows furrowed.
“Go to the city magistrate, Marc,” Ruth urged, her voice tight with panic. She placed a cup in front of me, the ceramic clinking against the saucer. “Dunbar is in Gerald’s pocket. Everyone on the South Side knows Dunbar owes thousands in gambling debt. You can challenge the inspection!”
“I can’t go to a magistrate, Ruth,” I said quietly, the words feeling heavy on my tongue.
She stopped pouring. The teapot hovered mid-air. Elijah, who had been leaning against the counter, looked up, his jaw set.
“If I sign a court petition, they take my fingerprints,” I explained, looking at my own calloused hands. “They run them through the federal register. I’m not Marcus Hollis from Chicago.”
The room went dead silent. The only sound was the faint scratching of Maya’s crayon on paper.
“I’m Silas Montgomery from Sunflower County,” I continued, the name feeling strange on my tongue after so many years. “In 1931, three men tried to burn my father’s barn. They didn’t like what he said in church that Sunday.”
My voice dropped to a whisper. “I fought back. I took my cousin’s papers, his name, his whole identity. I came north on a night freight train with nothing but the clothes on my back. If a judge looks into my business filings, if they run my prints, I don’t just lose the company.”
I met Ruth’s gaze, then Elijah’s. “I go back down South in chains.”
Elijah stood up slowly, the scrape of his chair loud in the quiet room. His eyes, usually so full of youthful energy, now held a mix of shock and a sudden, painful understanding.
“So Gerald thinks he’s got you trapped because he thinks you’re just soft,” he said, his voice hard. “He doesn’t know you can’t fight him, not really. He doesn’t know about Silas Montgomery.”
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