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Snap.
    â€œI guess you all know her secret now,” he replied while looking at all of us. “Your mother was many things. She was a chameleon. She could blend in wherever she went, which made her the best at what she did.” Uncle Snap stood, never letting that Mason jar leave his hand.
    â€œWhat the hell are you talking about?” Javon asked, the frown on his face matching mine.
    â€œLook at this,” Naveen said. In his hands was a gray and black lockbox.
    Javon took the lockbox and flipped it from side to side. “Something’s in here but there is no key to open it,” he said.
    â€œSure there is,” Uncle Snap chimed. He pointed to the necklace I had on, then to Inez and Melissa. “All three of you have one of the keys that will open that there box. One can’t open it without the other two.”
    Inez’s hand slapped against her chest. “She said she gave this to me because I’d always have one of the keys to her heart,” she said.
    â€œShe told me mine was because I would always have the key connected to her mind,” Melissa said quietly as she fingered her key like seeing it for the first time.
    I placed a hand on my key, and glanced down at it then back at my sisters. “Mama said this key was mine because I opened her heart, her mind, and her soul. I was her first daughter.”
    â€œHeart, mind, and soul,” Cory said aloud. I looked over at him. “That’s what’s written on the bottom of this lockbox,” he said.
    Uncle Snap nodded. “Open it,” he said.
    Inez and Melissa looked at me as if they were waiting to see what I would do. While I had a thousand and one questions, I knew the key to some of those answers would be in that box. I asked both of them for their keys, took the box from Naveen’s hand, and studied the keyhole. One hole was in the middle with two smaller holes outside of it. I placed the keys in each one and watched in awe as the locks clicked, clacked, and turned on their own. The lid popped open.
    We all crowded around. Inside were more keys and tiny notebooks. Being the leader he was, Javon picked up the keys and small tablets.
    â€œWhat’s in it?” Jojo asked. Melissa had bandaged the cut on his head. It wasn’t serious enough for worry.
    There was a serious scowl on Javon’s face. It was the look he got when he was working and something was perplexing his mind. “Some kind of codes and monetary figures,” he answered absentmindedly. “Melissa, take a look at this,” he said, passing her one of the tablets that had money marked in it.
    The girl’s eyes roamed like marbles back and forth across the pads. “Holy shit, this page alone has at least half a mil on it. Seems as if Fridays and Sundays are the days most money rolls in from whatever it was she was doing,” she said while flipping through the pages. “Holy shit,” she said looking at Uncle Snap. “Is this all Mama’s money?”
    â€œAll her money and all her drugs, too. Mama ran the Syndicate,” he answered.
    â€œThe what?” we all asked collectively.
    â€œThe Syndicate. It’s a criminal enterprise that traffics in millions of dollars of drugs throughout the United States yearly. From the Port of Miami to the border of Canada, the Syndicate is a force to be reckoned with. Your mother, Claudette, ran all of that. She’s been in charge for years. The only woman with enough balls and heart to do so.”
    â€œSo, wait, let me get this straight,” Javon cut in. “Mama was a drug dealer?”
    Uncle Snap tilted his head from side to side. “Among other things. All this money you see, all these drugs, it belongs to y’all now. One of you gotta step up and take this thing over or all she built will be pillaged and stolen in the blink of an eye.”
    â€œSo this whole gotdamned time Mama has been preaching to us about staying out the