I set the glass down carefully.
Very carefully.
“Truth’s financials?”
“Wrecked. Credit score in the low 500s. Phillip ran up cards in her name, didn’t pay them. She’s been making minimum payments when she can, but it’s not enough. No savings. Checking account’s got maybe two hundred bucks in it on a good week. She works doubles at Magnolia Gardens—CNA, $14.50 an hour. Picks up extra shifts when they’re available.”
I closed my eyes.
$14.50 an hour.
She was wiping asses and changing bedpans for $14.50 an hour while her ex-husband lived in a house she’d helped pay for with a woman young enough to still think Instagram likes mattered.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Clean record. No arrests, no warrants, no trouble. She’s exactly what she looks like—a woman trying to survive after somebody took everything and left her with the bill.”
Silence.
Then I asked the question that mattered most.
“Red flags?”
“None.”
I exhaled slowly.
“What about Rahsaan?”
Priest’s tone shifted—became sharper, more alert.
“He’s moving. Pressing into the docks again. Had his people at the warehouse on Tchoupitoulas last night, talking to ourdrivers. Offering better rates, faster turnaround, all the usual bullshit.”
“How many drivers?”
“Three that we know of. Could be more.”
“Handle it.”
“You want me to?—”
“I want you to remind them who they work for,” I said, my voice dropping into something colder. “And I want Rahsaan to know that every time he presses a boundary, I’m gonna push back twice as hard. He wants a war, he can have one. But he’s not taking my territory.”
“Copy that.”
“Anything else?”
“Nah. That’s it.”
“Good work, Priest.”
“Always.”
He hung up.
I sat there in the dark, the bourbon warming my chest, the file on Truth Renois spread out in my mind like a map of survival.
No red flags.
