Page 131 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 3

“I want my money back,” he said, “Every dollar.”

“And if I don’t have it?”

“Then I want your life, but I’m taking that regardless.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table, close enough that I could see the exhaustion carved into his face, the pain he was fighting through pure will. “That’s the only resolution I’m willing to accept, Victor. Not the money. Not an apology. Not some clever negotiation where you talk your way out of what you did. Your. Life.”

I smiled and took another drag.

“Good luck with that.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it.”

“Then what does?”

“Patience.” He said the word like a threat, like a countdown already ticking. “I’ve got plenty of it.”

I set my cigar in the ashtray, buying myself a moment, watching him. Winston Landry had built an empire on being unpredictable, but right now he was exactly what I expected—furious, wounded, and cornered by his own pride.

“I’ll make you an offer,” I said. “Yahmaria for the money. All of it. Clean trade.”

Winston’s laugh was cold, humorless, ugly.

“You think I give a fuck if your daughter lives or dies?”

The words landed harder than I wanted them to. I kept my face still.

“She’s your son’s wife.”

“Was. She’s nothing now. Divorced, disposable, worth exactly what she’s always been worth to me, which is nothing.” He tilted his head, studying me like I was something he’d found rotting under a porch. “You really thought that would work? Dangle your own blood like she means something to me?”

“She means something to Amai.”

“Amai can’t stand that bitch, and you know it.” Winston’s smile was thin, cruel. “You know what I think, Victor? I think you’re stalling. I think you and Rahsaan are sitting in that fortress of his, trying to figure out how to one-up us before we come for what’s ours. I think this whole conversation, this whole offer, is just you buying time you don’t have.”

I didn’t answer. Because he wasn’t wrong.

“That’s what I thought.” He sat back, wincing slightly as his weight shifted, but his eyes never left mine. “You’re not as smart as you think you are, Victor. You never were. You were just close enough to me that I mistook loyalty for intelligence.”

“Careful.”

“No.” His voice dropped, and something in it turned genuinely lethal—not loud, not theatrical, just evil. “You be careful. Because I know something now that I didn’t know before that warehouse. I know you didn’t just steal from me. You worked with the man who killed my sons. You sat across from him, shook his hand, built plans with him—knowing what he did to Elias and Silas.”

The air between us went thick.

“That’s not something I forgive, Victor. That’s not something I negotiate. That’s not something money or leverage or a daughter I don’t care about can buy back.” He gripped his cane and pushed himself up, every motion costing him. “You made a choice. And now you’re going to live with what that choice costs you.”

He stood over me for a long moment, and I understood—clearly, coldly—that the only reason I was still breathing was the marble floor beneath us and the invisible eyes watching from every corner of this room.

“It won’t be long now,” Winston said quietly. “I want you to sit here every day, wondering when.”

He turned and walked away, his cane tapping against the floor in a rhythm that sounded like a countdown.

I picked my cigar back up. My hand was steady. It always was.

But the taste had gone bitter, and no amount of smoke could fix that.

Delacroix’s had bought me an hour of safety. Nothing more. The moment I stepped through those doors, back into the city, back into the war, Delacroix’s rules would no longer apply.

And I would need more than neutral ground to survive what was coming.