Page 133 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 3

Rahsaan wasn’t hiding the money from Winston. He was hiding it from me. Positioning himself to disappear the moment things went sideways, leaving me holding a war I’d started, a daughter I couldn’t save, and nothing to bargain with when the Landrys came collecting.

I set the phone down carefully, like it might shatter if I gripped it too hard.

Winston wanted my life. That much was clear, spoken plainly, unambiguous in its brutality.

But Rahsaan wanted the money, and he’d apparently decided I was expendable in that pursuit—a partner turned liability the second the vault opened, and the cash became real, tangible, something worth running for.

And Yahmaria sat between us, a bargaining chip nobody actually wanted to cash in.

I finished my drink in one long pull, set the glass down without a sound, and stood.

The lounge’s rules would protect me until I walked through that door. Out there, Winston’s patience had a clock on it, and now Rahsaan had given himself a head start I couldn’t afford to let grow any longer.

I nodded to the hostess on my way out, calm, unhurried, every inch the man who had walked in an hour ago.

But my mind was already three steps ahead, running through contacts, safe houses, ports, airstrips—every place Rahsaan might run, every route he might take, every hour I had left before he vanished with everything I needed to survive this war.

I wasn’t leaving Delacroix’s because I was safe.

I was leaving because I had one man to find before the Landrys found him first.

And unlike Winston, I didn’t need Rahsaan alive.

I just needed to know where the money was before I decided how he died.

Chapter 13

YAHMARIA

The lock disengaged before I heard footsteps, which meant Amai had been standing outside my cell longer than I realized, watching me through the clear wall like I was something in a display case.

I hated that I hadn’t noticed.

“Where’s Syx?” I was on my feet before the door finished sliding open. “What did you do to him?”

Amai didn’t answer. He just stood there in the doorway, unbothered, like I hadn’t spoken at all.

“I swear to God, Amai, if you touched him⁠—”

“He’s alive.” Three words. Like he was doing me a favor by confirming it.

“That’s not an answer. Is he hurt? Did you⁠—”

“Walk.” He stepped back, giving me space to move past him into the corridor, and the casualness of it—like this was routine, like I was cattle being moved from one pen to another—made me want to scream, but my body had become petrified stone.

“You don’t get to just say walk like I’m one of your soldiers. I asked you a question.”

“And I answered it.” His eyes were dead in a way that used to scare me during our marriage. It now just made me furious. “He’s alive. That’s more than you’re going to get out of me if you keep talking instead of moving.”

I moved. Not because he’d won, but because staying in that cell, screaming at him, accomplished nothing.

The corridor stretched longer than I remembered, fluorescent lights humming overhead, and I cursed him the entire walk.

“You’re a piece of shit, you know that? A real piece of shit. He didn’t do anything to you. He’s twenty years old, Amai. Twenty. And you had him strapped down in some torture room like he’s one of your enemies. You been a ain’t shit nigga, though.”

Amai said nothing.

“Say something,” I snapped. “You always got something to say. Where’s that mouth now?”