Page 151 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 3

I laughed it off and crossed the living room, glanced through the peephole out of habit more than caution, saw nothing but the empty porch and the street beyond it, and opened the door.

No one was there.

The porch was empty in both directions—no car pulling off, no footsteps receding, nothing but the ordinary hush of a Tuesday afternoon on Mimosa Ct. A brown box sat dead center on the mat, unmarked, no shipping label, no company logo, nothing but packing tape holding it closed.

“Who was it?” Raven’s voice came from behind me.

“Nobody.” I stared down at the box. Something about it felt wrong before I could even articulate why. The wrongness arrived in my body before my mind caught up, instinct standing every hair on my arms straight up. “There’s just a box.”

“A box.” Saroya had come up beside me, peering past my shoulder. “You order something?”

“No.”

Honor pushed between us, always the one with the least patience for hesitation, and reached down toward it.

“Wait.” I grabbed her wrist before she could touch it. I didn’t know why. I just knew I didn’t want her hands on it. “Just—wait a second.”

We all stood there looking at that box like it might do something on its own, might unfold itself and explain what it was. Finally, Saroya crouched down and used the edge of her keys to slit the tape instead of her fingers.

The smell hit before the sight did. Something metallic and wrong. Something that didn’t belong anywhere near a front porch in the middle of the afternoon.

Saroya lifted the flap.

She didn’t scream. None of us did, not at first—the silence stretched too long for screaming, all three of us just staring down into that box like our bodies hadn’t caught up to what our eyes were reporting.

A finger. Not clean, not surgical—torn at the base like it had been worked off rather than cut, the nail still intact, painted and chipped, faded red that didn’t belong to anyone I recognized. Beside it, an ear, the cartilage curled and discolored, resting on a folded index card like it had been arranged there deliberately.

Written on the card in block letters, no signature, no explanation beyond the six words that would replay in my head for the rest of my life:

ANYTHING CARRYING LANDRY BLOOD BELONGS IN THE WAR.

Saroya dropped the flap closed so fast the box rocked on its base. “Oh, my God.”

“What…” Raven’s voice had gone flat. “What is it? What did you see?”

“Don’t.” Saroya’s hand shot out, blocking her before she could look. “Raven, don’t.”

But Raven had already caught the smell, and something in her face shifted from confusion to comprehension in the space of one breath. She backed off the porch, pulled her phone out, then seemed to think better of it and shoved it away, reaching instead into the waistband at the small of her back.

“Awww, hell nah.” She had the nine out and low against her thigh before I even registered she was carrying one. Her eyes swept the street—left, right, the parked cars, the hedges two houses down, the gap between my house and the neighbor’s fence. “Everybody inside. Now.”

“Raven—”

“Now, Truth.” She didn’t look away from the street as she said it, moving in a slow arc along the edge of the porch, staying low, staying against the wall where the angle gave her some cover instead of standing exposed in the open. “I got this. Go.”

Honor grabbed my arm and pulled me back through the door. Saroya was already inside, phone in hand, but I was faster—I had Amai’s number pulled up before either of them could ask, my thumb hitting the call button while my whole body shook in a way I couldn’t stop.

He answered on the first ring. “Hey⁠—”

“Someone left a package on my porch.” My voice came out steadier than I felt, some part of me detaching from the moment even as I lived it. “There’s a finger in it. And an ear. There’s a note that says anything carrying Landry blood belongs in the war.”

Silence. A beat too long.

“Did anyone touch it?” he asked, his voice already shifting into something urgent.

“No. Saroya opened it but⁠—”

“Good. Get your sisters away from the front windows. Now.”