Page 9 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 3

I reached the first office and pushed the door open.

The smell hit me before I saw her.

Maria Cortez was slumped over her desk, a bullet hole in the back of her head. Blood had pooled beneath her, dried and dark, soaking into the papers scattered across the surface. Dead for at least a day.

James Nguyen was in the second office, throat cut, glasses still on, head tilted back. The blood had run down the front of his shirt and spread across the tile.

The third office was empty.

Whoever had done this had been thorough. Professional. And they’d left the bodies as a statement.

I moved to the vault.

The false wall panel swung open at my touch. The steel door at the end of the narrow hallway—massive, reinforced, with a combination lock that only four people knew—was standing open.

I stepped inside.

Every shelf. Every stack. Every bundle of cash accumulated over years of Landry operations.

Gone.

I stood in the empty vault and let the silence settle around me.

Rahsaan didn’t know this place existed. This was somebody who did. Somebody who’d been trusted with the location, the combination, and the schedule. Somebody who had sat across a table from me, shaken my hand, and smiled.

Somebody in the family had talked.

I pulled out my phone, stared at the empty screen for a moment, and then put it away.

The war I’d been preparing for wasn’t coming from the outside.

It was already here.

Chapter 2

TRUTH

The Uber driver didn’t try to make conversation, and I was grateful for that.

I sat in the back seat with my arms wrapped around myself, staring out the window as the city blurred past. My chest felt tight. My throat burned. My eyes stung with tears I refused to let fall—not yet, not in front of a stranger.

I held it together until the car pulled up in front of my house.

“Thank you,” I managed, my voice barely above a whisper.

The driver nodded, and I climbed out, my legs shaky beneath me.

The house looked the same as it had when I left this morning. The porch light was still on. The fenced backyard was quiet. Everything was in its place.

But I wasn’t.

I unlocked the front door and stepped inside, locking it behind me. The silence of the house pressed in on me, heavy and suffocating.

I dropped my purse on the couch and walked straight to the bathroom.

I needed to feel clean.

I needed to wash this day off my skin.