Page 12 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

Priest exhaled slowly. “How many more today?”

“As many as the board has left standing.”

By mid-morning, the reports had started coming in fast enough that Teal had to switch from texting updates to calling them in directly, and by early afternoon, the command room felt less like a planning session and more like a switchboard.

A local news alert flashed across the muted television mounted in the corner—a body found behind a daycare center in Gentilly, no name released, ruled a targeted shooting. No suspects in custody.

I didn’t need the name released.

Teal’s call twenty minutes later confirmed it.

DeShawn’s update came through encrypted text, terse and efficient. Lawyer’s office cleared out, three accounts frozen before the money could move, one filing cabinet worth of property documents recovered showing four more buildings connected to Rahsaan that hadn’t been on the original board.

Brandon called from the barbershop on Claiborne, his voice edged with disbelief.

“Man, this bigger than eleven names. Barber’s cousin runs a chop shop two blocks over that’s been moving stolen cars for Rahsaan’s crew for years. Barber’s wife’s brother does security for one of his stash houses on weekends. Every name we pull, two more fall out of it.”

“Write them down. Send teams.”

“We don’t have enough teams for this.”

“Then make more.”

Priest, standing at the whiteboard adding lines as fast as the calls came in, looked over his shoulder.

“It’s spreading faster than we mapped it.”

“Good.”

“You wanted a purge. You’re getting a wildfire.”

“Good.”

Street chatter picked it up next.

A corner boy two neighborhoods over was telling anybody who’d listen that the Landrys were clearing house on anybody who’d ever looked at Rahsaan sideways.

Another rumor had twelve men dead when the actual number wasn’t close.

A third said Rahsaan’s own blood relatives were on a kill list.

I let all of it travel.

Fear was useful when you didn’t waste time correcting it.

By four in the afternoon, a legitimate business owner—a woman who ran a small print shop that had done flyers and business cards for one of Rahsaan’s cousins years back—called Teal’s line directly. Voice shaking, she asked if there was a way to get off whatever list this was before somebody showed up at her door.

Teal handled it the way I’d told him to handle anyone whose connection was thin and long past.

Verify.

Document.

If the relationship had no real operational value, let it go.

She checked out.

She kept breathing.