Page 135 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

I waited while my men did what I paid them to.

The grab was clean.

Trey’s men had intercepted Hector in the break area behind the secondary conveyor lines. By the time Priest and I walked into the maintenance shed at the back of the property, Hector was already sitting on a rusted metal folding chair, his hands zip-tied securely behind the frame.

The shed smelled of old grease, hydraulic fluid, and raw swamp mud. A single bare bulb hung from a frayed yellow cord overhead, casting harsh, swinging shadows against the corrugated tin walls.

Hector was shaking.

He was shorter than I expected—maybe five-foot-seven, wiry, with thick, calloused hands that showed years of commercial deck work. He was wearing oil-stained work jeans and a faded gray hoodie, the hood pushed back to reveal a face drenched in cold sweat. A jagged, pale scar cut clean through his left eyebrow, twitching violently every time his eyes darted toward the door.

When the heavy steel door swung shut behind Priest and me, the lock engaging with a heavy thunk, Hector’s breath hitched.

He looked at Priest first—tall, broad-shouldered, carrying the cold, methodical presence of a professional executioner.

Then his eyes drifted to me.

I hadn’t shaved in four weeks. My dark beard was thick, uneven, and ragged.

Hector didn’t just see a man. He saw death walking into the room on two legs.

“Por favor…” he whispered, his voice cracking, pressing himself back against the chair until the rusted metal legs scraped against the concrete. “Por favor, señor… I don’t have money. I don’t have nothing. I didn’t steal nothing from this place⁠—”

I didn’t answer. I pulled a second metal chair from the wall, dragged it across the floor—the steel screeched like nails on a chalkboard—and set it three feet directly in front of him.

I sat down, leaned forward, and rested my elbows on my knees.

I didn’t draw a weapon. I didn’t raise my voice. I just looked into his face.

“Hector,” I said.

The sound of his name made him jump as if I had pressed a live wire to his neck.

“S-sí?”

“My name is Amai Landry.”

The air left Hector’s lungs in a single, shuddering gasp. The little color remaining in his brown skin vanished completely, leaving him the shade of wet sand. His eyes widened until the whites were visible all the way around his irises.

He knew the name.

“You know who I am,” I said. “Which means you know what I am capable of doing to you, to everyone you work with, and to every person whose blood runs in your veins.”

“No… no, señor Landry, please,” Hector stammered, tears instantly welling in his eyes and spilling down his weathered cheeks. “I didn’t know! When I took the job, I swear to God on my mother’s soul, I didn’t know who she was! The man—the other Black man—he told me it was his wife! He told me they were moving away from family problems!”

“Amai,” Priest murmured quietly from the corner, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed. “Let him breathe. Get the facts.”

I didn’t take my eyes off Hector.

“I’m going to ask you questions, Hector,” I said, leaning in an inch closer. “If you lie to me, I’m going to cut one of your fingers off. If you guess without telling me you’re guessing, I’m going to cut another one. If you tell me the truth—the exact truth of what you saw, what you heard, and what you did—you will walk out of this shed with five thousand dollars in cash, and my men will put you on whatever bus or plane you want.”

Hector nodded frantically, his chin bouncing against his chest. “Yes. Yes, señor. Anything. I swear. Pregúntame.”

“Look at me.”

He forced his eyes up, meeting mine. His whole body was trembling so violently the metal chair was vibrating against the concrete floor.

“Was Truth alive when you left that boat?”