Page 14 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

“It doesn’t change what happens next,” I said. “But what happens next doesn’t have to be the same thing that happened to Curtis.”

Her expression tightened.

“I’m listening.”

“You keep breathing. You keep running your funeral home. A functioning business is useful, and I don’t destroy shit I don’t need to destroy.”

Her shoulders eased by less than an inch.

“But every account tied to Rahsaan gets frozen today. Every piece of protection he’s provided you—gone. Every dollar he moved through your books gets seized. Every record connected to him gets handed to my people.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then your usefulness changes.”

There was a long pause.

Somewhere in the back of the building, a phone rang and went unanswered.

“The records are in the back office,” she said finally. “Second drawer. Gray filing cabinet.”

I sent two men in.

They came out with three full boxes.

Marguerite Fontaine stayed standing.

That was the point.

She’d still be there tomorrow to tell anyone who asked exactly what it felt like when Rahsaan’s protection evaporated in front of her.

“You didn’t touch her,” Priest said when I called it in.

“I didn’t need to.”

I pulled back onto Elysian Fields.

“I took what made her valuable to him instead.”

“That still sends the message.”

“Sometimes leaving somebody alive sends it better.”

The safehouse in Kenner was the one that gave Priest pause.

Honestly, it gave me pause too, though I didn’t let that show.

Teal’s surveillance had flagged the property three days into the purge—a modest ranch house on a quiet street, registered to Rahsaan’s aunt. No criminal record on file for anyone living there. Nothing that would have raised suspicion if we hadn’t already known Rahsaan used family properties as fallback positions.

I went with Priest and two others, arriving before dawn.

The aunt—a woman named Delores, somewhere in her sixties, silver-haired and sharp-eyed despite the hour—opened the door before we had to force it.

“He’s not here,” she said immediately.

“I know.”

“Then what do you want?”