Page 154 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

Snip. Snip. Snip.

The sound was rhythmic. Mesmerizing.

I watched her hands move. Steady. Certain. No shaking. No hesitation.

“Odette,” I said.

She didn’t look up from her herbs. “Yes, Winston?”

I gripped the arms of the chair, feeling the sharp, hollow ache in my wrists. “Why are you doing this?”

The scissors paused for half a second, the steel gleaming in the firelight, before she made another clean cut.

“Doing what?”

“This,” I said, gesturing vaguely toward the tray, the blanket over my knees, the warm fire she had built with her own hands. “Playing nursemaid to an old bastard who hasn’t given you a kind word in fifteen years. You spent the last decade telling me you couldn’t wait for the devil to collect his debt. Now I’m sitting here looking like a skeleton in a tailored suit, and you’re tucking blankets around my legs.”

A low, dry sound came from the back of her throat—not quite a laugh, but the memory of one.

She set the scissors down on the silver tray, dusted her palms on her apron, and turned her dark eyes toward me.

“A wife stays until the end, Winston,” she said, her tone level and calm, carrying an unreadable weight that settled heavily in the quiet room. “You made a lot of promises in front of God and the city of New Orleans thirty-five years ago. You said we were a dynasty. I just want to make sure I’m right here in the front row to see how your dynasty finishes.”

I looked at her, trying to pierce the calm, placid surface of her face. But the brain fog was thick tonight, wrapping around my thoughts like Spanish moss, slowing my instincts.

I scoffed, leaning my head back against the leather.

“You think this is the end?” I muttered. “You think because I’m down a few pounds and Kaisen got stupid that the Landry name is done?”

“I asked you about our sons yesterday,” she said softly, picking up another dried root. “You didn’t have much to say.”

“There ain’t nothing to say,” I said, the venom creeping back into my throat, masking the fatigue. “I did what a father is supposed to do. I forged them. The street don’t give a damn about feelings, Odette. It eats weak men alive. If I hadn’t put the weight of the world on Amai’s back from the time he was twelve years old, Victor and Rahsaan would have had his head on a spike five years ago.”

“You broke him, Winston.”

“I made him iron,” I shot back, my hand slapping the armrest. The impact sent a dull spike of pain through my wrist, but I ignored it. “Look at him right now. Victor is rotting in the ground. Rahsaan is dead on a pier. The entire city answers to the Landry ledger. Amai carried that. He survived because I taught him that blood and loyalty come before everything else.”

“And what about Kaisen?” Odette asked. Her fingers were still now, resting flat against her knees. Her eyes were fixed entirely on mine. “What did you teach him?”

I let out a bitter, hacking cough that tasted like copper and old ash.

“Kaisen is weak,” I spat, shaking my head. “Always has been. From the time he was a boy crying in the hallway because Amai took his toy, he’s been soft in the middle. Always begging for somebody to pat him on the head. Always needing a woman or a daddy to tell him he’s special.”

“He’s your blood, Winston.”

“He’s a fool,” I growled. “A man who thinks with his dick and his feelings ain’t fit to lead a pack of dogs, let alone an organization like this. He stole his brother’s woman and ran off into the swamp because he couldn’t handle the fact that his own seed didn’t make it. He thinks he’s playing king.”

“He’s still our son,” Odette repeated, her voice dropping into a quiet, chilling stillness that made the hairs on my arms stand up beneath the cashmere blanket.

I looked across the study at her, the firelight casting long, hollow shadows across her high cheekbones.

“Then you better go upstairs and pick out a black dress, Odette,” I said, my voice rattling in my chest like dry bones in a sack. “Because the second Amai catches up to him—and he will catch up to him—he’s going to put a bullet between Kaisen’s eyes. And when he does, I won’t lose a goddamn minute of sleep over it.”

Odette didn’t flinch. She didn’t cry. She didn’t yell.

She just stared at me across the hearth, a tiny, faint smile touching the very corner of her lips—a smile so cold, so distant, it made the blood in my veins feel like slush.

“A black dress,” she whispered, nodding slowly as she picked up the silver scissors once more. “I’ll make sure it’s pressed, Winston. Just for you.”