VICTOR
The gates to Rahsaan’s mansion opened slowly, and I felt my stomach roll into knots as I waited for the iron bars to part wide enough for my car to pass through.
Security cameras tracked my movement from every angle. Armed guards stood at intervals along the perimeter wall, their weapons visible and ready. Motion sensors, floodlights, reinforced steel—Rahsaan had turned his estate into a fortress.
Smart.
Especially now.
I pulled through the gates and followed the curved driveway to the front entrance, my hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough to make my knuckles ache.
The warehouse was still fresh in my mind—the gunfire, the blood, Winston’s voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. And Rahsaan’s confession.
That fucking confession.
I parked and got out, slamming the door harder than necessary. One of Rahsaan’s men stepped forward, his hand resting on his sidearm.
“Mr. Baptiste. He’s expecting you.”
“Good.”
I followed him through the front doors and into the marble-floored foyer. The mansion was excessive—high ceilings, crystal chandeliers, art that cost more than most people made in a year. Rahsaan had always been flashy, but tonight the opulence felt like arrogance.
Like he thought he was untouchable.
We moved through the house, past more guards, more cameras, until we reached the study at the back. The man knocked once, then opened the door.
Rahsaan sat behind a massive mahogany desk, a glass of bourbon in his hand, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar. There was a graze on his neck—shallow, red, still bleeding slightly—and a bruise forming along his jaw.
He looked up when I entered, and he smiled.
Smiled.
“Victor. I was wondering when you’d show up.”
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. My eyes locked on his.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
Rahsaan’s smile widened. He leaned back in his chair, swirling the bourbon in his glass like we were having a casual conversation.
“I was thinking,” he said slowly, “that the Landrys needed to understand exactly who they were dealing with.”
“By telling them you killed the twins?” My voice was low, but the rage underneath was building. “By putting a target on both our backs?”
“They already had targets on us, Victor. Or did you forget we just robbed them blind?”
“That’s not the same thing, and you know it.” I stepped closer to the desk, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “The money was business. Strategic. Calculated. What you did tonight was personal. And personal makes men reckless.”
Rahsaan set his glass down and stood.
“Reckless?” He laughed—a short, sharp sound that grated against my nerves. “I gave them the truth. I reminded Amai Landry that I’ve been living off his family’s pain for years. That’s not reckless. That’s power.”
“That’s ego,” I shot back. “And ego gets you killed.”
“Does it?” Rahsaan crossed his arms, his expression shifting from amusement to something colder.
“Because from where I’m standing, Amai lost his shit.
He came at me like a rabid dog, no strategy, no control.
Winston got shot. Kaisen had to bail them out.
I’d say the confession worked exactly how I wanted it to. ”
I stared at him, my chest tight with frustration.
He didn’t get it.
He didn’t understand what he’d just unleashed.
“You think making Amai lose control is a win?” I asked quietly. “You think turning his rage personal is going to make him easier to deal with?”
“I think it makes him predictable.”
“No.” I shook my head, my voice hardening. “It makes him dangerous. Amai Landry is most lethal when he stops thinking and starts feeling. You didn’t weaken him tonight—you gave him a reason to hunt you down and tear you apart with his bare hands.”
Rahsaan quivered with indignation, but he didn’t respond.
I stepped closer, my voice dropping to a near-whisper.
“And it’s not just Amai. You think Winston’s going to let this slide?
You think Kaisen’s going to stay neutral now that he knows you killed his brothers?
You just united the entire Landry family against us.
They were fighting each other, tearing themselves apart from the inside, and you gave them a common enemy. ”
“They were always going to come for us,” Rahsaan said, his tone dismissive. “The moment we took that vault, we were at war. The confession just moved up the timeline.”
“The timeline?” I felt my control slipping, my voice rising. “The timeline was supposed to give us room to maneuver. To consolidate. To prepare. Now we’ve got three Landry men with nothing to lose and everything to prove, and they’re coming for us with everything they’ve got.”
“Then we’ll be ready.”
“Will we?” I gestured toward the window, toward the guards and cameras and reinforced walls. “You think this fortress is going to stop them? You think Amai’s going to knock politely and wait for you to answer?”
Rahsaan glared without blinking.
“I’m not afraid of Amai Landry.”
“Then you’re a fool.” The words came out sharp, cutting. “Because fear is what keeps you alive in this game. Fear makes you careful. Makes you think twice before you run your mouth and put both our lives at risk.”
“I didn’t put your life at risk,” Rahsaan said, his voice cold now. “I put mine on the line. I’m the one who killed those boys. I’m the one Amai wants dead. You’re just the middleman who stole some money.”
I felt something snap inside me.
“You think that matters?” I stepped forward until we were inches apart, my voice low and lethal.
“You think Amai’s going to make that distinction?
You think Winston’s going to care that you pulled the trigger, and I just helped plan it?
We’re in this together, Rahsaan. Your blood is my blood now.
And if you go down, you’re taking me with you. ”
Rahsaan held my gaze, and for a moment, I saw something flicker in his eyes.
Not fear.
But recognition.
He knew I was right.
He just didn’t want to admit it.
“So, what do you want me to do?” he asked finally, his tone mocking. “Apologize? Take it back? Send Amai a fruit basket and hope he forgives me? Man, fuck that nigga!”
“I want you to stop being arrogant,” I said quietly. “Because arrogance is how niggas die. And I’m not dying because you have this vendetta with Amai Landry.”
The silence that followed was heavy, oppressive.
An infinitesimal twitch in his lips told me I’d hit the mark.
Then, he picked up his glass and drained the rest of his bourbon in one swallow.
“Fine,” he said, setting the glass down hard enough to make it crack. “What’s the plan?”
I exhaled slowly, forcing myself to think past the anger.
“We move fast,” I said. “We hit them before they can regroup. Amai’s distracted by that woman—Truth. Winston’s recovering from a gunshot wound. Kaisen’s still trying to figure out where he stands. We use that.”
“And Yahmaria?”
I felt my chest tighten at the mention of my daughter’s name.
“She’s leverage,” I said, my voice flat. “If Amai has her, we use that to our advantage. Make him think we’re willing to trade. Stall. Buy time.”
“And if he kills her?”
The question hung in the air between us, cold and brutal.
I didn’t answer.
Because the truth was, I didn’t know.
Yahmaria was aware that sacrifices came with being a Baptiste. She understood the risks and that she just may end up being a casualty of war.
I couldn’t save her.
Not without risking everything.
Rahsaan watched me, his expression unreadable.
“You’re willing to sacrifice your own daughter?”
“I’m willing to survive,” I said quietly. “And if you’re smart, you’ll do the same.”
Rahsaan’s smile returned—slow, cold, dangerous.
“Then let’s make sure the Landrys don’t.”
I nodded, but as I turned to leave, a thought settled in the back of my mind.
Heavy.
Unavoidable.
Rahsaan had become a liability.
His arrogance, his recklessness, his need to prove himself—it was going to get us both killed.
And if it came down to it, if I had to choose between my survival and his—
I knew exactly what I’d do.
I always had.
I left Rahsaan’s mansion with the taste of his bourbon still bitter on my tongue and drove straight to Delacroix’s.
The lounge sat unassuming on a corner in the Warehouse District, no sign out front, just a brass plate on the door that read DELACROIX’S — MEMBERS ONLY.
From the outside, a stranger might mistake it for another shuttered storefront in a city full of them.
That was the point. Delacroix’s wasn’t for strangers.
The valet took my keys without a word, and I walked through the unmarked door into a world that operated by different laws than the rest of New Orleans.
Two men flanked the entrance, dressed in tailored black, earpieces barely visible.
They didn’t pat me down—that would have been an insult—but their eyes catalogued everything about me in the three seconds it took to walk past them.
Cameras tracked from angles I couldn’t see.
Somewhere in this building, men were watching every table, every hand, every whispered word.
I nodded to the hostess and made my way to my usual leather chair in the back corner, beneath a portrait of some Creole aristocrat who’d been dead for a century.
A server appeared before I’d even settled. “The usual, Mr. Baptiste?”
“Please.”
She returned moments later with a Padron 1926 and a rocks glass of Pappy Van Winkle, neat. I clipped the cigar with the same care I gave everything—precise, deliberate—and let the flame catch before drawing that first pull deep into my lungs.
For the first time since the warehouse, I exhaled slowly and felt something close to peace.
Delacroix’s was the only place in this city where a man could exhale.