3. RAHSAAN BOUDREAUX
RAHSAAN BOUDREAUX
The warehouse district office smelled like concrete, dust, and old metal.
No windows. No art on the walls. Just exposed brick, industrial lighting, and a desk that had seen better decades. The kind of space that said everything about the man who occupied it: function over feeling, control over chaos, survival over comfort.
I liked it that way.
Rahsaan Boudreaux didn’t need comfort. Didn’t need distractions. What I needed was information, leverage, and the patience to wait for the right moment to strike.
And I’d been waiting a long time.
I stroked the raised scar across my throat, compliments of Amai. Six years ago, he’d pressed a blade to my throat in front of men who used to answer to me and told me if I ever touched his docks again, he’d finish the cut.
I looked at the reports spread across my desk—shipping manifests, surveillance photos, intercepted communications. Three of his shipments had been delayed in the past two weeks. Not stolen. Just delayed. Enough to make his buyers nervous. Enough to make them wonder if the Demon was losing his grip.
I ran my finger down the list of dock workers we’d turned. Seven so far. Not enough to cripple him, but enough to create friction. Enough to make him look over his shoulder.
It was just a distraction. Keep Amai’s attention on the docks while I found the rest of his money houses. That’s how you hurt him. Fuck with his money. He don’t give a shit about anything else. That’s what made him so dangerous. He didn’t have threads you could pull to make him unravel.
He had bullied me out of my territory six years ago.
Took my docks. Took my distribution routes. Took my reputation and ground it into the pavement like a cigarette butt. I barely escaped with my life. He should’ve killed me when he had the chance because I was on his ass now.
He’d left me with scraps and expected me to disappear.
But I didn’t disappear.
I rebuilt. Slowly. Carefully. Waiting for the moment when the Demon showed weakness.
And now—finally—I could feel it coming.
The door opened without a knock.
Keyshaun, my lieutenant, stepped inside. He was young but hungry and loyal because I saved him. He was holding a manila envelope, and his face had that look—the one that said he’d found something worth interrupting me for.
“What?” I asked, not looking up from the reports.
“You’re gonna want to see this.”
I leaned back in my chair. The metal creaked.
Keyshaun walked over and dropped the envelope on my desk.
I opened it.
Photos spilled out. Eight of them. All surveillance shots, grainy but clear enough.
The first one showed Amai’s car—that black luxury sedan he drove when he wasn’t trying to intimidate anyone—parked outside a shotgun house in the Seventh Ward.
The second showed him getting out of the driver’s side.
The third showed him walking around to the passenger side and opening the door.
The fourth—
I stopped.
Stared.
A woman was getting out of the car. Brown-skinned, curvy, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Nothing flashy. Nothing that screamed money or power or the kind of women he usually kept around.
The fifth photo showed him walking her to the front door of the shotgun house, his hand on the small of her back.
The sixth showed them standing on the porch, talking.
The seventh showed him leaving.
The eighth showed the woman standing in the doorway, watching him drive away.
I picked up the photo of her face and studied it.
She was pretty. Not model-pretty, not the kind of pretty that turned heads in a club. Just… real. The kind of woman you’d see at the grocery store or the bus stop and not think twice about.
“Who is she?” I asked.
Keyshaun pulled out a small notebook and flipped it open.
“Truth Renois. Twenty-seven. Works at Magnolia Gardens nursing home. Lives in that house with her mother, Delphine Renois. Divorced months ago. She’s broke.”
I set the photo down.
Looked at the others again.
Amai didn’t go to the Seventh Ward. He didn’t park outside raggedy houses. He didn’t walk women to their doors like some kind of gentleman caller.
And he sure as hell didn’t spend time with broke nursing home workers.
“Why is he with her?” I asked, more to myself than to Keyshaun
Keyshaun shrugged. “Don’t know yet. But it’s been going on for a few weeks. Our guy spotted him there three times in the past ten days. Always during the day. Always alone.”
I picked up the photo of Truth Renois again.
Studied her face.
She wasn’t his usual type. He liked women who looked good on his arm—polished, expensive, the kind who knew how to play the game. Women who understood that being with him was a transaction, not a relationship.
This woman didn’t look like a transaction.
She looked like something else entirely.
“There’s more to this,” I said quietly.
Keyshaun nodded. “Looks like it.”
I set the photo down and leaned back in my chair.
Let my mind work through the possibilities.
Amai was careful. Anal. He didn’t make mistakes, didn’t leave openings, didn’t let anyone see weakness.
But everyone had a weakness.
Everyone.
And if this woman—this Truth Renois—was his?
Then I’d just found the crack in the Demon’s armor.
A slow smile spread across my face.
“Well, well,” I said softly. “The Demon has a weakness.”
Keyshaun waited.
I picked up the photo of Truth again. Looked at her standing in that doorway, watching him drive away.
“I want her watched,” I said. “Everywhere she goes. Everyone she sees. I want to know what she eats for breakfast, what time she goes to bed, who she talks to on the phone. Everything.”
“You want us to move on her?”
“Not yet.” I set the photo down carefully. “Right now, I just want to know what she means to him. If she’s just a distraction, she’s useless to me. But if she’s more than that…”
I didn’t finish the sentence.
Didn’t need to.
Keyshaun understood.
“I’ll put two guys on her,” he said. “Rotating shifts. She won’t know they’re there.”
“Good.” I gathered the photos and slid them back into the envelope. “And Key?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep this quiet. I don’t want anyone outside this room knowing about her until I say so.”
“Copy that.”
Key left.
The door closed behind him with a heavy metallic click.
I sat there in the silence of my office, the envelope in front of me, and let myself think.
Amai Landry had taken everything from me.
My territory. My reputation. My power.
He’d left me with nothing but rage and the will to survive.
And now—finally—I had something he wanted.
Something he cared about.
Something I could take from him.
I opened the envelope one more time and pulled out the photo of Truth Renois standing in the doorway.
Studied her face.
She had no idea what she’d gotten herself into.
No idea that the man she was letting into her life was a demon who destroyed everything he touched.
No idea that she’d just become the most valuable piece on the board.
I smiled.
Set the photo down.
And started planning.