13. WINSTON #3
And once he was processed into Terrell’s facility, once he was stripped of his belongings and thrown into that concrete cell with no windows and no contact with the outside world—
He’d understand.
This was a message. A demonstration of power.
And the message was simple: No one is untouchable.
I wondered if Priest would be angry. Probably. He’d feel betrayed, violated, furious at being used as a pawn in a game he hadn’t chosen to play.
But anger was irrelevant. Priest’s feelings didn’t matter. What mattered was the effect his absence would have on Amai.
Within twenty-four hours, Amai would notice Priest was missing. He’d try calling, texting, tracking his location. When that failed, he’d send people to Priest’s apartment, his usual haunts, anywhere he might be.
He’d find nothing.
Then, the panic would set in. The realization that his most trusted lieutenant had vanished without a trace. The fear that a rival had taken him, that Priest was being tortured for information or already dead.
Amai would spiral. He’d make mistakes. He’d become reckless.
And then I’d appear with the solution.
I’d tell him I knew where Priest was. I’d tell him Priest was safe, unharmed, but that his release was conditional.
Conditional on Amai’s compliance.
Conditional on Amai remembering his place in the family hierarchy.
Conditional on Amai ending this obsession with Truth Renois and refocusing on what actually mattered—legacy, power, the family’s continued dominance.
It was elegant, really. Brutal, yes. But elegant.
I’d learned a long time ago that the most effective leverage wasn’t physical violence or financial pressure. It was emotional. It was taking away the thing someone valued most and making them understand that its return depended entirely on their obedience.
For Amai, that thing was Priest.
Not Truth—not yet. She was still too new, too undefined in his mind. He was obsessed with her, yes, but that obsession was still in its early stages. It could be redirected, controlled, managed.
But Priest? Priest had been with Amai for over a decade. They’d built the operation together, survived wars together, trusted each other with their lives.
Losing Priest would devastate Amai in a way that losing Truth wouldn’t. Not yet, anyway.
And devastation was exactly what I needed.
I needed Amai broken down, stripped of his support systems, forced to confront the reality that his power was conditional. That it existed because I allowed it to exist.
That I could take it away whenever I chose.
The road stretched out before me, empty and dark. The lake property was close now—maybe fifteen minutes away.
I thought about what I’d find when I arrived. Kaisen, trapped in that hole, probably half-mad with fear and rage.
It was impressive, in a way. The level of calculation required, the cold-bloodedness of the act.
I’d raised him well.
Too well, perhaps.
Because now that ruthlessness was being directed at family instead of enemies. Now that calculation was being used to eliminate threats from within rather than without.
That had to be corrected.
Kaisen hated Amai. That hatred had been festering for years, growing deeper with every perceived slight, every moment of being overshadowed by his older brother.
That hatred was useful.
I’d channel it. Direct it. Use Kaisen as a counterweight to Amai’s power, a reminder that the family structure was bigger than any one person.
And with Priest locked away, with Kaisen back in play, with Truth still vulnerable and unprotected—
Amai would have no choice but to come to me.
To negotiate. To submit.
To remember who was really in charge.
My phone buzzed one more time. A text from Terrell.
Subject is secured. Cell 7, Block D. No windows, no contact. He’s asking questions but getting no answers.
I smiled.
Good. Let him ask. Let him wonder. Let him sit in that darkness and realize how completely he’d been outmaneuvered.
And maybe—just maybe—he’d understand that his loyalty to Amai had made him a liability.
That in this world, loyalty was a weakness unless it was directed at the right person.
And the right person was always the one with the most power.
I turned onto the dirt road leading to the lake property, my headlights cutting through the darkness.
Somewhere ahead, Kaisen was waiting. Suffering. Praying for rescue.
And somewhere behind me, in a concrete cell with no windows and no hope, Priest was beginning to understand what it meant to be a pawn in a game played by kings.
Both of them would serve their purpose.
Both of them would remind Amai of the cost of defiance.
And when this was over—when Amai was back under control, when the family structure was restored, when Truth Renois was either eliminated or absorbed into the fold—I’d make sure my sons never forgot this lesson.
Power wasn’t something you took.
It was something you were given.
And it could be taken away just as easily.
The lake property came into view minutes later—a sprawling cabin set back from the water, surrounded by dense woods and accessible only by the narrow dirt road I’d just navigated. I’d been here before, years ago, when Amai first purchased it. He’d called it an investment property. A retreat.
I should have known better.
Amai didn’t do retreats. He did strategic positioning.
I parked near the main cabin and killed the engine. Two black SUVs pulled up behind me. Four men total, all armed, all loyal to me first and the family second. That distinction mattered now more than ever.
I stepped out into the cool night air and surveyed the property. The cabin was dark except for a single light in an upstairs window. Truth was probably inside, sleeping, unaware that her protector had just buried his own brother alive less than a quarter mile away.
One of the men approached, his expression unreadable. “Where’s the location?”
I pulled up the coordinates Kaisen had sent and showed him the screen. “There’s a walking trail on the back of the property. Leads deeper into the woods. The hole is somewhere along that path.”
“How far?”
“Kaisen’s location is ten minutes on foot from the cabin.”
He nodded and gestured to his men. They moved with practiced efficiency, pulling equipment from the SUVs—bolt cutters, crowbars, a portable winch system, medical supplies, water, and blankets.
I watched them work and felt something cold settle in my chest.
This was what it had come to. Extracting one son from a tomb built by another.
“Let’s move,” I said.
We found the trailhead easily enough—a narrow path cutting through the underbrush, barely visible in the darkness. One of the men took point with a flashlight, and I followed close behind. The other three men spread out, covering our flanks.
The woods were dense here, the canopy thick enough to block out most of the moonlight. Our footsteps crunched on dead leaves and broken branches. The air smelled like pine and damp earth.
Ten minutes.
It took us twelve.
The clearing appeared suddenly, a break in the trees where the ground had been deliberately leveled. And in the center of that clearing—
The steel lid.
A circular steel plate, maybe four feet in diameter, flush with the ground. Heavy-duty. Industrial-grade. The kind of thing you’d use to seal a septic tank or a storm shelter.
Except this wasn’t a shelter.
This was a grave.
I approached slowly, my boots heavy on the packed earth. One of the men swept his flashlight across the surface of the lid, illuminating the locking mechanism—a series of bolts secured from the outside, impossible to open from within.
“Jesus Christ,” one of the men muttered behind me.
I knelt beside the lid and pressed my palm against the cold steel. Beneath it, somewhere in the darkness below, my son was waiting.
“Kaisen,” I called, my voice steady. “Can you hear me?”
Silence.
Then, faint and muffled, “Dad?”
The word hit me harder than I expected. Trapped in that concrete tomb, Kaisen reverted to something primal. Something desperate.
“We’re getting you out,” I said. “Stay calm.”
“Hurry.” His voice cracked. “Please… I can’t… I can’t breathe—”
Men were already moving the winch system in position. They worked quickly, attaching cables to the steel lid’s edges, securing the base of the winch to a nearby tree.
“On three,” he said. “One. Two. Three.”
The winch engaged with a mechanical whine. The steel lid groaned, resisting at first, then slowly—agonizingly slowly—began to lift.
The smell hit us immediately. Sweat, piss, blood, and something else. Fear. Raw, animal fear.
The lid came free with a metallic screech and swung to the side, revealing the hole beneath.
I stepped forward and looked down.
The concrete tomb was exactly as I’d imagined—small, suffocating, designed to break a man’s mind before it broke his body. The walls were smooth concrete, maybe six feet deep, with a steel toilet and sink combo bolted to one side. A plastic cup lay overturned on the floor.
And in the center, curled into himself, was Kaisen.
He looked up at me with wild eyes, his face pale and streaked with dirt and dried blood. His clothes were torn and filthy. His left side, where Amai had stabbed him, was wrapped in crude bandages that had bled through hours ago.
“Dad,” he whispered again, and this time, his voice broke completely.
“Get him out,” I ordered.
Two men lowered a rope ladder into the hole. Kaisen tried to stand, but his legs gave out immediately. He collapsed against the concrete wall, gasping.
“I can’t—my legs—”
“We’re coming down,” he said, already descending the ladder.
I watched as he and his partner carefully lifted Kaisen, supporting his weight between them. They maneuvered him onto the ladder, and the men above pulled him up slowly, carefully, like extracting something fragile from a minefield.
When Kaisen finally emerged from the hole, he collapsed onto the ground, shaking violently. One of the men wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. Another pressed a bottle of water into his hands.