AMAI #3
I studied him for a long moment. Twenty years old, standing in my living room, telling me he was going to be with my wife, and the honest truth was, I felt nothing about it except tired.
“You want her?” I said. “Take her. But understand—you take all of her. The drama, the manipulation, the games. And when she gets bored and moves on to the next one, don’t come crying to me.”
“She won’t.”
“She will.” I walked past him toward the stairs. “She always does.”
I didn’t remember falling asleep.
One moment, I was sitting on the edge of the bed, towel around my waist, staring at my phone. The next, I woke up fully naked, sprawled across the comforter, the clock reading 8:47 PM.
The meeting was at nine.
I moved fast—black T-shirt, jeans, and cold water on my face. Grabbed my phone, my keys, and my Glock.
The drive to the warehouse district was silent. My mind ran through the agenda: the clinic cleanup, Priest’s disappearance, the leverage Winston held over me, and the fact that Rahsaan Boudreaux had been too quiet for too long. Quiet from Rahsaan was never a good sign.
I pulled into the lot at 8:59.
Teal, DeShawn, and Trey were already inside. The warehouse was industrial—concrete floors, exposed beams, the long metal table in the center that served as our boardroom. No windows. One entrance. Cameras on every angle.
“You good?” Teal asked when I walked in.
“I’m here,” I said, pulling out a chair.
DeShawn nodded at me from across the table. “Brandon’s calling in. Says he’s handling something.”
My phone buzzed before I could ask what.
I picked up. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Money houses,” Brandon said, clipped and professional. “Got word Rahsaan’s planning to hit us. I’ve got soldiers on rotation at each location. So far, it’s quiet, but I’m not taking chances.”
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“Because I was handling it.” A pause. “You’ve got enough on your plate.”
I exhaled. “Good looking. Keep me updated.”
I ended the call and set the phone on the table.
“Rahsaan?” Teal asked.
“Brandon’s got eyes on all the money houses.” I leaned back. “If he moves, we’ll know.”
“He’s been too quiet,” DeShawn said. “That’s never a good sign.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
But even as I said it, something twisted in my gut. The kind of instinct that had kept me alive this long—telling me something was wrong before I could name what.
Brandon was covering all the money houses. Those locations were known to enough people in the organization that Rahsaan could’ve gotten intel on them if he had someone inside. But there was one place Brandon didn’t know about. One place only four people in the world knew existed.
Me. Winston. Kaisen. Priest.
An out-of-commission bank on the edge of the Bywater. Closed for years, foreclosed, and left to rot. But the vault was still intact, and we’d been using it for over a decade. Millions of dollars, off the books, untraceable. Secure.
Priest was locked up. Kaisen had been underground until recently. Winston wouldn’t compromise his own vault.
Which meant it was safe.
The instinct said otherwise.
I stood up, the chair scraping against concrete. “Keep your phones on,” I said, already moving toward the door. “I’ll call if I need you.”
The drive to the Bywater took twenty minutes.
The building looked the same as always—crumbling brick facade, boarded-up windows, rusted chain-link fence. First Commerce Bank of New Orleans, the sign read, faded and peeling.
I used the key I kept on a separate ring. The lock turned. The door opened without a sound.
Inside was stale air, thick dust, and dim light through cracked boards. The lobby was empty. The administrative offices in the back.
I reached the first office and pushed the door open.
The smell hit me before I saw her.
Maria Cortez was slumped over her desk, a bullet hole in the back of her head. Blood had pooled beneath her, dried and dark, soaking into the papers scattered across the surface. Dead for at least a day.
James Nguyen was in the second office, throat cut, glasses still on, head tilted back. The blood had run down the front of his shirt and spread across the tile.
The third office was empty.
Whoever had done this had been thorough. Professional. And they’d left the bodies as a statement.
I moved to the vault.
The false wall panel swung open at my touch. The steel door at the end of the narrow hallway—massive, reinforced, with a combination lock that only four people knew—was standing open.
I stepped inside.
Every shelf. Every stack. Every bundle of cash accumulated over years of Landry operations.
Gone.
I stood in the empty vault and let the silence settle around me.
Rahsaan didn’t know this place existed. This was somebody who did. Somebody who’d been trusted with the location, the combination, and the schedule. Somebody who had sat across a table from me, shaken my hand, and smiled.
Somebody in the family had talked.
I pulled out my phone, stared at the empty screen for a moment, and then put it away.
The war I’d been preparing for wasn’t coming from the outside.
It was already here.