Page 50 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 2

At that moment, it hit harder than bricks how monumentally I fucked up. Not only did I insult Truth, but I ruined everything we built. Worst of all, I hurt her. And I wouldn’t forgive myself for that. After everything she’d been through, I knew I hadtainted her view of men even more. The more I tried to fix things between us, the more I fucked up.

Delphine stared at me. Her eyes were blazing. Her jaw was set. She looked like she wanted to taser me again just for the satisfaction of it.

Then, she lowered the weapon.

“Get out,” she said quietly. “And don’t come back.”

I didn’t argue.

I couldn’t have if I’d wanted to.

My legs were still unreliable, my muscles still firing in random spasms, but I pushed off the wall and made my way toward the front door.

Every step was agony.

Every breath was a reminder of what I’d just lost.

I opened the door and stepped out into the pre-dawn darkness.

The lock clicked behind me.

Final.

I stood on Delphine Renois’s porch with my chest still twitching from the taser and the weight of what I’d done pressing harder than the voltage ever could.

I’d come here to fix things.

Instead, I’d burned them down.

And now I had no way back in.

Chapter 5

YAHMARIA BAPTISTE

Isat on the edge of my father’s leather sofa, my legs crossed, my manicured nails tapping against my thigh in an anxious rhythm I couldn’t seem to stop.

The house was quiet. The kind of quiet that made you feel small. Exactly how my father made me feel.

“Daddy,” I said, my voice careful, measured. “I heard Amai speeding down the driveway at almost two in the morning. His tires were?—”

“I don’t give a fuck,” Victor said flatly.

He didn’t even look up from his cigar. Just sat there in his leather wingback chair like a king on a throne, the smoke curling up around his face in lazy spirals.

I swallowed hard.

“I’m just saying, something’s going on. He seemed?—”

“Yahmaria.” He finally turned to look at me, and the weight of his attention was suffocating. “You are there for one reason and one reason only. Do you understand me?”

I nodded slowly, even though I didn’t want to.

“To make sure the Landry-Baptiste alliance stays intact,” he continued, his voice dropping into that dangerous register thatmade my stomach clench. “That’s it. That’s your entire purpose right now.”

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the cigar still burning between his fingers.

“The Landrys have accrued ten times more wealth than us. Ten times more territory. Ten times more connections and businesses. Do you understand what that means?”