Page 155 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 2

He was right, of course. This was dangerous. Priest wasn’t just some low-level soldier or expendable muscle. He was integral to Amai’s operation. He was the infrastructure that allowed Amai to focus on strategy and expansion.

Without Priest, Amai’s entire organization would start to fracture within days.

That was exactly the point.

I needed Amai destabilized. I needed him scrambling, desperate, forced to come to me for answers and solutions. Ineeded him reminded that his power existed within a structure I’d built, and that structure could be dismantled piece by piece if he continued to operate outside my authority.

Priest was the first piece.

The most important piece.

Because Priest was the only person Amai actually listened to. The only person whose counsel he sought, whose judgment he trusted. Kaisen had always been too volatile, too desperate for approval. Syx was too unpredictable, too self-interested.

But Priest? Priest was steady. Loyal. Competent.

And that made him dangerous.

Not to me—not directly. But dangerous in the sense that he enabled Amai’s independence. He made it possible for Amai to function without needing me, without requiring my resources or guidance.

That had to end.

My phone buzzed with a text from Brandon.

Target acquired. He killed three men and beat the fuck out of two more. He’s sedated. En route to facility.

I glanced at the timestamp. Fourteen minutes since I’d made the call. Efficient.

I typed back:Confirm delivery when complete.

The response came immediately.Copy.

I set the phone down and focused on the road. The lake property was still thirty minutes away. Plenty of time to think through the next steps.

Priest would be confused right now. Probably sitting in the back of the van, hands zip-tied, a hood over his head to disorient him. He’d be running through scenarios in his mind and wondering if he would live.

Priest had always been respectful toward me, deferential even. He understood the hierarchy. He knew I was the patriarch, the foundation upon which everything else was built.

But he was Amai’s man first. His loyalty was to my son, not to me.

That was the problem.

In the old days—back when I was building this empire from nothing—loyalty was absolute. You were loyal to the family, to the structure, to the legacy. Individual relationships were secondary to the collective good.

But Amai had changed that. He’d built his operation on personal loyalty, on relationships forged through shared violence and mutual respect. His men followed him because they believed inhim, not because they feared the consequences of disobedience.

It was effective, I’d give him that. Amai’s crew was tight, disciplined, willing to die for him.

But it also made them insular. Isolated from the larger family structure. Operating as a separate entity rather than an integrated part of the whole.

That couldn’t continue.

I’d tolerated it for years because Amai delivered results. He expanded our territory, increased our revenue, eliminated threats with brutal efficiency. As long as he was profitable and didn’t directly challenge my authority, I’d let him operate with relative autonomy.

But burying Kaisen alive had crossed a line.

Not because I cared about Kaisen’s suffering—he’d brought that on himself through his own stupidity and jealousy. But because it demonstrated that Amai was willing to destroy family for the sake of his obsession with this woman.

That was unacceptable.