Page 200 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 2

I felt the rage building, hot and consuming. But beneath it was something else. Something I didn’t want to acknowledge.

Fear.

Not of Winston himself, but of what he represented. The cage I’d spent my entire life trying to escape. The legacy I’d been born into and couldn’t shed no matter how far I ran.

Winston walked past me into the sitting room, his movements unhurried. He poured himself a glass of bourbonfrom the crystal decanter on the side table, then turned to face me.

“I have him,” he said simply.

The confirmation hit me like a physical blow. I’d known—of course I’d known—but hearing him say it out loud made it real. Made it undeniable.

“Why?” I asked.

Winston took a sip of his bourbon, savoring it. “Because you’ve lost your goddamn mind over some bitch who’s carrying a baby that might not even be yours.”

The wordbitchlanded like a slap. My hands curled into fists at my sides.

“Don’t call her that.”

“I’ll call her whatever the fuck I want,” Winston said, his voice still calm, still controlled. “You’re being stupid, Amai. Reckless. You stabbed your own brother in front of witnesses. You’ve been disappearing for days at a time. Your operation is falling apart because you’re too busy playing house with a surrogate.”

“She’s not?—”

“She’s nothing,” Winston interrupted, his voice hardening. “She’s a means to an end. A womb. That’s all she was ever supposed to be. But you’ve turned her into something else. Something that’s making you weak.”

I took a step toward him. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” Winston set his glass on the table with a softclink. “You think I don’t see what’s happening? You think I don’t know that you’re in love with her?”

The word hung in the air between us.

Love.

I didn’t deny it. I couldn’t.

“You don’t get to choose who you love, Amai,” Winston continued, his voice dropping to something colder, more dangerous. “You belong to this family. You belong to the organization. You don’t get to throw that away for some woman who doesn’t even know whose baby she’s carrying.”

“That’s not her fault.”

“I don’t give a fuck whose fault it is.” Winston’s voice rose slightly, the first crack in his composure. “What I care about is that you’re compromising everything we’ve built. Everything I’ve built. And I’m not going to let that happen.”

“So, you took Priest.” My voice was flat. “You took the one person I trust. The one person who keeps everything running.”

“I took leverage,” Winston corrected. “Because you’ve proven that you can’t be trusted to make rational decisions anymore. You need to be reminded of what’s at stake.”

“And what’s that?”

Winston’s eyes locked onto mine. “Priest’s life. His safety. His future. All of it depends on you getting your shit together and remembering who you are. What you are. You will be a husband to Yahmaria whether you want to or not. You will honor that marriage. And if I find out anything is out of sorts with that arrangement—if I find out you’ve been disrespecting her, neglecting her, or making her look like a fool—Priest will lose a body part. Do you understand me?”

I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. The rage was building, consuming, threatening to explode.

“And if you refuse to comply,” Winston continued, his voice dropping to something almost conversational, “you’ll receive pieces of Priest’s body as a reminder. A finger first, maybe. Then a hand. Then an arm. I’ll send them to you one at a time until you remember that your loyalty belongs to this family. Not to some woman who doesn’t even know whose baby she’s carrying.”

The rage that had been simmering beneath the surface exploded. I lunged at him, my hands reaching for his throat, every ounce of control I’d maintained shattering in an instant.

I didn’t make it two steps.

The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space.