Chapter 4 - The Ledger of Debts
"Addy," Vincent said, his voice dropping into that smooth, hypnotic register that made men sign contracts they later regretted. "Take your alligator and go down to the kitchen. Tell your mother I want a glass of lemonade with extra ice. Real ice, not the chipped kind."
Addy didn't move immediately. She looked from Vincent to Marcus, her small brow furrowed. "Is Marcus yelling?"
"Marcus isn't yelling, he's just loud," Vincent said with a faint, grim smile. "Go on, sweetheart."
She turned, her sandals clicking against the wood, and walked out the door, pulling it shut behind her with a soft, disciplined click.
As soon as the latch caught, Marcus leaned over the desk, planting both palms flat on the mahogany. "Are you out of your mind, Vincent? You’re talking about an open war with Moreau, and you're treating the kid like she's a junior board member!"
"She saved my life, Marcus," Vincent said, his voice cold as a bayou at midnight. "Not you. Not your security detail. Not the gate guards who were apparently smoking cigarettes by the stables while Julian’s car rolled right up to the side entrance."
Marcus flushed dark red, his jaw working furiously. "The side entrance was supposed to be dead-bolted! I checked it myself on Tuesday! Somebody on the inside threw the latch for him."
"Exactly," Vincent said, leaning back and resting his head against the leather. "Somebody on the inside. Which means Julian didn't just walk in off the marsh. He had a key. Or he had a friend."
The silence in the office became suffocating. The sunlight shifting through the tall French windows cast long, bars-like shadows across the floorboards.
"Who?" Marcus asked quietly.
"Check every staff member hired in the last six months," Vincent ordered. "Every gardener, every kitchen hand, every driver. Start with the ones recommended by Moreau’s shipping firm in Baton Rouge. If Julian wants to play games in my house, we'll see how he likes playing them with an empty dock."
"An empty dock means stopping the evening shipments to the Gulf," Marcus warned. "The unions will scream bloody murder. The federal inspectors down at the port will start asking why Castellano Logistics is suddenly bottlenecking trade."
"Let them scream," Vincent said. "Let the inspectors come. While they're looking at the shipping manifests, I want you to pull every financial record Moreau has tied to the state bank in Thibodaux. Julian thinks this is about territory. He thinks it's about the sugar lands."
Vincent reached out, tapping the edge of the mahogany desk where the heavy black phone sat.
"It's not about the sugar," Vincent whispered. "It's about the fact that he tried to turn my estate into a slaughterhouse while my niece was playing with magnolias in the hall."
Marcus studied Vincent’s face for a long, hard second. He knew that look. It was the look Vincent’s father had worn thirty years ago before he systematically dismantled the rival Irish gangs along the Mississippi riverfront. It was patient, it was absolute, and it had no room for mercy.
"And the girl?" Marcus asked carefully. "She saw too much, Vincent. Even if she's four, people talk. If Moreau finds out she's the reason his man botched the job..."
Vincent’s eyes snapped up, flashing with a sudden, lethal intensity that made Marcus take an instinctive half-step back.
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"If Moreau so much as looks in Addy's direction," Vincent said, each word falling like a lead weight, "I won't just take his docks. I'll salt his earth from here to the Gulf."
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