Page 60 of Certified Pressure 4
“I love you too, baby,” I said, giving him a smile. “You go on and get those babies home, and call me when you get there.”
He nodded and turned to leave, Prestyn resting against his shoulder while Zurie trailed behind him. The sound of the door closing left the house quiet again.
I sat there for a long time after he left, thinking about everything he’d said. I was proud of him, and proud that he had learned to lead with love. But pride didn’t erase my own pain. Kashmere might have escaped once, but I wasn’t a woman who forgot, and playing with my blood was something I would never forget.
The Seraphine Suites
When I reached the building of The Seraphine Suites, I stepped out of the car and adjusted my gloves before entering. The marble floors glistened beneath the soft golden lighting, and the faint scent of orchids floated through the air. My security trailed behind me, silent but attentive as I made my way to the private elevator.
I had not seen Sterling in over a week, but the updates I received daily told me everything I needed to know. He wasn’t eating enough to survive, drinking more than he should, and doing nothing with the women I had arranged for him. It amused me at first because a man who had spent years drowning himself in women’s bodies, was now unable to touch one. Guilt had a way of rotting the spirit long before the body followed.
When the elevator doors opened, the guards at his floor stood straighter. I gave a single nod and continued down thehallway until I reached his door. The guard opened it for me, and I stepped inside.
The suite was immaculate, as always. The maids I hired knew better than to slack off, but even with the room’s perfection, the stench of Sterling’s decay lingered. It wasn’t a physical smell, but something spiritual. It was the energy of a man crumbling after being confined for months.
And confinement wasn’t the worst of his punishment. I had dismantled him piece by piece. His empire, his status, his pride were all gone. The press had ripped through his name like wolves. The financial boards had stripped him of every title he once boasted about. The investors who used to worship him would not even return a call.
He had been one of those men who thought money could erase sin, but not from me. I made sure every corner of his life reflected the rot he tried to hide. His company was under federal investigation. His board members were subpoenaed. And as for his secret, the seventeen-year-old girl he had gotten pregnant and later discarded like trash, that case had been reopened.
It only took one message to the right people, one nudge through my political channels, to turn a buried scandal into a national headline. I had made sure the public saw him for what he truly was. Not a visionary, not a leader, but a predator.
The police were still looking for him, plastering his face across every network, convinced he had fled the country. I found it amusing, really. They had no idea he was right here, housed in luxury, eating from imported plates and sleeping under silk sheets. I had given him everything he used to value, yet stripped him of the freedom that made it matter.
Every few days, I let him see the updates, the warrants, the breaking news clips and the leaked audio from his former associates turning on him. I wanted him to know exactly what I had done. I wanted him to understand that I had not justpunished him. I had erased him the same way his daughter tried to erase my son.
Sterling was by the window with his back to me, staring out at the city lights that painted the night sky. His posture was heavy, his shoulders slumped, and his hands gripping the sill as if he was holding on to something that could ground him. His reflection in the glass showed the toll of his confinement. His beard had grown uneven, his face was thinner, and his once-perfect posture reduced to something hollow.
I took slow steps toward him. “You would be pleased to know,” I said softly, my voice filling the quiet room, “that you are about to be a grandfather.”
He didn’t turn around immediately. His head lifted slightly, and his reflection blinked. When he finally turned, the shadows under his eyes were deeper than I remembered. “What did you say?”
I clasped my hands in front of me and tilted my head slightly. “Your daughter is pregnant.”
The silence stretched between us. I watched him inhale sharply, then press his lips together like the words had just cut through him.
“How do you know?” he asked finally, his voice low and gravelly.
“I received confirmation from the clinic,” I said calmly. “My team runs daily scans across a family-owned system, flagging any time her real name is entered into a government or medical database. The moment she used her real name and your home address, her location populated in the network.”
His eyes glimmered with a flicker of pain that quickly turned into something bitter. “So what now?” he asked coldly. “You’re going to kill her?”
I let his question hang there as I studied him. He looked so small now, a far cry from the arrogant man who once walkedinto rooms like he owned the world. His arrogance had died in here and was replaced by the panic of someone facing everything he once ran from.
“My son doesn’t want me to,” I replied, keeping my tone even. “So for now, I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with her, but one thing is certain—she will face the consequences of her choices.”
He scoffed and took a step toward me. “You think you can keep playing God, Abeni? You think you can destroy people and walk away clean? Karma doesn’t sleep. You’ll never get away with all this.”
I took another step forward, closing the space between us. My eyes stayed on his, unflinching. He had the audacity to talk to me about karma. This man who had impregnated a seventeen-year-old girl and buried the evidence. A man who cheated on his wife like it was a sport. And his daughter, who shot my son, stole from him, and ran like a coward.
“I am well aware of karma, Mr. Charm,” I said finally. “And if she exists, she and I are on familiar terms.”
Sterling’s mouth opened like he wanted to speak, but he stopped when he realized I wasn’t done.
“You talk about morality as if you ever had any. You talk about consequences as if you ever faced yours. The only difference between you and me is that I finish what I start.”
His eyes flickered. The confidence he tried to cling to was slipping again, and I could see the exhaustion in his face.
“As far as I’m concerned,” I continued. “I am doing the world a favor by keeping you here. You destroyed lives for pleasure and profit. You called it business. I call it greed.”
