6. TRUTH #3
Because I hadn’t.
Not like this.
Not the real him.
The terror in my eyes must have registered because he stopped.
Just stopped.
The knife lowered.
His chest was heaving.
Blood—Kaisen’s blood—was splattered across his white shirt.
“Truth,” he said.
I couldn’t speak.
Couldn’t move.
He crossed the lobby in three strides, grabbed my arm, and pulled me toward the door.
“Wait—my purse—”
“Leave it.”
“Amai—”
“Now.”
He dragged me through the parking lot to his car.
He opened the passenger door and guided me in too fast, too rough, his hand shaking against my arm.
Slammed the door.
By the time he got in the driver’s side, I was hyperventilating. I thought about jumping out of the car and running, but I doubted that I’d get far. Hell, I wasn’t about to be the next outlet for Amai’s rage. Hell to the no. Won’t see me on First 48.
“What the fuck is going on?” I screamed. “What the fuck is happening?”
He started the engine.
Peeled out of the parking lot so fast the tires squealed.
“I don’t know,” he said. His voice was tight. Controlled. But I could hear the rage simmering underneath. “But I’m going to find out.”
“Your brother. You stabbed your brother—”
“He’s not my brother.” Amai’s hands were white knuckled on the steering wheel. “Not anymore.”
“And Dr. Beaumont—”
“Has been feeding my father information this entire time.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Of course she has. Of course he’s been watching. Controlling. Manipulating.”
I pressed my hands against my stomach.
Felt the baby—our baby—
Or was it?
What the fuck have they done to me? To my body? I wanted to lose my shit so bad, but I couldn’t. Not with Amai behind that wheel. I didn’t know if this had him ready to run our asses off the road or not. I had to be smart. I had to survive.
“Amai.” My voice broke. “Is it true? Did they use both—”
“I don’t know.” He glanced at me. “But I swear to God, Truth, I didn’t know about any of this. I didn’t know Kaisen was anywhere near you. If I had—”
“You would’ve killed him,” I finished.
“Yes.”
The certainty in his voice should have terrified me.
Maybe it did.
But underneath the terror was understanding.
“You have to believe me,” he said. His voice was raw now. Desperate. “I didn’t know. I would never—I wouldn’t do that to you.”
I stared at him.
At the blood on his shirt.
At the way his jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping.
“My whole fucking life,” he said suddenly.
The words came out in a rush. Like a dam breaking.
“My whole fucking life, they took from me. My father. My mother. Kaisen. They take and take and take. And I give. I give everything. I build the empire. I protect the family. I carry the weight. And what do I get?”
He slammed his hand against the steering wheel.
“Betrayal. Every fucking time. They use me. They manipulate me. They take what’s mine and twist it into something I don’t even recognize.”
His voice cracked.
“And now this. Now you. The one thing—the one person—who was supposed to be mine. That I chose. That I protected. And they couldn’t even let me have that.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Didn’t know how to process any of this.
“Where are we going?” I asked finally.
He took a breath.
Let it out slowly.
“Somewhere we can both think,” he said. “Somewhere they can’t find us. Somewhere I can figure out what the fuck to do next.”
He reached over and took my hand.
His was still shaking, and mine was too.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry you had to see that. I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this. I’m sorry for all of it.”
I looked down at our joined hands.
At the blood still on his knuckles.
“I’m scared,” I whispered.
“I know.” His grip tightened. “Me too.”
And somehow, that admission—that vulnerability—made me believe him.
Made me believe that despite everything I’d just witnessed, despite the violence and the rage and the terror—
He was still the man who’d shown up at my mama’s house with groceries.
Who’d sent a doctor at midnight.
Who’d held my hand during the transfer.
Who’d answered the phone at 2:00 AM when I was breaking down.
That part of him was real.
But so was the man underneath.
And I didn’t know which one scared me more.
Because who was he really? Was he this monster or was he just tired? The most terrifying thought was that he was both. The hero and the villain.
The drive to the undisclosed location was silent.
Not the comfortable kind of silence we’d shared before—this was heavy, suffocating, filled with everything we weren’t saying.
Amai’s eyes stayed fixed on the road.
I eased my hand out of Amai’s and folded it in my lap, staring out the window as the city gave way to highway, then to trees, then to water.
I didn’t know where we were going.
Didn’t know what would happen when we got there.
All I knew was that everything had changed in that clinic.
The baby I was carrying might not be Amai’s.
Kaisen—his brother—had been used as backup.
And I’d been caught in the middle of a family war I didn’t even know existed.
When Amai finally pulled off the main road onto a long gravel driveway, I sat up straighter.