10. AMAI #2
I’d walk in, take what I needed, and walk out. Clean. Efficient. No witnesses who mattered.
And then Kaisen would learn what happened when you touched something that didn’t belong to you. He had a habit of wanting what he didn’t deserve.
He’d learn it slowly.
He’d learn it in the dark.
And by the time I was done, he’d learn that this time he fucked around and found out.
The hospital parking garage was half-empty at this hour.
I parked on the third level, close to the skybridge entrance, and killed the engine.
The Glock stayed in the glove box—I wouldn’t need it.
What I had in my scrub pocket was more effective: a syringe filled with propofol, enough to drop him for hours without killing him.
I wanted him conscious when he woke up in the hole.
I wanted him to understand where he was. What was coming.
I stepped out of the car and adjusted my uniform, checking my reflection in the tinted window. Blue shirt, blue pants, nothing that would draw attention. I looked like an employee. And Priest had already paid the right people off to look the other way.
I walked across the skybridge into the main hospital building.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in that sterile white glow that made everyone look half-dead.
A nurse passed me in the hallway, her scrubs wrinkled, her eyes glazed with exhaustion. She didn’t look at me twice.
Nobody ever did.
I took the elevator to the third floor and stepped out into a corridor that smelled like antiseptic and stale coffee. Room 312 was at the end of the hall, past the nurses’ station where two women sat hunched over computers, their attention buried in charts and medication logs.
I walked past them without slowing. Confident. Purposeful. Like I belonged.
The door to 312 was cracked open, and the guard was gone. I pushed it wider and stepped inside, closing it softly behind me.
Kaisen was awake.
He lay in the hospital bed, propped up slightly, his left side bandaged where I’d put the blade between his ribs. His face was pale, drawn, but his eyes—those eyes were sharp. Alert. Dangerous.
He saw me, and his hand moved immediately toward the nurse call button clipped to the bed rail.
I crossed the room in two strides and snatched it from his grip, yanking the cord from the wall in one smooth motion.
“Don’t,” I said quietly.
Kaisen’s jaw tightened. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t beg. He just stared at me with that same unhinged intensity he’d had since we were kids—the look that said he’d burn the world down just to watch me choke on the smoke.
“You really think you can walk in here and finish what you started?” His voice was rough, strained from pain, but there was no fear in it. Just venom. “You think I’m scared of you? Nigga, you’s a bitch!”
I pulled the chair from the corner and sat down beside his bed, leaning back like we were having a casual conversation. Like I hadn’t stabbed him two days ago. Like I wasn’t about to take him somewhere he’d never come back from.
“You should be,” I said. “And I got yo’ bitch, nigga.”
He laughed—a short, bitter sound that turned into a wince as the movement pulled at his stitches. “Fuck you, Amai. You’ve been trying to kill me since we were kids.”
“Not trying,” I corrected. “I almost succeeded once. Remember?”
His expression shifted. Just slightly. A flicker of something old and primal crossing his face before he locked it down.
But I saw it.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, watching him. “You took my Joker action figure. The one Dad gave me for my birthday. You said it was yours. That I didn’t deserve it.”
Kaisen’s breathing changed. Shallow. Controlled.
“I told you to give it back,” I continued, my voice low, steady. “You laughed at me. Called me a pussy. Said I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“I was eight,” Kaisen said, but his voice had lost some of its edge.
“We were at the lake,” I said. “You were standing at the edge of the dock, holding my shit, taunting me. And I walked up behind you and pushed.”
His hand gripped the bed rail. Knuckles looked as if they’d break skin at any moment.
“You went under,” I said. “And I held you there.”
The room was silent except for the beep of the heart monitor and the hum of the ventilation system.
“I held you under until you stopped fighting,” I said. “Until your body went limp. Until I was sure you were gone.”
Kaisen’s chest rose and fell faster now. His eyes locked on mine, and I saw it—the terror he’d buried for decades. The memory of drowning. Of helplessness. Of knowing his own brother wanted him dead.
“Dad pulled you out,” I said. “Gave you CPR. Brought you back. And you never told him what really happened. You said you slipped.”
“Because I knew,” Kaisen said, his voice tight. “I knew if I told him, you’d finish it.”
I smiled. Cold. Empty. “Smart.”
He shifted in the bed, trying to sit up straighter, but the pain stopped him. He grimaced, his hand pressing against the bandage on his side. “So what? You’re here to drown me in a hospital bed? That’s your big move?”
“No,” I said. “I’m here to remind you what happens when you take something that belongs to me.”
His eyes narrowed. “Truth.”
I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to.
“She’s not yours,” Kaisen said, and there was a manic edge to his voice now. “She’s carrying my baby. My blood. You think you can just claim her because you want to? You think you can erase me?”
“I don’t need to erase you,” I said. “You’re already irrelevant. This is not just about you taking what’s mine because you felt I didn’t deserve it. You took away Truth’s choice! You violated her body!”
“I didn’t do that shit. Dad did!”
“You still didn’t say shit. Instead of telling me or her the truth, you used the information to get close to her. You fed your delusion that y’all could maybe be together. Now that’s what’s getting you killed. That’s the true egregious act that will only be satisfied with your life.”
He lunged—or tried to. His body jerked forward, his hand reaching for me, but the IV line and the pain stopped him halfway. He collapsed back against the pillows, gasping, his face twisted in rage and agony.
“You’re fucking delusional,” he spat. “You think she’s going to choose you? You think she’s going to look at you and see anything other than the monster you are?”
That shit pissed me off because a part of me felt it was true.
I stood slowly, pulling the syringe from my jacket pocket. I held it up so he could see it. The clear liquid inside caught the light.
Kaisen’s eyes widened. Not with fear—with recognition.
“You’re not going to kill me,” he said, but his voice wavered. “Winston won’t let you. You kill me, and you lose everything.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” I said. “Not yet.”
I moved to the side of the bed, and Kaisen tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. His body was trapped by pain and weakness. He was dangerous—he’d always been dangerous—but right now, he was prey.
“You violated her,” I said quietly. “You put your hands on what was mine before I even had the chance. You thought you could take her. Use her. Make her yours.”
“She was never yours,” Kaisen said, his voice rising. “She was a contract. A transaction. You didn’t even want her for real until—”
I grabbed his jaw, forcing his head back against the pillow. His eyes went wide, and for the first time, I saw real fear.
“A baby ain’t gon’ fix that ache. Truth ain’t gon’ fix it. What you trying to compensate for is deeper than that shit and you know it! You gotta face you, nigga, and you ain’t gon’ do that!”
“She’s mine now,” I said. “And you’re going to pay for every lie you made her believe while you hid the truth.”
He tried to speak, but I pressed the syringe into the IV port and pushed the plunger.
The propofol hit his system fast. His eyes rolled back, his body going slack within seconds. The fight drained out of him like water through a sieve.
I watched him slip under, his breathing evening out, his face going slack.
And then I released his jaw and stepped back.
The room was quiet again. Just the beep of the monitor and the hum of the machines keeping him stable.
I pulled the wheelchair from the corner and positioned it beside the bed. Disconnecting the IV was easy—I’d done it before. I wrapped the line around the pole and lowered the bed rail.
Kaisen was dead weight, but I’d moved bodies heavier than his. I slid one arm under his shoulders, the other under his knees, and lifted him from the bed. His head lolled against my chest, his breathing slow and steady.
I lowered him into the wheelchair and adjusted his position, so he looked like a patient being transported. I draped a blanket over his lap, covering the hospital gown and the bandages.
Then I wheeled him toward the door.
The hallway was still empty. The nurses were still buried in their work. I pushed the wheelchair past the station without slowing, my expression neutral, my movements calm.
One of the nurses glanced up. “Transferring him?”
“Imaging,” I said without stopping. “Doctor’s orders.”
She nodded and went back to her screen.
I took the elevator down to the first floor, wheeled him through the lobby, and out the automatic doors into the humid night air.
The parking garage was just as empty as before. I pushed the wheelchair to my car, opened the back door, and lifted Kaisen inside. His body slumped across the seat, his head resting against the window.
I closed the door and returned the wheelchair to the rack near the entrance.
Then I got in the driver’s seat, started the engine, and pulled out of the garage.
Kaisen didn’t move. Didn’t wake. Didn’t know where he was going.
But he would.
Soon enough, he’d wake up in the dark, in a space too small to stand, with nothing but concrete and steel and the knowledge that his brother had buried him alive.
And he’d understand—finally—that some things couldn’t be taken.
Some things were permanent.
I turned onto the highway, heading back toward the lake, and didn’t look back.