15. YAHMARIA
YAHMARIA
Istared at my phone screen, watching the call fail for the third time today.
The number you have dialed is not in service.
Bullshit.
I knew exactly what that message meant. Amai had blocked this number too.
I threw the phone onto the bed and paced across the master bedroom, my bare feet silent against the plush carpet. The room was pristine—cream walls, expensive linens, tasteful art that meant nothing. Everything in this house was beautiful and empty, just like the marriage it represented.
Two days.
Two fucking days since Amai had been home.
I’d called him seventeen times from my personal phone before he blocked me. Then I’d used Syx’s phone. Blocked. Then I’d borrowed a burner from one of the staff. Blocked. This morning I’d used a number spoofing app to make it look like I was calling from his daddy house.
Still blocked.
He knew. He always knew.
I grabbed my phone again and opened my messages, scrolling through the unanswered texts I’d sent over the past week.
Where are you?
We need to talk.
You can’t just disappear like this.
I don’t care where you are, but you need to come home.
This is ridiculous.
AMAI.
Read receipts off. Of course.
I wanted to throw the phone across the room and watch it shatter against the wall. But that would be giving him exactly what he wanted—proof that he’d gotten under my skin.
And I refused to give Amai Landry the satisfaction.
I sat on the edge of the bed and took a breath, forcing myself to think clearly.
This wasn’t about me. It never was. Amai didn’t avoid me because he hated me—he avoided me because I was an inconvenience.
A contractual obligation he couldn’t dissolve without consequences.
Our marriage was a business arrangement between our fathers, a strategic alliance that kept Victor Baptiste and Winston Landry’s empires aligned.
And I was the collateral.
But that didn’t mean I had to suffer through this sham alone.
If I had to endure the humiliation of being married to a man who couldn’t stand to be in the same room as me, then so did he. That was the deal. That was the price we both paid.
Except Amai had stopped paying.
He’d found a loophole. A distraction.
The surrogate.
I stood and walked to the window, looking out over the manicured lawn and the wrought-iron gate that separated this property from the rest of the Garden District. Everything about this house screamed wealth and control. But it was all a lie.
Amai didn’t live here. He existed here when forced to. And lately, he didn’t even do that.
I heard footsteps on the stairs and turned just as Syx appeared in the doorway, shirtless and wearing gray sweatpants that hung low on his hips. His locs were pulled back, and there was a faint crease on his face from the pillow.
He leaned against the doorframe and crossed his arms. “You good?”
“Do I look good?”
Syx’s mouth twitched. “You look like you about to burn this house down.”
“I’m considering it.”
He walked into the room and dropped onto the armchair near the window, sprawling out like he owned the place. That was Syx—comfortable everywhere, unbothered by everything.
“Where the fuck is Amai?” he asked, pulling out his phone and scrolling through it. “I’ve been texting him for two days. He’s not answering.”
“Join the club.”
Syx looked up, his brow furrowed. “He’s ignoring you too?”
“He’s blocked me on four different numbers.”
“Damn.” Syx let out a low whistle. “That’s cold even for him.”
I crossed my arms and leaned against the window frame. “He’s probably off fucking his surrogate with his obsessed ass.”
Syx snorted. “Nah. Amai don’t move like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like he’s pussy-whipped.” Syx shook his head, still scrolling through his phone. “He don’t take nobody too serious for too long. This is probably just a phase. He’ll get bored and come back.”
I studied him for a moment, weighing whether to argue.
Syx didn’t know Amai the way I did. He saw the surface—the control, the detachment, the cold efficiency. He didn’t see the obsession underneath. The way Amai fixated on things he wanted and refused to let go until he’d consumed them completely.
I’d seen it before. With business deals. With territory. With revenge.
And now, with her.
“We’ll see,” I said finally, my voice quiet.
Syx glanced up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means this one’s different.”
“Different how?”
I turned back to the window, watching a bird land on the gate and then take off again. “He’s never disappeared like this before. Not for days. Not without telling anyone where he is.”
“Maybe he’s handling business.”
“Then why isn’t he answering you?” I looked back at Syx. “You’re his cousin. You work for him. If this was business, he’d at least respond to you.”
Syx frowned, his thumb pausing over his phone screen. “Yeah. That’s true.”
“He’s with her,” I said, my voice harder now. “And he’s not coming back until he’s ready.”
“You sound real sure about that.”
“I am.”
Because I knew Amai. I knew the way his mind worked. I knew what it looked like when he decided something was his.
And that surrogate? She was his now.
Not in the way I was his—trapped by contracts and family obligations. She was his in the way that mattered to him. The way that made him reckless. The way that made him forget everything else.
I’d seen the shift weeks ago. The way he’d started talking about the baby like it was more than a legacy play. The way he’d obsessed over every detail of the surrogacy arrangement. The way he’d insisted on being involved in ways that went beyond what the contract required.
At first, I thought it was just his control issues. Amai needed to micromanage everything.
But then I’d seen the look on his face when he talked about her.
And I knew.
This wasn’t about control.
This was about possession.
Syx was still watching me, his expression skeptical. “You really think he’s that gone over some woman he barely knows?”
“I think Amai doesn’t do anything halfway,” I said. “And if he’s decided she’s his, then yeah. He’s that gone.”
Syx leaned back in the chair, his jaw tight. “Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
We sat in silence for a moment, the weight of it settling between us.
I hated this. Hated being stuck in this house, in this marriage, in this life. Hated that Amai got to walk away whenever he wanted while I was trapped here playing the dutiful wife for the sake of our fathers’ alliance.
But more than that, I hated that he’d found something—someone—who made him forget I existed.
Because as much as I despised Amai, as much as I resented everything about our arrangement, there was a part of me that had always believed we were the same. Two people trapped in a cage neither of us wanted, making the best of a bad situation.
But now he’d found a way out.
And I was still here.
Alone.
Syx’s phone buzzed, and he glanced down at it. His expression shifted—something darker, more guarded.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He stood and shoved his phone into his pocket. “I’m gonna make some food. You want anything?”
“No.”
He nodded and headed for the door, but I called after him.
“Syx.”
He stopped and looked back.
“If you hear from him,” I said, my voice steady, “tell him I’m not going anywhere. He can run off and play house with his little surrogate all he wants, but this marriage doesn’t end until I say it does.”
Syx’s mouth curved into a faint smirk. “You want me to tell him that?”
“Word for word.”
“Aight.” He turned and disappeared down the hallway, his footsteps fading as he descended the stairs.
I stood there for a moment longer, staring at the empty doorway.
Then I picked up my phone and opened the spoofing app again.
This time, I made the call look like it was coming from his mama.
The line rang once. Twice.
Then it went to voicemail.
I smiled, cold and sharp.
“You can block me all you want, Amai,” I said into the phone, my voice low and venomous. “But you can’t block this marriage. You can’t block your father. And you sure as hell can’t block the consequences of whatever the fuck you think you’re doing.
Night had fallen by the time I settled into the armchair in the sitting room off the master bedroom. The house was quiet—the kind of silence that made you hyper-aware of every creak and shift in the walls.
I’d changed into silk pajama shorts and a matching camisole, my hair wrapped in a satin scarf. The book in my lap was dog-eared and highlighted to hell. When You’re Ready, This Is How You Heal by Brianna Wiest.
I’d bought it six months ago during one of my late-night spirals when sleep wouldn’t come and the weight of this sham marriage felt like it was crushing my chest. The book promised clarity, emotional freedom, a roadmap out of the wreckage.
I wasn’t sure I believed in any of that.
But I kept reading anyway.
My eyes scanned the page, absorbing words about letting go, about releasing what no longer served you, about choosing yourself even when it felt impossible.
“Healing is not about going back to who you were before. It’s about becoming who you’re meant to be now.”
I snorted softly and turned the page.
Easy to say. Harder to do when you were legally bound to a man who hated you, and trapped in a marriage that existed only to serve two powerful men’s egos.
I was about to highlight another passage when I heard it.
A scream.
Raw. Guttural. Violent.
My head snapped up, the book sliding off my lap and hitting the floor with a dull thud.
Another scream—louder this time, more desperate.
Syx.
I was on my feet before I could think, my bare feet slapping against the hardwood as I sprinted out of the sitting room and down the hallway. My heart hammered in my chest, adrenaline flooding my system.
I knew that sound.
I’d heard it before—too many times to count.
Syx’s night terrors.
I reached his bedroom door and shoved it open without knocking. The room was dark except for the faint glow of the streetlight filtering through the curtains. Syx was in the bed, thrashing violently, his body twisting against the sheets like he was fighting something—or someone.