TRUTH #2
Honor hugged me last, looking flawless in the sundress from the boutique, her wrap slightly crooked from sleep and chlorine and wine. “I had the best time,” she said into my shoulder. “Don’t tell Terrance I said that.”
“Your secret’s safe.”
“It better be. I got a marriage to protect.” She pulled back and grinned, wide and unbothered. “Love you, girl. Even though you out here living better than all of us combined.”
“I love you too.”
They loaded into Saroya’s car, still talking over each other, still laughing about something from the night before, and I stood in the driveway with my arms wrapped around myself, watching the car ease around the circle and start down the long path toward the gate.
The morning light hit the windshield at an angle, and for a second, I couldn’t see anything but reflection—just light bouncing back at me, and then the car moving on, small against all that green, until the gate opened and swallowed them whole and closed again behind them.
Something in my chest sat warm and full, the way your stomach feels after a good meal you didn’t rush through. I stood there a minute longer than I needed to, just breathing it in.
“They gone,” Amai said from behind me, not a question.
“They gone.” I turned around. He’d already changed, dressed for the day, dark suit fitted like it had been made on him that morning. “You heading to the Sanctum?”
“Yeah. Won’t be back ’til later.” He came down the last two steps and stopped in front of me, close, the way he always stood when he wanted my full attention. “Call me if you need anything. I mean that.”
“I know you do.”
“My drivers can take you wherever you want today. Doctor, your mama’s house, wherever.” He paused, and I already knew what was coming because I knew that look. “But if your stubborn ass insists on driving yourself somewhere, take one of the cars in the garage. Not your car. One of mine.”
“Amai—”
“They’re custom,” he said, like I hadn’t spoken. “Reinforced. Bulletproof glass, armor plating in the doors, the whole undercarriage reworked. Any one of them could take a hit from an RPG, and you’d walk away needing a nap, not a hospital.”
I blinked at him. “Damn.”
“Yeah.” A slow grin pulled at his mouth, easy and a little proud of himself. “Your baby daddy a shark, love. You out here carrying his pups. Least he can do is make sure the water can’t touch you.”
“That is the ugliest way anybody has ever tried to be romantic,” I said, but I was laughing, because it was so him—dead serious about armored doors and grinning like he’d said something sweet.
“You loved it.”
“I tolerated it.”
He kissed me then, slow, one hand coming up to cradle the back of my neck like he was trying to memorize the shape of it before he left. When he pulled back, his eyes held mine a second longer.
“Lock the doors behind me,” he said, already walking toward the garage. “I’ll call you when I’m close to done.”
I watched him go, listened to the low growl of an engine start somewhere behind the house, and then the sound faded, and the house went quiet in that particular way big houses get quiet—full of rooms nobody was in.
I made myself a cup of tea, pulled my laptop and my textbooks to the kitchen island, and sat down to face the stack of coursework I’d been putting off since the package arrived. Pharmacology. Maternal-fetal health. A discussion post due by midnight that I hadn’t started.
I did the math again, the way I’d been doing it for weeks now, counting backward and forward at the same time.
If I kept my current pace—three classes this semester—I could finish my last prerequisites before the babies came.
If I timed the clinical rotation applications right, I might even get my foot in the door before I was too big to stand for twelve-hour shifts.
It wasn’t guaranteed. Nothing about my life right now came with guarantees.
But it was possible, and possible was more than I’d had in a long time.
I opened the discussion post and started typing with the quiet of the house settling around me, my sisters’ laughter still echoing somewhere behind my ribs, and the morning’s warmth not gone yet, just tucked in close while I got back to the business of building something that was mine.
I finished the discussion post, hit submit before I could talk myself into rereading it three more times, and closed the laptop.
My eyes were tired, that particular grainy tired that came from reading pharmacology terms until they stopped looking like words.
I stretched my arms over my head, felt something pop in my lower back, and checked the time on my watch out of habit before I remembered why the time actually mattered today.
12:20.
My appointment was at one.
I’d almost let myself forget, which wasn’t like me, not with this.
Dr. Broussard’s office had called yesterday afternoon while I was still shook up over the package, and I’d barely registered what the nurse said beyond we’d like you to come in and the results are back.
I’d asked if everything was okay, and she’d given me that practiced non-answer medical people were trained to give—Dr. Broussard would like to discuss it with you in person—which told me nothing and everything at the same time.
I sat there a second with my hand flat on the counter, waiting to feel something specific. Fear. Relief. Anything with a name. What I felt instead was a low hum underneath my skin, something between dread and hope that didn’t have the decency to pick a side.
I pushed back from the island. No use sitting here spinning on it. I’d know soon enough.
Upstairs, I stood in front of the closet, trying to figure out what a woman was supposed to wear to find out which man fathered the babies she was carrying, and there wasn’t a single article of clothing built for that.
So, I went practical instead. A soft, olive-green wrap dress that didn’t cling anywhere it shouldn’t, comfortable enough for the exam table, presentable enough that I wouldn’t look like I’d been unraveling since sunup, which I hadn’t been, not yet.
Slides instead of anything with a heel, because my ankles had started their own personal protest a week ago, and I wasn’t trying to argue with them today.
I twisted my hair up, added a little gloss, a little concealer under my eyes, and looked at myself in the mirror longer than I meant to.
“Whatever it is,” I told my reflection, “you gon’ handle it.”
I grabbed my purse and my folder of records and headed down to the garage.
I’d been in and out of that garage a few times since moving in, but I hadn’t stood there and really looked, not until now, waiting for nothing but the click of the door behind me and my own reflection staring back at me off a dozen different hoods.
“Lord,” I said out loud to nobody.
The Bentley sat closest to the door, black and heavy-looking, even standing still, like it dared you to bump it.
Past that, a Rolls-Royce Phantom in a deep navy that looked less like a car and more like a room somebody built and then decided to put wheels on.
A Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S crouched low next to it, silver, mean in the front end.
Further back, an armored Chevrolet Suburban sat blacked out, tires thick enough to look like they belonged on something built for war instead of a school run.
And tucked at the far end like an afterthought—except nothing about it looked like an afterthought—a cherry-red 1967 Impala, restored so clean it looked wet under the garage lights.
His truck sat in its usual spot near the door, the one he actually drove most days, the one that smelled like him.
“This man got a whole car lot,” I muttered, walking the length of the garage with my arms crossed, looking from one to the next like I was in a museum I hadn’t paid admission for.
Six figures easy in any direction I looked.
Some of them looked like they’d never been driven past a red carpet.
Some of them looked like they’d seen things I didn’t want to know about.
I ran my hand along the AMG’s hood, cool and smooth under my palm, and that decided it for me.
I liked the way that car handled the couple times Amai had let me drive it just to see me smile.
It didn’t feel like riding in a tank the way the Suburban probably did, and it didn’t feel like I was borrowing somebody’s museum piece the way the Rolls did.
I found the key fob in the little drawer by the door where he kept them all labeled, slid behind the wheel, and pressed the start button.
The engine woke up with a low, controlled growl, more felt than heard, the kind of sound that promised power without needing to prove it right away.
I backed out slowly, easy on the gas, watching the gate roll open ahead of me.
Before I pulled all the way onto the street, I glanced at the little tracking app Amai had set up on my phone, so I could see the detail’s movement without having to guess who was where.
Two names came up, same as always—Reggie in the gray Charger two houses down, Marcus in the black Tahoe posted at the corner where the street curved.
I recognized both cars on sight now, the way you learn to recognize your own neighbors’ cars without meaning to.
Yesterday, knowing men were watching me from a distance had felt like a leash. Today, after what came in that box, it felt different. It felt like two more people standing between me and whatever else might be waiting to test how thin our protection really was.
I pulled out onto the street and watched the Charger ease off the curb behind me in my mirror, unhurried, exactly where it was supposed to be, and let a little of the tightness in my chest loosen.