1. AMAI #2
“Odette!” Dad dropped to his knees beside her, his coffee cup forgotten, shattering on the hardwood floor. “Baby, I’m here. I’m right here.”
“It hurts.” Her voice was barely a whisper, broken and raw. “Winston, it hurts.”
I stood frozen in the doorway.
Watching.
Helpless.
Her hands were swollen—joints red and inflamed, fingers curled into claws she couldn’t straighten. The butterfly rash across her cheeks and nose was angry and raised, the kind of flare that meant her immune system was eating her alive from the inside out.
Lupus.
The disease that had been killing my mother in slow motion for the last fifteen years.
“Where?” Winston’s voice was steady, but I could hear the fear underneath. “Where does it hurt, baby?”
“Everywhere.” Tears streamed down her face. “My hands—my knees. I can’t—I can’t move—”
Her whole body was trembling. Shaking so hard her teeth chattered.
Fever.
I could see it in the flush of her skin, the glassy look in her eyes when she finally opened them.
“Amai.” She saw me standing there, and something in her face crumpled. “Baby, I’m sorry—I didn’t want you to see—”
“Don’t.” I moved then, crossing the room in three strides and dropping beside Dad. “Don’t apologize, Mama.”
Up close, it was worse.
The rash had spread down her neck, angry red patches that looked like they burned. Her lips were cracked and bleeding. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, like every inhale cost her something she couldn’t afford to give.
“We need to get you to the hospital,” Dad said, already reaching for his phone.
“No.” Mama’s hand shot out—slow and painful—and grabbed his wrist. “No hospital.”
“Odette!”
“I said no.” Her voice was stronger now, stubborn even through the pain. “I’m not spending another week in that place with doctors poking and prodding and telling me things I already know.”
“Baby, you need—”
“I need to be in my own bed.” She looked at him with eyes that had seen too much suffering, endured too much loss. “I need you. Not them.”
I watched the war play out on his face—the need to protect her versus the need to respect her wishes. The same war I’d watched him fight a hundred times before.
He always let her win.
“Okay,” he finally said, his voice soft in a way I’d never heard him use with anyone else. “Okay, baby. No hospital.”
He slid one arm under her knees, the other around her back, and lifted her like she weighed nothing. Like she was made of glass and might shatter if he wasn’t careful enough.
Mama whimpered when he moved her.
The sound cut through me like a blade.
“I know,” Winston murmured, carrying her toward the bed. “I know it hurts. I’ve got you.”
He laid her down on top of the covers with a gentleness that would have shocked anyone who knew him in the streets. Adjusted the pillows behind her head. Pulled the throw blanket from the foot of the bed and draped it over her legs.
“Amai.” He didn’t look at me. “Medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Prednisone, the high dose. And the pain medication—the bottle with the red label.”
I moved on autopilot.
The bathroom was pristine—white marble, gold fixtures, and a medicine cabinet that looked more like a pharmacy. I found the bottles he’d mentioned, plus the anti-inflammatory gel she used on her joints.
When I came back, Dad was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Mama’s hand—the one that wasn’t as swollen—and talking to her in a low, steady voice.
“—going to be okay. You’re strong. Stronger than this. You’ve beaten it before. You’ll beat it again.”
“I’m tired, Winston.” Her voice was so small. “I’m so tired of fighting.”
“I know, baby. But you don’t have to fight alone. I’m right here.”
I set the medications on the nightstand.
Dad looked up at me, and for just a second, I saw something in his eyes I’d never seen before.
Fear.
Raw, unfiltered fear.
“Water,” he said.
I went back to the bathroom, filled a glass, and brought it to him.
He helped Mama sit up—slow, careful, supporting her weight—and held the pills to her lips one at a time. She swallowed them with small sips of water, wincing with each movement.
“Good,” Winston said. “That’s good, baby.”
He eased her back onto the pillows.
I stood there watching them—this man who’d built an empire on violence and fear, who’d taught me that weakness was death and mercy was a liability, who’d never shown me a moment of the tenderness he was showing her now.
He smoothed the hair back from her forehead.
Pressed a kiss to her temple.
“Rest now,” he said. “The medicine will kick in soon.”
“Don’t leave.” Her hand tightened on his. “Please don’t leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He settled onto the bed beside her, still holding her hand, and started humming something low and soft—a song I remembered from childhood, something she used to sing to us when we were scared or hurt or couldn’t sleep.
Mama’s breathing started to slow.
The trembling eased.
Her eyes drifted closed.
I watched the tension drain from her body bit by bit as the medication took hold, watched the lines of pain in her face smooth out, watched her finally—finally—relax into something that looked like peace.
It took twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes of him sitting there beside her, humming that song, holding her hand like it was the only thing keeping her alive.
Maybe it was.
When her breathing evened out into the deep rhythm of sleep, he finally looked at me.
“Office,” he said quietly. “Now.”
The walk back downstairs was silent.
Different than before.
Heavier.
He led me into his office—dark wood paneling, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a desk he’d ordered from Italy. He closed the door behind us and moved to the bar cart in the corner.
Poured two fingers of bourbon into a crystal tumbler.
Drank it in one swallow.
Poured another.
“How long has she been like this?” I asked.
He set the glass down and turned to face me.
“She’s been good lately,” he said. “This is the first major flare in months. She was doing so well I thought—”
He stopped.
Shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter what I thought. The disease doesn’t care. Her doctor keeps an emergency kit here for this exact reason.”
I leaned against the desk, my hands gripping the edge hard enough to hurt.
“She needs to be in the hospital.”
“She needs to be where she feels safe.” His voice was firm. “And that’s here. With me.”
“What if it gets worse?”
“Then I’ll call her doctor. He’ll come here.” He picked up his glass again but didn’t drink. Just held it. “I’ve been taking care of your mother for fifteen years, Amai. I know what she needs.”
I wanted to argue.
Wanted to tell him he was wrong, that stubbornness wasn’t the same as strength, that letting her refuse treatment was dangerous.
But I’d seen the way he looked at her.
The way he touched her.
The way he’d sat beside her and hummed that song until the pain let her go.
Winston Landry was a lot of things.
A narcissist. A manipulator. A man who’d built his empire in pools of blood.
But he loved my mother.
Loved her in a way that was absolute and uncompromising and maybe a little bit terrifying in its intensity.
He would scorch the earth for her.
And he’d never ask permission first.
“She’s strong,” he said, more to himself than to me. “She’ll get through this. She always does.”
I didn’t respond.
Just stood there in the silence, trying to reconcile the man who’d just carried my mother to bed with the man who’d sent Yahmaria to my house like a fucking plague.
“So.” He set his glass down and looked at me. “You came here to talk. Let’s talk.”
The rage I’d been carrying since last night came flooding back.
“Why the fuck is Yahmaria coming around for any reason other than signing the divorce papers?”
He didn’t flinch.
Didn’t look surprised.
Just leaned back against the bar cart and crossed his arms.
“Because you’re getting too close to your surrogate,” he said. “This will help you focus.”
“Focus?” I pushed off the desk, my hands clenching into fists. “You sent my wife to my house to help me focus? You know I hate that bitch with a passion.”
“She’s not just your wife, Amai. She’s Victor Baptiste’s daughter.
And your marriage to her is the bond between two empires.
I allowed that Alexis girl to be around to buy some time to track Yahmaria down, and I couldn’t careless if you like her.
Hell, I don’t care that you don’t love her.
This is about duty. Legacy. Our name! Landrys don’t go back on their deals, Amai.
That’s not going to change just because you’re having a tantrum. ”
“A marriage you tricked me into.” My voice was rising now, the control I’d been holding onto starting to slip. “You knew she had a fucking hysterectomy. You knew she couldn’t give me children. And you pushed me into marrying her anyway.”
“I didn’t know before the wedding. Believe that or don’t.” His voice was calm. “But once the papers were signed, the marriage became bigger than her womb.”
“Then why won’t you help me get out of it?”
“Because it’s not that simple.” He moved away from the bar cart, his presence filling the room in a way that made the air feel thinner.
“Victor Baptiste requires certain assurances to reinforce our partnership. Your marriage to Yahmaria is one of those assurances. If you sever that bond, you risk war between our families.”
“So, I’m supposed to stay married to a woman who fucks my enemies just to keep your business deals intact?”
“You’re supposed to remember that everything you have—everything you’ve built—exists because of the foundation I laid.” His voice hardened. “You don’t get to be Amai Landry, the Demon, without being Winston Landry’s son first.”
“Fuck that.” I took a step toward him. “And fuck you for thinking you can control me like this.”
“I’m not trying to control you. I’m trying to protect you.”
“By telling Yahmaria about Truth?” The words came out like venom. “Did you? Did you tell her about the surrogate?”
His silence was answer enough.
“You son of a bitch!”
“She had a right to know.” Winston’s voice was steel. “You’re about to be a father. That changes things.”