1. AMAI #4
They fanned out instead—two moving left, two moving right, trying to flank me.
I tracked them with both guns, my finger resting on the trigger of the one aimed at the lead guard’s chest.
“I said back up.”
“Mr. Landry—” The lead guard’s voice was calm. The kind of calm that came from training and experience. “You need to put the guns down and leave the property.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I talk to Victor.”
“Mr. Baptiste doesn’t want to see you.”
“Then he shouldn’t have sent his daughter to my house.”
The front door opened.
Victor Baptiste stepped out onto the porch.
He was sixty-five years old and built like a man who’d spent his youth breaking bones, and his middle age breaking spirits. Gray hair slicked back, expensive suit, a cigar clenched between his teeth.
He looked at the wreckage of his gate.
Then at my car.
Then at me.
“Who the fuck,” he said slowly, his voice carrying across the lawn, “do you think you are damaging my property?”
I kept both guns raised.
“The man who’s about to put a bullet in you if you don’t call off your dogs.”
Victor’s expression didn’t change.
He took the cigar out of his mouth. Tapped the ash onto his pristine porch.
“You got some nerve coming here like this.”
“And you got some nerve sending Yahmaria to my house like we’re about to play happy family.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s my daughter. She’s got every right to check on her husband.”
“I’m her husband on paper. That’s it.” My voice was rising now, the control I’d been holding onto starting to slip.
“I haven’t been her husband in every way that matters for a long damn time.
Everyone in this city knows I’ve been trying to divorce her ass.
So why the fuck is she acting like we’re reconciling? ”
“Because you’re married,” Victor said simply. “In the eyes of God and the law. That means something.”
“It means nothing.” I took a step forward. The security team tensed. “She runs around like she’s single. She humiliates me. She—”
“She’s your wife,” Victor interrupted. His voice was steel now. “And you will treat her with respect.”
“Respect?” I laughed—a harsh, ugly sound. “You want me to respect a woman who—”
Victor moved.
Fast.
Faster than a man his age should have been able to move.
He pulled a gun from inside his jacket—a .45, chrome-plated, the kind of weapon that made a statement—and aimed it directly at my head.
“Walk that shit back,” he said quietly, “before I blow your head off.”
The security team shifted.
Waiting.
Watching.
Ready to move the second their boss gave the order.
I didn’t lower my guns.
Instead, I raised the second one—the one that had been aimed at the lead guard—and trained it on Victor.
Now we were both standing there.
Both armed.
Both ready to kill.
The air between us was electric.
Charged with violence that was about to happen.
“You think I won’t do it?” Victor asked. His voice was calm. “You think I won’t put you in the ground for disrespecting my daughter?”
“I think you’ll try,” I said. “And I think you’ll die trying. You not stupid. My dad will have your head if you touch me.”
We stood there.
Locked in a standoff that could only end one way.
Then the front door opened again.
Yahmaria stepped out.
She was wearing a white sundress that clung to her curves, her hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail, her makeup perfect despite the early hour.
She looked between me and her father.
Then she walked down the porch steps and positioned herself directly between us.
“Stop,” she said.
Her voice was steady.
The voice of a woman who’d grown up watching men kill each other over pride and had learned how to navigate the violence.
“Yahmaria—” Victor started.
“Daddy, put the gun down.”
Victor didn’t move.
Neither did I.
Yahmaria turned to face me.
Up close, I could see the calculation in her eyes. The intelligence. The understanding that she held all the cards, and we both knew it.
“There’s no divorce coming, Amai,” she said quietly. “You need to accept that.”
“Like hell—”
“You can introduce me to Truth,” she continued, her voice never rising, “or I can pop up on her myself. In the Seventh Ward. At her mama’s house. Or wherever she is for that matter. You of all people know how resourceful I am.”
My blood went cold.
“You stay the fuck away from her.”
“Then introduce us.” Yahmaria tilted her head. “Let me meet the woman who’s carrying my husband’s baby. Let me see what’s so special about a surrogate from the hood that’s got you acting like this.”
“She’s not—”
“She’s not what?” Yahmaria’s smile was sharp. “Not just a surrogate? Not just some woman you paid to carry your child? Because from where I’m standing, that’s exactly what she is. And getting a surrogate out the hood?” She laughed. “That’s insane, Amai. But it is what it is.”
I wanted to kill her.
Wanted to pull the trigger, watch her fall, and deal with the consequences later.
But I couldn’t.
Because the moment I did, Victor would shoot me.
And his security team would finish the job.
And then Truth would be alone.
Unprotected.
Vulnerable to whatever Yahmaria decided to do next.
“Get the fuck off my property,” Victor said. His gun was still aimed at my head. “Before I have you removed.”
I looked at him.
Then at Yahmaria.
Then at the four security guards who were just waiting for an excuse to put me down.
The math was simple.
I could kill two of them—maybe three if I was fast enough.
But I couldn’t kill all six.
And the moment I started shooting, I was dead.
Which meant Truth was exposed.
Which meant I’d failed her.
I lowered my guns.
Slowly.
Letting them see that I was choosing to back down, not because I was afraid, but because I was smart enough to know when a fight wasn’t winnable.
“This isn’t over,” I said.
Victor smiled around his cigar.
“It never is with you Landrys.”
I holstered both weapons.
Turned.
Walked back to my destroyed car.
The driver’s side door was still hanging off its hinges. The front end was smoking, and the windshield was spiderwebbed with cracks.
I got in anyway.
Started the engine.
It coughed. Sputtered. Then caught.
I put it in reverse and backed down the driveway, past the wreckage of the gate, past the guard booth where the guard was still on the phone, probably calling the police.
I didn’t care.
Let them call.
Let them file a report.
Let them try to press charges.
I was Amai Landry.
And I didn’t answer to anyone.
But as I drove away from the Baptiste estate, my hands shaking on the steering wheel, my chest aching from the impact, my mind already calculating my next move—
I knew one thing with absolute certainty:
This wasn’t over.
Not by a long shot.
Yahmaria had just made a threat against Truth.
And that was a mistake she would regret.
I just needed to figure out how to make her regret it without getting myself killed in the process.
The tow truck and my other car were waiting a mile from the Baptiste estate, but the pain settling into my chest had nothing to do with the crash. Yahmaria had threatened Truth. Winston had chosen the alliance. Victor had drawn his line.
And now I had no choice but to draw mine.