4. AMAI
AMAI
The smell hit me first.
Industrial cleaner trying to mask the scent of old blood and rust. Concrete dust. Motor oil. And underneath it all—something sharper, more chemical. The kind of smell that made your eyes water if you breathed too deep.
The slaughterhouse sat on the outskirts of New Orleans, past the industrial parks and abandoned warehouses, where nobody asked questions and nobody looked too close. The building had been a meat processing plant once—back before Katrina, before the city forgot about this part of town entirely.
Now it was mine.
And it served a different purpose.
The main floor was cavernous. High ceilings with exposed beams. Rusted hooks still hanging from the overhead rails. Concrete floors with drains built in—original construction, designed for easy cleanup.
I’d kept those.
They were useful.
Seven men hung suspended from the ceiling by industrial chains. Their wrists were bound above their heads, their feet dangling. Directly beneath each of them sat a fifty-five-gallon drum filled with hydrofluoric acid.
The acid was clear. Almost looked like water.
It wasn’t.
The men were sweating. Some of them were crying. One had already pissed himself—the dark stain spreading down his jeans, dripping onto the concrete below.
I stood in front of them, hands in my pockets, my suit jacket unbuttoned. I’d rolled up my sleeves. Not because I planned to get my hands dirty—I had people for that—but because the warehouse was hot, and I didn’t like feeling constricted.
Syx was leaning against the wall to my left, eating a Hot Pocket like he was watching a movie. Pepperoni and cheese. The smell of it mixed with everything else in the air.
“Yo,” he said around a mouthful of food. “We about to have some cream of opps today.”
I didn’t look at him.
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Damn, cuz.” He laughed, unbothered. “I’m just saying.”
“You’re here to be seen,” I said, my voice flat. “Not heard.”
Syx grinned and took another bite of his Hot Pocket.
“Oh, I’m always gon’ be heard,” he said. “But proceed with your dismemberment, cousin.”
I ignored him.
Turned my attention back to the seven men hanging in front of me.
They were dock workers. Had been on my payroll for years. Good money. Steady work. Protection from the kind of people who’d gut you for looking at them wrong.
And they’d thrown it away.
“You know why you’re here,” I said.
My voice echoed in the empty space.
One of them—Jeff, I think his name was—started shaking his head frantically.
“Mr. Landry, please—I didn’t—we didn’t—”
“You did.” I stepped closer. Looked up at him. “All seven of you did.”
“We don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Rahsaan Boudreaux,” I said simply.
The name landed like a gunshot.
Jeff went still. The others stopped moving. Even the one who’d been crying went quiet.
“I knew the moment you were turned,” I continued, my tone conversational. Almost friendly. “You want to know what gave you away?”
Silence.
“It wasn’t the money,” I said. “Rahsaan’s smart. He knows how to make an offer look good. And you were all broke enough to take it.”
I walked slowly along the line of men, my footsteps echoing on the concrete.
“It wasn’t even the information you were feeding him,” I continued. “Shipment schedules. Security rotations. Dock access codes. That’s standard. That’s what traitors do.”
I stopped in front of the second man. Looked up at him.
“What gave you away,” I said quietly, “was that nothing got done unless Priest handled it personally.”
The man’s eyes widened.
“See, that’s not normal,” I continued. “Priest is my second. He oversees operations. He doesn’t run them. That’s what I pay you for.”
I moved to the next man.
“But for the past three weeks, every single shipment that came through the docks required Priest’s direct supervision. Every security check. Every inventory count. Every fucking thing.”
My voice didn’t rise. Didn’t need to.
“And I started asking myself—why? Why are seven experienced dock workers suddenly incompetent? Why is Priest doing their jobs for them?”
I stopped in the center of the line. Looked at all of them.
“And then I realized,” I said. “You weren’t incompetent. You were distracted. Too busy feeding information to Rahsaan to do the work I was paying you for.”
“Mr. Landry—” one of them started.
“You picked the wrong side,” I said, cutting him off.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. Sent a single text to Priest.
Start.
A mechanical whir filled the warehouse.
The chains holding the men began to lower.
Slowly.
Six inches.
Then they stopped.
The men started screaming.
“No—no, please—”
“Mr. Landry, we’ll fix it—we’ll tell you everything—”
“Please, I got kids—”
I put my phone back in my pocket.
Watched.
The acid was two feet below their dangling feet now. Close enough that they could see it. Smell it. Understand exactly what was about to happen.
“Hydrofluoric acid,” I said, my voice cutting through their panic. “It’s interesting stuff. Doesn’t burn like sulfuric acid. It dissolves. Breaks down organic tissue at the molecular level.”
Another whir.
The chains lowered another six inches.
Eighteen inches now.
One of the men was hyperventilating so hard I thought he might pass out.
“It’ll start with your feet,” I continued, as if I were explaining a recipe. “The acid will eat through your shoes first. Then your skin. Then the muscle. Then the bone.”
Twelve inches.
“The pain is…” I paused, considering. “Extraordinary. From what I understand. I’ve never experienced it myself.”
“Please—”
“But here’s the thing about hydrofluoric acid,” I said. “It doesn’t just destroy tissue. It absorbs into your bloodstream. Attacks your nervous system. Your heart. Your lungs.”
Six inches.
Their feet were almost touching the surface now.
“So, even if I pulled you out after thirty seconds,” I said, “you’d still die. Just slower. More painfully.”
I looked at each of them in turn.
“You betrayed me,” I said simply. “You took my money. My protection. My trust. And you sold it to a man who’s been trying to kill me for six years.”
The first man’s foot touched the acid.
The scream that came out of him wasn’t human.
It was primal. Animalistic. The kind of sound that came from a place deeper than thought or language.
His shoe dissolved first—the rubber melting away like sugar in hot water. Then his sock. Then his skin.
The smell hit a second later.
Burning flesh mixed with the sharp chemical tang of the acid. It was thick. Cloying. The kind of smell that coated the back of your throat and made you want to vomit.
Syx took another bite of his Hot Pocket, completely unbothered.
The man was thrashing now, his whole body convulsing as the acid ate through his foot and started on his ankle. The flesh bubbled and peeled away in strips, exposing white bone underneath.
Now, two of them were touching the acid. Then three. Then all seven.
The warehouse filled with screaming.
High-pitched. Desperate. Inhuman.
One of them was begging God. Another was begging me. A third had stopped making coherent sounds entirely—just raw, guttural shrieks that echoed off the concrete walls.
The drums started turning pink as blood and liquefied tissue mixed with the clear acid. Then red. Then a dark, murky brown.
I pulled out my phone. Checked the time.
11:43 PM.
I had a meeting at 7:00 AM. Needed to be home by one to get at least a few hours of sleep.
The screaming was getting quieter now.
Not because the men had stopped—but because their vocal cords were giving out. Shredded from the force of their own screams.
One of them had passed out. His body hung limp in the chains, still being lowered inch by inch into the acid. His legs were gone up to the knees now. Just ragged stumps of bone and dissolving tissue.
Another was still conscious but had stopped screaming. His mouth was open. His eyes were rolled back in his head. Shock, probably. The body’s last mercy before death.
I looked at Syx.
He’d finished his Hot Pocket and was scrolling through his phone.
“You good?” I asked.
He glanced up. Looked at the men. Shrugged.
“Yeah, I’m straight.” He pocketed his phone. “This is light work compared to some of the shit I seen.”
I nodded.
Turned back to the men.
The chains had stopped lowering. They were waist-deep now. The acid had eaten through their legs entirely—nothing left but fragments of bone floating in the murky liquid. Their torsos were starting to dissolve. Skin peeling away. Muscle liquefying.
Two of them were already dead. The others would be gone in minutes.
I pulled out my phone again. Texted Priest.
Send the cleanup crew. One hour.
His response came immediately.
Copy.
I looked at the seven drums one last time.
Seven men who’d made a choice.
Seven men who’d chosen wrong.
The violence no longer satisfied me like it used to.
Not since Truth. I checked my phone for the hundredth time and still hadn’t heard from her.
It was getting harder and harder to stay away from her.
She was like a magnet. Her light, love, and softness were addictive.
Something I’d never experienced from anyone other than my mama. Truth was rare.
“Let’s go,” I said to Syx.
He pushed off the wall, stretched, and yawned like he’d just woken up from a nap.
“Aight, cuz.”
We walked toward the exit. Our footsteps echoed on the concrete. Behind us, the wet, bubbling sound of dissolving flesh continued.
I didn’t look back.
Outside, the air was thick and humid. The smell of the bayou—mud and moss and standing water—was almost pleasant after the chemical stench of the warehouse.
I pulled out my keys. Unlocked the car.
Syx climbed into the passenger seat, already pulling out his phone again.
I sat behind the wheel. Started the engine. Let the AC blast cold air into the cabin.
I felt nothing.
Not satisfaction. Not guilt. Not anger.
Nothing.
This was business.
This was consequence.
This was what happened when you betrayed Amai Landry.
Me and Syx didn’t talk much on the way home. That was usual for us. I just wanted to shower and get in my bed.