9. AMAI #2
And I could work with that.
I could work with anything as long as it meant keeping her.
“Everything is fine. This is Priest. You will have time to get to know him. He’s the only person I trust with my life,” I said.
“What about mine?” Truth asked.
“I’m the only one I trust with your life but he’s a close second.”
“Nice to meet you.” Priest extended his hand.
“You as well.” Truth forced a smile.
“Well, I have to get back. Amai, let me know if either of you need anything else.”
“I will.”
Priest saw himself off, leaving me and Truth alone. We hadn’t truly been alone before.
Truth moved across the patio with careful steps, like she was testing the ground beneath her feet.
My robe—the one I’d left hanging in the bathroom—draped around her full frame, sleeves rolled up twice, hem pooling at her ankles.
She looked swallowed by it. Fragile in a way that made you want to sacrifice anything to keep her from breaking.
She took the seat beside me. Not across from me. Beside me.
Close enough that I could smell the faint scent of my soap on her skin.
“What now?”
Two words. Simple. But loaded with everything—the baby, the sperm revelation, Kaisen bleeding out in that clinic, Victor’s words still burning in my memory, my father’s silent judgment, the fact that she was here, in my space, wearing my clothes, carrying a child that might be my brother’s.
I turned my head to look at her. Really look at her.
The moonlight caught the exhaustion in her face—shadows under her eyes, tension in her jaw. But her gaze was steady. She wasn’t crying. Wasn’t falling apart. She was asking. Planning. Trying to understand the shape of what came next.
That’s what I’d seen in her file but hadn’t fully understood until now. Truth Renois didn’t break. She bent, she survived, she strategized. She could do hard things.
“Now,” I said, voice low and even, “you call your mother.”
Her brow furrowed slightly. “My mother?”
“You tell her you’ll be out of town for a while.
With me.” I watched her process that, saw the flicker of resistance, the questions forming.
“You say whatever you need to say so she won’t worry.
Tell her you’re taking a trip. Tell her you need space.
Tell her we need to figure things out. I don’t care what story you give her, as long as she believes it. ”
Truth’s lips parted, then closed. She looked out toward the water, the lake peaceful in a way that I envied.
“This needs to stay quiet,” I continued. My tone didn’t change, but the weight behind the words did. “Nobody can know where you are. Not your sisters. Not your friends. Nobody.”
She turned back to me, and there was something sharp in her expression. Not anger exactly. Wariness.
“How long are we going to be at the lakehouse?” Her hands trembled.
I leaned back in my chair, one hand resting on the armrest, the other refilling a new glass.
I took a slow sip, buying myself a moment.
The truth was, I didn’t have a clean answer.
I had variables. Moving pieces. Threats I needed to neutralize before I could bring her back into the city.
She was visibly still terrified. Of me and the unknown.
I hated she saw the other side of me. A side I never wanted her to see.
But with everything going on, I knew it wouldn’t be the last time she saw the demon.
Rahsaan circling. Victor holding leverage. Winston watching. Yahmaria refusing to let go. Kaisen’s blood still fresh on my hands.
And Truth, sitting here in my robe, asking reasonable questions that I couldn’t fully answer.
“I’m not sure,” I said finally. “I need to get some things in place before we go back.”
“What things?”
Her voice was calm, but I heard the edge underneath. She wasn’t going to let me be vague. She wanted details, assurances, something concrete to hold onto.
I set my cup down on the small table between us. I turned my body toward her, one arm draped over the back of my chair. Close enough now that if I reached out, I could touch her.
I didn’t.
“Just things,” I said.
It sounded dismissive even to my own ears. I saw her eyes widen, saw the way her fingers curled into the fabric of the robe. She was frustrated. Maybe scared. Definitely tired of being kept in the dark.
I couldn’t blame her.
But I also couldn’t tell her everything. Not yet. Not when the landscape was still shifting, when I didn’t know who was listening, who was watching, who would use any scrap of information against us.
I exhaled slowly, my gaze locked on hers.
“I know it’s a big ask,” I said, and my voice dropped lower, rougher. “Especially after everything that’s happened. After what you found out at that clinic. After what I did to Kaisen. After I pulled you out of your life and brought you here without giving you a choice.”
Truth didn’t look away. She held my gaze, and I could see her working through it—weighing my words, measuring the distance between what I was saying and what I wasn’t. Fear lingered in her eyes.
“But I need you to trust me.”
The words hung in the air between us.
Trust.
The most unreasonable thing I could ask for. I’d had her investigated. Inserted myself into her life. Knew she’d be my surrogate before I even met her. I’d stabbed my own brother in front of her. I’d brought her to a place she didn’t know, surrounded by people loyal to me, not her.
And now I was asking her to trust me.
I watched her face, reading every micro-expression. The way her breathing changed. The slight tension in her shoulders. The way her eyes searched mine, looking for something—honesty, maybe. Or proof that I wasn’t just another man trying to control her.
I wanted to tell her I’d burn the whole city down before I let anyone touch her.
That I’d already decided she was mine, baby or no baby, Kaisen’s sperm or my own.
That the feeling in my chest when I looked at her wasn’t strategy or legacy or obligation—it was something I didn’t have a name for, something that scared me more than my father’s wrath or Victor’s leverage or Rahsaan’s patience.
I didn’t know how to not control what I loved.
But I didn’t say any of that.
Instead, I waited.
Because this moment—this choice—had to be hers.
“I don’t trust you,” she said finally. “I’m terrified of what you’re capable of.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t react. Just held her gaze and waited for the rest.
“But I do trust you’ll keep me safe.” Her voice was steady now, certain. “I saw what you did today. That’s not a question.”
Something shifted. Not relief exactly. More like recognition. She wasn’t naive. She knew what I was. What I’d done. And she was choosing to stay anyway—not because she believed I was good, but because she believed I was effective.
I could work with that.
I leaned forward slightly, elbows on my knees, hands clasped between them. The question I needed to ask sat heavy on my tongue.
“How do you feel,” I said slowly, “about the baby potentially being Kaisen’s?”
Truth went quiet.
Not the kind of quiet that meant she was thinking. The kind that meant she was trying not to break.
I watched her throat work as she swallowed. Watched her fingers dig into the arm of the chair. Watched the way her jaw clenched and released, clenched and released.
“Sick to my stomach,” she said finally, and her voice was barely above a whisper.
I didn’t interrupt.
“My body was violated.” She looked down at her hands, at the way they were gripping the chair like it was the only thing keeping her grounded.
“How could Kaisen do something like that? He didn’t seem like—” She stopped, shook her head.
“From what I’ve learned about him, he didn’t seem like the kind of person who would—”
Jealousy ripped through me.
Sharp. Vicious. Immediate.
From what I’ve learned about him.
The words echoed in my head, each syllable a blade.
She’d learned things about Kaisen. She’d spent time with him.
Talked to him. Let him into her life in ways I hadn’t earned yet.
He knew her laugh, her habits, the way she took her coffee.
He’d seen her in moments I’d only read about in a file. And all of it fucked me up inside.
The thought sliced me to my core. Like part of my soul was slowly seeping out.
If I had one, of course.
I kept my face neutral. Kept my breathing even. Kept the rage locked down where it belonged. It was important she knew she could talk to me no matter what. Despite how hard it was.
“Kaisen,” I said, my voice colder than I intended, “is not the man he portrayed himself to be.”
Truth looked up at me then, and I saw the conflict in her eyes. She wanted to believe me. But she also wanted to believe in the version of Kaisen she’d known.
I needed to understand what that version looked like.
“How did you meet him?” I asked.
She exhaled slowly, like she was deciding how much to tell me.
“I was at the park,” she said. “Doing some day trading on my laptop. He walked by, saw what I was watching, and commented on a stock.” She paused. “It went from there.”
I nodded, keeping my expression blank even as my mind catalogued every detail. The park. Day trading. A casual approach that didn’t feel casual at all.
“He was consistent,” Truth continued, and there was something in her voice now—something that made every muscle in my body tighten. “When you were inconsistent. You sent a chef.” She looked at me directly. “Kaisen made homemade soup and brought it to my mama’s house.”
The words hit me like a physical blow.
“Hold the fuck on.” I sat up straighter, my entire body going rigid. “He met yo’ mama?”
Truth nodded. “Yeah. He did.”
I felt something crack inside me. Not break—crack. Like a fault line opening in bedrock.
Kaisen had met Delphine. Had been inside Truth’s family home. Had sat at her table, probably charmed her mother, made himself part of her world in a way I attempted.
“Delphine even said you two looked alike,” Truth added, and there was a strange note in her voice. “But I thought she was just drunk. Or delusional.”