15. YAHMARIA #4
I rubbed my throat, my voice hoarse. “Priest is missing? What do you mean missing?”
“Exactly what I said. He’s gone. No one knows where he is.”
“Winston—”
“Winston doesn’t know either. Or if he does, he’s not saying.” Amai ran a hand over his face, and for the first time, I saw the exhaustion there. The cracks in his armor. “Everything is falling apart.”
I straightened, trying to regain some semblance of control. “My father said the marriage arrangement still stands. He said Winston is counting on it—on us—to keep the alliance strong.”
Amai laughed—a bitter, hollow sound. “Your father can tell Winston whatever he wants. I’m done playing by their rules.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m moving to the 9th Ward.”
The words hit me like a slap. “You’re what?”
“You heard me. I’m moving back to my old house. I’ll be out by the end of the week.”
“To be with her.” It wasn’t a question.
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“You can’t save her, Amai.” The words came out before I could stop them. “You think you can, but you can’t. She’s going to fall apart just like everyone else. Just like your mother. Just like me. Just like every woman who’s ever been stupid enough to love you.”
His hand shot out again, but this time, he didn’t grab my throat.
He grabbed my jaw, forcing me to look at him.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he said, his voice shaking with barely controlled rage. “Truth is nothing like you. She’s nothing like any of you.”
“She’s human, Amai. She’s going to break. And when she does, you’re going to be the one holding the pieces because you’ll be the one to break her.”
His grip tightened, and I saw something flicker in his eyes. Something that looked almost like fear.
“Get out of my way,” he finally said, releasing me.
I stumbled back, and he pushed past me into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
I stood there in the hallway, breathing hard, my throat aching, my jaw throbbing.
And for the first time since this whole mess started, I understood.
Amai was gone.
Not physically—not yet—but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.
He’d crossed a line I couldn’t follow him over.
He’d fallen in love.
Real, consuming, destructive love.
The kind that made men do stupid things. The kind that made them burn down empires, destroy alliances, and throw away everything they’d built.
The kind that got people killed.
I pressed my hand to my throat, feeling the bruises already forming beneath my skin.
He’d choked me.
Amai had put his hands on me in a way he never had before.
I’d pushed him. I’d threatened what was his. And he’d responded the only way a man like Amai knew how.
With violence.
I walked back to Syx’s room on shaking legs. Glad he didn’t hear any of that and tried to intervene.
He was still sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands.
“You good?” he asked without looking up.
“No.” My voice was hoarse. “But I will be.”
He finally looked at me, his eyes taking in the marks on my throat, the tears on my face.
“He hurt you.”
“He warned me.” I touched my throat gently. “I didn’t listen.”
Syx stood and crossed to me, his hands gentle as he tilted my chin up to examine the bruises.
“This is fucked up, Yaya.”
“I know.”
“You can’t stay here.”
“I don’t have anywhere else to go.” I pulled away from him, wrapping my arms around myself. “My father would just send me back. He needs this alliance. He needs me married to Amai.”
“Even if Amai kills you?”
I didn’t answer.
Because the truth was, I didn’t know.
I didn’t know if my father would choose me over the alliance. I didn’t know if Winston would intervene. I didn’t know if Amai would actually follow through on the threat in his eyes.
All I knew was that everything was changing.
The ground was shifting beneath my feet, and I had no idea where I was going to land.
“Come here,” Syx said softly, pulling me into his arms.
I let him hold me, let myself sink into the warmth of his body, the solidness of his presence.
“We’ll figure it out,” he murmured against my hair. “We’ll figure something out.”
But even as he said it, I knew the truth.
There was nothing to figure out.
Amai was leaving.
Priest was missing.
The family was fracturing.
And I was standing in the middle of it all, watching everything I’d built crumble to dust.
I pulled back and looked up at Syx, my vision blurred with tears.
“What if he’s right?” I whispered. “What if she really is different?”
Syx’s jaw tightened. “Then we’re all fucked.”
I nodded slowly, because that was the truth.
If Truth Renois really was different—if she really could hold Amai’s heart without breaking it—then everything was about to change.
And not in a way any of us could control.
I heard the shower turn on in Amai’s bathroom, and I knew he was washing away the evidence of wherever he’d been, whatever he’d done.
Washing away the old version of himself.
Preparing for whatever came next.
And I was left standing in the wreckage, trying to figure out how to survive in a world where I no longer mattered.
Where I’d never really mattered at all.
I pulled away from Syx’s arms, reality crashing back in.
“I need to go,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “Before he comes out.”
Syx’s hand gently caught my wrist. “Yaya—”
“I can’t be in here when he leaves.” I looked at him, and something in my expression made him release me. “I just can’t.”
He nodded, understanding without needing explanation.
I grabbed my silk robe from where it had fallen near the bed and wrapped it around myself, tying the belt with shaking fingers. My hair was a mess—I could feel it. My lips were swollen. My throat still ached from where Amai had choked me.
I looked like exactly what I was: a woman who’d been fucked and then nearly killed in the same night.
I smoothed my hair as best I could and checked my reflection in Syx’s mirror. The bruises on my throat were already darkening—purple and blue fingerprints that would take days to fade.
Evidence.
I adjusted the collar of my robe to cover them and took a breath.
“Go,” Syx said softly. “I’ll wait.”
I slipped out of his room and moved down the hallway on silent feet, my heart hammering. Amai’s bedroom door was still closed, the shower still running.
I made it to my own room and closed the door behind me, leaning against it.
Safe.
For now.
I showered and changed into clean clothes—black leggings, an oversized sweater that covered my throat completely. I washed my face, reapplied minimal makeup, tried to look like a woman who’d spent the night alone in her room instead of tangled up with her husband’s cousin.
Then I waited.
I sat on the edge of my bed, listening.
The shower turned off.
Footsteps moved through Amai’s room.
A closet door opened and closed.
More footsteps—down the stairs this time.
I held my breath.
The front door opened.
Closed.
And then—the sound of Amai’s car starting in the driveway.
The engine rumbled then faded as he pulled away.
Silence.
I exhaled slowly and stood, my legs unsteady beneath me.
He was gone.
I left my room and moved downstairs, the house feeling too big and too empty now. My footsteps echoed on the hardwood as I made my way to the kitchen.
I needed coffee. Or wine. Or something to ground me in the present moment instead of spiraling into what the fuck I’d just done.
I was pulling a mug from the cabinet when I heard footsteps behind me.
“You good?”
I turned to find Syx standing in the doorway, his locs pulled back, wearing gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt that clung to his chest and arms in ways that made my mouth go dry.
“Define good,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt.
He crossed the kitchen and leaned against the counter beside me, close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his body.
“You want coffee or something stronger?”
“Coffee,” I said. “For now.”
He smirked and reached past me to grab the coffee grounds from the cabinet, his arm brushing mine. The contact sent a shiver through me that I couldn’t hide.
“You’re shaking,” he observed, his voice low.
“I’m processing.”
“Processing what?” He started the coffee maker, his movements easy and familiar. “The fact that Amai choked you? Or the fact that you let me fuck you?”
I flinched at the bluntness, but I didn’t look away. “Both.”
“Fair.” He leaned back against the counter, his dark eyes studying me. “You regret it?”
“No.” The answer came faster than I expected. “Do you?”
“Hell no.” His gaze dropped to my mouth, then back up. “I’ve wanted you for a long time, Yaya. You know that.”
I did know that. I’d always known that.
Syx had never hidden the way he looked at me—like I was something he wanted to devour. Like I was forbidden fruit he’d been denied too long.
“You’re twenty,” I said quietly. “I’m twenty-eight.”
“So?”
“So, you could have any woman you want. Younger. Less complicated.”
“I don’t want any woman.” He stepped closer, his hand coming up to cup my jaw gently. “I want you.”
My breath caught. “This is a bad idea.”
“Probably.” His thumb traced my bottom lip. “But we’re doing it anyway.”
“I’m still married to your cousin.”
“Technically.” His eyes darkened. “But we both know that marriage is a sham. You don’t love him. He doesn’t love you. You’re just two people trapped in an arrangement neither of you wants.”
“That doesn’t make this okay.”
“Maybe not.” He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear. “But it makes it real.”
The coffee maker beeped, breaking the tension.
Syx pulled back and poured two mugs, handing me one. I wrapped my hands around it, grateful for something to hold onto.
“How many men have you been with?” he asked suddenly, his tone casual but his eyes sharp.
I blinked. “What?”
“How many?”
“Why does that matter?”
“It doesn’t.” He took a sip of his coffee. “I’m just curious. You’ve been married to Amai for years. Before that?”
I hesitated, then decided fuck it—we’d already crossed every line there was to cross.
“Three,” I lied. “Including Amai.”
His eyebrows rose. “Three? That’s it?”
Hell yeah that was it. You never give a nigga your real body count.