TRUTH
Imade it to my car before the tears came back, hot and fast, blurring the streetlights lining Mama’s block. I sat there a minute with my hands on the wheel, breathing through it, because I wasn’t about to fall apart in front of her house a second time. She’d worried herself sick enough for one day.
I pulled out my phone and called Amai.
“I need you to meet me at your house. Right now.”
“Can’t right now.” Just like that. A statement.
“Amai, it’s important.”
“So is what I’m doing.” A pause, something shifting in his tone—harder, focused. “I finally got what I need on this. Information that’s gonna bring this whole thing closer to being over. I can’t walk away from it right now.”
My chest tightened. “I’m carrying your daughter, Amai. I think that’s a little more important than whatever war business you got going on tonight.”
“Truth—”
“No, listen to me—”
“I’ll call you when I’m done.” And then the line went dead.
Just like that. Dial tone humming in my ear like an insult.
I stared at the phone in my hand, my whole body shaking with something hotter than sadness now.
Rage. Pure, clean rage. I had spent the entire day drowning—clinic, results, Mama’s kitchen table, tears I didn’t know I still had left to cry—and I finally worked up the nerve to go tell the father of my daughter the truth, and he hung up on me like I was some business call he didn’t have time for.
I sat in front of Mama’s house for a long minute, engine idling, staring at her porch light through the windshield, feeling a new level of ‘this nigga got me fucked up’ settle into my spine.
Fine. If Amai didn’t have time for me, I knew somebody who would.
I scrolled to Kaisen’s name before I could talk myself out of it.
My thumb hovered a second—because calling him wasn’t nothing, not after everything, not after Amai put a bullet in him and a hospital took a piece of him out because of me, because of what he did on my porch.
But I wanted him to hear this too. He deserved to hear it from me, not through some family grapevine, not through Winston’s mouth twisted into something ugly.
He answered on the first ring. “Truth?”
The awkwardness hit instantly, thick as fog. Neither one of us said anything for a second, and I could practically feel the tension bleeding through the phone—him healing from surgery, me the reason he was.
“Hey,” I said finally, my voice quieter than I meant it to be. “I need to talk to you. About the twins.”
There was a pause, and then his voice changed—brightened, something almost boyish sneaking into it despite everything. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Whatever you need.”
“I can come to you,” I said. “I don’t really think it’s a good idea for you to come to me.”
“Perfect. I’ll text you the address right now. I’ll let my security team know to expect you—they’ll walk you right through, no issues.” A beat. “Truth, I mean it. I’m glad you called.”
I didn’t say anything to that. I wasn’t trying to make this into something it wasn’t. I just needed him to know what I knew, and I needed to say it out loud to somebody who’d actually stay long enough to hear it.
“Send the address,” I said and hung up before either of us could turn it into more than that.
The GPS took me out past the edge of the city, past the last stretch of familiar streets, until the houses thinned out and the trees closed in, and then—suddenly—opened onto something that looked like it had been dropped out of another decade entirely.
Kaisen’s house didn’t look like a house.
It looked like something you’d see in a magazine spread about the future, all sharp angles, black glass, and metal that caught the moonlight like it was trying to bend it.
Motion-sensor lights lit a path along a driveway paved smooth as glass, and somewhere in the dark, I could hear the low electric hum of a security system that was clearly doing a lot more than just watching a gate.
I sat there a second, taking it in, my headlights washing over a fortress dressed up like a spaceship.
Lord. Elon Musk himself could’ve slept here and felt right at home.
The gate rolled open before I even reached it, silent, automatic, like the whole property had been waiting for me. I exhaled, gripped the wheel, and drove forward into whatever this was about to be.
I parked in front of a garage that had more glass than my entire apartment used to have windows, and before I could even get my seatbelt off, a man in all black stepped out of the shadows near the door and opened it for me.
He didn’t say much—just a nod, a murmured “Ms. Renois,” like I was expected, like my name had already been logged into whatever system ran this place.
He walked me up the path, past lights that seemed to know exactly where my feet were about to land, and there, framed in the doorway under a light so clean and white it looked surgical, was Kaisen.
Leaning on a cane.
I stopped short for half a second, taking him in.
The weight was gone from his frame in a way that made my stomach drop—cheeks hollowed out, the sharp lines of his jaw more severe than I remembered, his shirt hanging looser on his shoulders like it belonged to a bigger version of him from a few weeks back.
He’d been through a stabbing and a gunshot wound back-to-back; his body was probably still trying to figure out which injury to heal first. Standing there, he looked like a man who’d been rebuilt out of spare parts and stubbornness.
Guilt twisted in my chest, unwanted and inconvenient.
I hated that I still felt something, looking at him like that.
But I reminded myself—quick, sharp, like slapping my own hand—that whatever hope I might’ve given him, whatever door I might’ve left cracked open when I didn’t know better, that wasn’t the same as what he did.
He made a decision a long time ago not to tell me the truth.
He let me walk around blind while he already knew the shape of the trap I was standing in.
That wasn’t on me. That would never be on me.
Compassion and clarity could live in the same body. I was learning that real quick these days.
“Truth.” His voice was soft, careful, like he was afraid saying my name too loud might scare me off.
“Kaisen.”
He shifted his weight, wincing slightly as he pivoted his body to the side, so I could step past him into the house, careful with that cane like it was the only thing keeping gravity from winning. The door clicked shut behind me, sealing out the night.
“This way,” he said, and I followed him down a hallway that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie—smooth walls, hidden lighting, floors so polished I could see the ghost of my own reflection moving beside me.
We ended up in a living room that felt more like a museum exhibit than a place anybody actually lived: sharp furniture, high windows, a fireplace that looked like it had never been lit.
“Sit, please.” He gestured to a chair, then lowered himself onto the couch across from it, exhaling hard through his nose as he did, one hand pressed briefly against his side like his body was reminding him of every mistake that led him here.
I sat. I didn’t relax.
“I don’t want to waste your time,” I said, because I didn’t. Not tonight. Not after the day I’d already had. “I got the results today.”
His whole body went still.
“The girl,” I said, watching him carefully, “is Amai’s. The boy—” I paused, made sure my voice didn’t shake, made sure this landed exactly the way it needed to. “The boy is yours, Kaisen.”
For a second, he didn’t move at all. Then something broke loose in his face—raw, unguarded, almost frightening in how much relief and joy came pouring out at once.
His eyes went glassy. His mouth curved into a smile that looked less like happiness and more like a man who’d been drowning and just found ground beneath his feet.
“He’s mine,” he said, like he needed to hear himself say it. “He’s really—” His voice cracked, and he laughed, short and disbelieving, running a hand down his face like he was trying to keep himself from unraveling completely. “I have a son.”
I sat there and watched him come apart with joy, and something cold moved through me, quiet and unmistakable.
This wasn’t just relief. This was a man who needed this more than he needed almost anything else in his life—needed proof that some part of me, some part of this child, belonged to him and couldn’t be taken away by his brother, by his father, by anybody.
I could see it settling into him like armor. Like ammunition.
And sitting there in that glass-and-steel fortress he called a home, I understood exactly how much power I’d just handed him.
I let him have his moment. I owed him that much, at least—a few seconds to feel whole before I said what I came to say.
“Kaisen.” I waited until his eyes found mine again, until the glassiness cleared enough that I knew he could actually hear me. “I need you to listen to me. Really listen.”
He nodded, still riding that high, still smiling like the world had just tilted back onto its axis for him.
“This doesn’t change anything between me and Amai,” I said, steady, not raising my voice, because I needed him to understand this wasn’t up for negotiation. “I’m still with him. That’s not going to change because of a DNA test.”
His smile faltered at the edges.
“But I want you in your son’s life,” I continued.
“I mean that. He deserves to know his father. And I know you can be a good one, when you’re not letting your pride run the show.
” I leaned forward slightly, making sure he felt the weight of it.
“But that only works if you respect me. My boundaries. My decisions. My relationship. If you can’t do that, Kaisen, we are going to have a problem. A real one.”
He was quiet for a moment, jaw working like he was chewing on something bitter. Then, he shook his head slowly, like I was the one who needed convincing.