5. AMAI
AMAI
The crawfish smell clung to my clothes, the laughter still echoing in my ears, and Delphine’s words—I know a hood nigga when I see one—sat in my chest like a stone I couldn’t swallow.
She’d read me in under thirty minutes.
Most people took years to see past the surface. Delphine Renois had done it over dominoes and cayenne-soaked crawfish tails.
I respected that.
I also knew it made her dangerous in a way most people weren’t—the kind of dangerous that came from loving someone so fiercely you’d burn the world down to protect them.
Truth had that kind of mother.
Good.
She’d need it.
I pulled out my phone before I even reached the car.
Priest answered on the first ring. “Yeah.”
“I need a full background on Truth Renois,” I said. “Financial, family, history, everything. I want to know what she ate for breakfast three years ago. Raymond did a preliminary one, but I need you to go deeper.”
“When you need it?”
“Six hours.”
Silence.
Then, “You serious?”
“Do I sound like I’m joking?”
“Aight. I’m on it.”
He hung up.
I slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and pulled away from the shotgun house with its peeling yellow paint and blue shutters that didn’t quite close all the way.
The neighborhood watched me leave—corner boys posted up outside serving, old men on porches with beers sweating in their hands, kids riding bikes in the street, even though it was almost nine o’clock on a weeknight.
This was Truth’s world.
And I was about to know every corner of it.
I drove back to the Garden District with the windows down, letting the city air wash over me—humid, thick with the smell of the river and fried food and fresh cut grass that only grew in New Orleans.
My mind was already working.
Truth Renois.
Truth Renois had looked me in the eye and told me she kept her promises.
I believed her.
But belief wasn’t enough.
I needed to know.
By the time I got home, it was after nine.
The house was quiet. Layla had left dinner in the fridge with a note—Shrimp étouffée. Heat on medium. Don’t burn it this time.
I smiled despite myself.
Syx was gone—probably out causing trouble somewhere, doing whatever the hell Syx did when he wasn’t lurking in my kitchen or showing up at his therapist’s office high as a kite.
For what I was paying, I didn’t give a fuck about no doctor/patient confidentiality.
I needed to know what was going on in Syx’s head.
Especially while he was living under my roof.
His crazy ass wasn’t about to snap and try to kill me in my damn sleep.
I poured myself two fingers of bourbon, sat down in my office, and waited.
Priest called at 2:34 AM.
“Got it,” he said.
“Talk.”
I heard papers rustling on his end. Then his voice, flat and efficient, delivering information the way a surgeon delivered bad news—clean, precise, no emotion.
“Truth Renois. Born September 12th. Raised in the Seventh Ward, same house she’s living in now. Mama Delphine bought it in ’99, paid it off in 2014. No mortgage. Property taxes current.”
“Family?”
“Three sisters. Saroya, thirty-two, lives in Algiers with three kids. Baby daddy’s not in the picture.
Honor, thirty-three, married to a guy named Terrence who cycles in and out of parish jail on low-level charges—possession, petty theft, nothing serious.
Then there’s Raven, thirty, works at a salon on Claiborne.
Tight family. Proud. Broke in that New Orleans way—house-rich, cash-poor, surviving on love and red beans. ”
I took a sip of bourbon. “The ex-husband.”
“Phillip Dimitry. Thirty-one. Works logistics at a shipping company on the West Bank. Married Truth in 2024, divorced her two months ago. Kept the house in Metairie—deed was in his name only. Kept the car—title in his name. Moved his side piece in two weeks before the divorce was finalized.”
My jaw tightened.
“Side piece got a name?”
“Destiny Encino. Twenty-two. Works makeup counter at Macy’s in Lakeside. Instagram model type. Posts pictures of the house like she earned it.”
I set the glass down carefully.
Very carefully.
“Truth’s financials?”
“Wrecked. Credit score in the low 500s. Phillip ran up cards in her name, didn’t pay them.
She’s been making minimum payments when she can, but it’s not enough.
No savings. Checking account’s got maybe two hundred bucks in it on a good week.
She works doubles at Magnolia Gardens—CNA, $14.
50 an hour. Picks up extra shifts when they’re available. ”
I closed my eyes.
$14.50 an hour.
She was wiping asses and changing bedpans for $14.50 an hour while her ex-husband lived in a house she’d helped pay for with a woman young enough to still think Instagram likes mattered.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Clean record. No arrests, no warrants, no trouble. She’s exactly what she looks like—a woman trying to survive after somebody took everything and left her with the bill.”
Silence.
Then I asked the question that mattered most.
“Red flags?”
“None.”
I exhaled slowly.
“What about Rahsaan?”
Priest’s tone shifted—became sharper, more alert.
“He’s moving. Pressing into the docks again. Had his people at the warehouse on Tchoupitoulas last night, talking to our drivers. Offering better rates, faster turnaround, all the usual bullshit.”
“How many drivers?”
“Three that we know of. Could be more.”
“Handle it.”
“You want me to?—”
“I want you to remind them who they work for,” I said, my voice dropping into something colder. “And I want Rahsaan to know that every time he presses a boundary, I’m gonna push back twice as hard. He wants a war, he can have one. But he’s not taking my territory.”
“Copy that.”
“Anything else?”
“Nah. That’s it.”
“Good work, Priest.”
“Always.”
He hung up.
I sat there in the dark, the bourbon warming my chest, the file on Truth Renois spread out in my mind like a map of survival.
No red flags.
Just a woman who’d been destroyed by a man who didn’t deserve her.
A woman who’d kept going anyway.
I knew what it took to survive when the world tried to break you. I knew what it took to keep moving when everything you’d built got ripped away.
Truth Renois had that in her.
I could see it in the way she’d sat across from me, nervous but unbroken.
In the way she’d filled the silence because she couldn’t help it.
In the way she’d walked out of my office with her head high, even though I’d just told her I was infertile and needed her body to carry my legacy.
She hadn’t flinched.
She hadn’t judged.
She’d just asked if I wanted a child or an heir.
And when I told her I needed both—and somebody brave enough to know the difference—she’d looked at me like she understood exactly what I meant.
Because she did.
Truth Renois knew what it meant to fight for something that mattered.
She knew what it meant to survive.
And that made her exactly what I needed.
At 3:15 AM, I called Raymond.
He answered on the third ring, his voice thick with sleep. “This better be important.”
“Finalize the contract,” I said.
Silence.
Then, “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Truth Renois?”
“Truth Renois.”
I heard him moving, probably sitting up in bed, reaching for the lamp on his nightstand.
“I’ll have it ready by tomorrow afternoon. I’ll let you see it before I send it off. If you want anything specifically added, email or text me,” Raymond said. “Standard terms otherwise?”
“Standard terms. Two hundred fifty thousand. Fifty on confirmed pregnancy, fifty second trimester, fifty third trimester, one hundred on delivery. All medical covered. Security provided. Confidentiality absolute.”
“And if she wants to negotiate?”
“She won’t.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
Because Truth Renois wasn’t looking to negotiate.
She was looking for a way out.
And I was giving her one.
Raymond exhaled. “Aight. I’ll have it drawn up. You want me to deliver it or you handling that?”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Copy. Anything else?”
“No. That’s it.”
“Then I’m going back to sleep.”
He hung up.
I sat in the dark, the city quiet outside my windows, the weight of the decision settling into my bones.
Truth Renois was about to carry my child.
She was about to become the most important person in my world.
And Rahsaan Boudreaux was circling like a man who smelled blood in the water. Before it was all said and done, I knew I’d have to slime his ass out. I’d grown tired of his shit. He needed to be neutralized before the world found out about Truth, and I had no doubt that despite my efforts, he would.
I finished the bourbon in one swallow.
Let the burn settle.
Rahsaan wanted a war?
Fine.
He could have one.
But he wasn’t touching what was mine.
And Truth Renois was mine now.
She just didn’t know it yet.
The next morning, I walked into Landry Enterprises at 8:47 AM.
The building sat on Poydras Street—six stories of glass and steel that reflected the morning sun like a blade. Our legitimate family business. High-end construction projects that rebuilt historic properties, renovated Garden District estates, and turned condemned warehouses into luxury lofts.
The money was clean.
The reputation was spotless.
And nobody who walked through those doors had any idea what I did after hours.
My assistant, Alexandria, looked up from her desk when I stepped off the elevator. “Morning, Mr. Landry. Coffee’s already in your office. Raymond’s waiting for you.”
“Thank you, Alexandria.”
I walked past her desk, through the glass doors, and into my corner office overlooking the city.
Raymond was sitting in one of the leather chairs across from my desk, a manila folder in his lap, and reading glasses perched on his nose.
He looked up when I entered.
“Morning,” he said.
“Morning.” I closed the door behind me, set my briefcase down, and poured myself a cup of coffee from the carafe Alexandria had left on the credenza. “You’re here early.”
“I’m glad I held off on sending the contract,” Raymond said, ignoring my observation entirely.