11. AMAI #3
“My bad, cuz,” he said. “I’m just saying what everybody else thinking.”
I didn’t respond.
Just turned my attention back to my plate and started eating.
The rest of the dinner was tense.
Alexis tried to steer the conversation back to safer topics—art, music, the gallery opening.
Syx kept making comments under his breath that I ignored.
Layla came and went, refilling glasses and clearing plates, her face a mask of professional detachment. I don’t think she trusted herself to sit down at the table with Alexis without beating her ass.
By the time dessert arrived—bread pudding with whiskey sauce—I was ready for this night to be over. Couldn’t even enjoy my favorite dessert.
The maids came in to clear the rest of the table.
Alexis stood, smoothing her dress over her hips, and turned to me with a smile.
“That was wonderful,” she said. “Thank you for having me.”
“You’re welcome.”
She stepped closer, her hand resting lightly on my arm.
“So,” she said, her voice dropping slightly. “Should we head upstairs?”
I looked at her.
Saw the expectation in her eyes.
The assumption that this night would end the way the gallery night had ended.
“I’ve had a long day,” I said evenly. “And I’ve got an early morning.”
Her smile faltered.
“Oh.”
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Did I—” She paused, her brow furrowing. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” I said, and I meant it. “You didn’t.”
I leaned down and kissed her.
Soft.
Brief.
Enough to reassure her but not enough to invite more.
“Come on,” I said.
I walked her through the house and out to the driveway where her car was parked.
She unlocked it and turned to face me, her expression uncertain.
“Amai—”
“Next time,” I said gently, “call first before you come over.”
She blinked.
“Oh. Okay. I just thought?—”
“I know,” I said. “But call first.”
She nodded slowly.
“Okay.”
I kissed her again.
Watched her get in her car.
Watched her drive away.
Then I turned and walked back into the house.
Syx was in the living room, sprawled on the couch, laughing so hard he could barely breathe.
“Yo,” he said, wiping his eyes. “That was the funniest shit I’ve seen in months.”
I didn’t respond.
Just walked past him toward the kitchen.
Layla was at the sink, washing dishes, her back to me.
“Layla,” I said. “The maids got it.”
She didn’t turn around.
“I’m leaving,” she said, her voice clipped.
“Layla—”
“I’m good, Amai.”
She turned off the water and dried her hands on a towel.
Then she turned to face me.
Her eyes were hard.
“You need anything else tonight?” she asked.
The question hung in the air between us.
I knew what she was asking.
Knew what she wanted.
“No,” I said quietly. “I’m good.”
Her jaw tightened.
“Alright then.”
She grabbed her purse from the counter and walked past me without another word.
The front door closed a moment later.
I stood in the kitchen, alone, listening to the sound of Syx’s laughter echoing from the living room.
I walked back out.
Syx was still on the couch, grinning like a man who’d just witnessed the best show of his life.
“Yo,” he said, shaking his head. “You went from no bitches to two. That’s wild.”
I sat in the chair across from him.
“I don’t appreciate you keeping up shit at the table,” I said.
“Man, I had to,” Syx said, still grinning. “I like seeing you sweat. You never sweat.”
“I wasn’t sweating.”
“You was,” Syx said. “You was stressed as fuck. It was beautiful.”
I didn’t respond.
Just leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.
The silence stretched between us.
Then Syx’s voice cut through, quieter now.
More serious.
“On some real shit, Amai,” he said. “What you trying to do with Alexis, knowing you got that other situation?”
I opened my eyes.
Looked at him.
He wasn’t grinning anymore.
“That’s my past,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Syx said. “Just because you ignore something don’t make it not real.”
I exhaled slowly.
“I know.”
“So, what you gonna do?”
“I can’t even begin to add that situation to my plate right now,” I said. “Especially when it’s a non-factor.”
“A non-factor?” Syx raised an eyebrow. “Amai?—”
“I haven’t heard from her in months,” I said, cutting him off.
“Shit about to hit the fan, and you acting blind and shit,” he stood up and shook his head. “I’m going to bed.”
“Take your meds.”
“Aight.”
Syx shook his head but didn’t push it further. He knew when I was done talking about something.
I stood, needing to move, needing to get away from the weight of the evening and the mess I’d created by inviting Alexis into my space. By letting her think there was room for her in a life that was already too complicated.
“I’m heading to the office,” I said.
“It’s almost midnight, cuz.”
“I know.”
I grabbed my keys and left before he could say anything else.
The drive downtown was quiet. The city at night had a different rhythm—slower, more honest. Less pretense. I took the elevator up to the forty-second floor and walked into my office, the floor-to-ceiling windows showing me the skyline stretched out like a kingdom I’d built brick by brick.
I sat at my desk and tried to work.
Tried to focus on the reports Priest had left—territory updates, shipment confirmations, the usual machinery of my operation. But my mind kept drifting. To Truth. To the procedure that was supposed to happen today. To the fact that I didn’t know if it had gone well or if something had gone wrong.
My phone buzzed. A notification I almost ignored until I saw the caller ID.
Dr. Beaumont.
I stared at it for three seconds before answering.
“Dr. Beaumont.”
“Mr. Landry, I wanted to call you personally with the results. The egg retrieval was successful. We fertilized twelve eggs. Ten are developing normally. We’ll monitor them over the next five days and select the strongest candidates for transfer.”
Twelve eggs. Ten developing.
That meant two had failed already.
“What are the odds?” I asked.
“With her age and health? Sixty to seventy percent success rate on first transfer.”
Sixty to seventy percent.
Which meant thirty to forty percent chance of failure.
I’d built an empire on worse odds. I’d walked into situations with less than a fifty-fifty shot and came out on top. I’d calculated risk my entire life—weighed the cost of a move against the potential gain, decided what was worth the blood and what wasn’t.
But this wasn’t business.
This was biology.
This was something I couldn’t buy my way out of, couldn’t intimidate into submission, couldn’t control through sheer force of will.
“How long until we know?” I asked.
“Five days. We’ll monitor the embryos’ development and call you with an update. If everything progresses as expected, we’ll schedule the transfer for day five or day six.”
Five days.
One hundred and twenty hours of not knowing. Of waiting. Of having no control over whether this worked or didn’t.
“Thank you, Dr. Beaumont.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be in touch.”
She hung up.
I sat there in the silence of my office, the city glittering below me, and felt something I hadn’t felt in years.
Helplessness.
I’d spent my entire life building walls against it. Against the idea that there was anything in this world I couldn’t bend to my will. That there was any outcome I couldn’t engineer through intelligence, resources, or ruthlessness.
But I couldn’t engineer this.
I couldn’t make Truth’s body cooperate. Couldn’t make the embryos develop faster or stronger. Couldn’t control whether the transfer would take or whether it would fail.
Sixty to seventy percent.
Those were good odds. Better than most people got.
But they weren’t certainty.
And I’d built my entire life on certainty.
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I let myself feel the weight of something I couldn’t control.
The waiting was going to be harder than I’d anticipated.
Much harder.
I tried to work.
Sat at my desk with inventory reports from the jewelry store spread out in front of me—sales figures, gemstone orders, custom design requests. Numbers that usually grounded me. Made sense in a way nothing else did.
Then the construction contracts for Landry Enterprises. Three new developments in the Warehouse District. Permits approved. Financing secured. Everything moving forward exactly as planned.
Control.
That’s what these papers represented.
But my mind kept drifting back to Dr. Beaumont’s voice. Ten embryos developing normally. We’ll monitor for five days.
Five days.
I forced myself to focus on the contracts. Read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single word.
I decided to take my black ass home. There’s no way I’d get anything else done after talking to Dr. Beaumont.
The drive home was quick. I parked and went inside to try and rest.
Then I heard it.
A scream.
Raw. Primal. The kind of sound that bypasses your brain and goes straight to your spine.
Syx.
I was moving before I consciously decided to move.
Yanked my gun out of the holster. The weight of it familiar and grounding in my hand.
Took the stairs two at a time.
The screaming didn’t stop.
It got worse.
Louder. More desperate. The sound of someone drowning in air.
I hit the second-floor hallway at a dead run and kicked open Syx’s door.
The room was dark except for the streetlight bleeding through the curtains. But I could see him.
Thrashing in the bed like something was holding him down. His body arcing off the mattress. Hands clawing at invisible weight pressing on his chest.
“No-no―Mama?—”
His voice cracked on the word.
Broke into something that wasn’t quite a scream and wasn’t quite a sob.
I dropped the gun on the dresser and crossed the room in three strides.
“Syx.” I grabbed his shoulders. Tried to hold him still. “Wake up. You’re dreaming!”
He swung.
Caught me across the jaw with his elbow. The impact snapped my head to the side.
I tasted blood.
“Syx!”
“Get her off me—” His voice was hoarse. Shredded. “Please—she’s so heavy—I can’t?—”
He was still asleep.
Still trapped in the nightmare.
I grabbed his wrists. Pinned them to the mattress. Used my weight to hold him down.
“Syx. Look at me.”
He bucked against me. Stronger than he should’ve been. Fueled by terror that didn’t know it wasn’t real.
“She’s dead—” The words tore out of him. “She’s dead and she won’t stop looking at me—her eyes—Mama please?—”
His whole body convulsed.
I could feel the sweat soaking through his shirt. Could smell it—sharp and acrid, the scent of pure fear.
“Syx.” I leaned closer. Put my face directly in his line of sight even though his eyes were still closed. “Wake up.”
Nothing.
He kept fighting. Kept screaming words that didn’t make sense. Fragments of the nightmare spilling out in broken pieces.
Dirt in my mouth. Can’t breathe. She’s so cold. Why won’t she move? Mama, wake up. Please wake up.
I’d found him like this before.
Syx had lived.
But part of him was still in that grave.
“Syx.” I shook him harder. “Wake the fuck up.”
His eyes snapped open.
Wild. Unfocused. Still seeing whatever hell his mind had trapped him in.
He tried to swing again.
I caught his fist. Held it.
“It’s me,” I said. Kept my voice low. Steady. “It’s Amai. You’re in my house. You’re safe.”
He blinked.
Once.
Twice.
His chest was heaving. Each breath a ragged gasp like he’d been running for miles.
“Amai?”
His voice was small.
Broken in a way that shattered me.
“Yeah.” I loosened my grip on his wrists but didn’t let go. “It’s me.”
He looked around the room, taking in the familiar walls. The dresser. The window with the curtains half-open.
Reality slowly filtering back in.
Then his face crumpled.
“Fuck.” The word came out choked. “Fuck—I did it again?—”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not.” He tried to pull away. Tried to sit up. But his body wasn’t cooperating. Still shaking too hard. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to?—”
“Syx.” I let go of his wrists and sat back. Gave him space. “Breathe.”
He tried.
Failed.
His breath hitched. Caught in his throat.
Then the tears came.
Silent at first. Just wet tracks down his face catching the dim light from the window.
Then his shoulders started shaking.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t try to fix it or tell him to stop.
Just sat there on the edge of his bed and let him break.
Because sometimes that’s all you can do.
Let someone fall apart in front of you and not flinch.
After a long moment, he wiped his face with the back of his hand, smearing sweat and tears across his cheek.
“I just want my mama back.”
The words hung in the air between us.
Simple.
Devastating.
True.