20. AMAI #2
Her name was Natasha—early forties, dark skin, locs pulled back in a neat bun, wearing chef’s whites and carrying two insulated bags that looked like they weighed more than she did.
She introduced herself to Delphine first, which was the right move, and then to Truth, and finally to me with a professional nod that said she knew exactly who was paying her but also knew whose kitchen she was about to work in.
“Mr. Landry briefed me on the situation,” Simone said, setting her bags on the kitchen counter.
“Severe morning sickness, week seven, food aversions across the board. I brought some basics to start—ginger tea, plain crackers, bone broth, bland proteins. We’ll do a full assessment, and I’ll create a meal plan based on what you can tolerate. ”
Truth looked overwhelmed. “I don’t know if I can eat any of that.”
“That’s okay,” Simone said, her voice gentle but firm. “We’re going to start small. Just a few bites. The goal isn’t to fill you up—it’s to keep you nourished enough that you and the baby stay healthy. We’ll figure out what works.”
She spent the next hour in Delphine’s kitchen, moving around like she’d been cooking there for years instead of minutes.
She made ginger tea first—fresh ginger, not the bagged stuff—and brought it to Truth with instructions to sip it slowly.
Then she started on dinner: baked chicken with just salt and pepper, white rice cooked plain, steamed carrots so soft they practically dissolved.
Nothing fancy. Nothing that would trigger nausea. Just food designed to stay down.
I stayed.
I told myself I’d leave once the chef got there, once I knew Truth was being taken care of.
But Delphine invited me to stay for dinner, and Truth didn’t object.
Somehow, I found myself sitting at the small kitchen table with them, eating what Delphine cooked off mismatched plates while she told stories.
Stories about Katrina—about the water rising, about evacuating with four kids and two garbage bags of belongings, about coming back to a house that had been underwater for weeks and still standing.
Stories about raising those four kids alone after Truth’s father died, about working three jobs and still making sure there was food on the table and school uniforms clean.
Stories about this neighborhood, about the people who’d lived here for generations, about survival that looked like stubbornness and stubbornness that looked like love.
I listened.
And somewhere in the middle of her talking about the time Truth’s sister Saroya tried to fight a boy twice her size for calling Truth ugly in the third grade, I laughed. A real laugh, the kind that came from my chest and surprised me with its genuineness.
Truth was watching me. I could feel her eyes on my face, studying me like she was seeing something she hadn’t expected.
Like the man sitting at her mother’s table eating and laughing at old stories was someone different from the man who’d sat across from her in that office and made her sign a contract.
Maybe he was.
Maybe sitting here in this small kitchen with these women who’d survived everything life threw at them and still found reasons to laugh—maybe that changed something in me I hadn’t known needed changing.
“You got people, Mr. Landry?” Delphine asked, refilling my water glass without asking if I wanted more.
“I got family,” I carefully said.
“That ain’t what I asked.” She sat back down, her eyes sharp. “I asked if you got people. The kind that show up when things go bad. The kind that sit with you when you’re scared. The kind that tell you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it.”
I thought about Priest. About Kaisen, complicated as that relationship was. About my parents and the weight of their expectations. About the empire I’d built and the loneliness that came with being the man everyone feared and no one really knew.
“I’m working on it,” I said finally.
Delphine nodded slowly, like that was an acceptable answer. “Well, you got a start right here if you want it. Long as you do right by my daughter and that baby, you got people in this house.”
Something in my chest cracked open.
I looked at Truth. She was crying—silent tears running down her face, her hand pressed against her mouth like she was trying to hold something in. Not sad tears. Something else. Something that looked like relief and hope and fear all tangled together.
“Thank you,” I said to Delphine. My voice came out rougher than I intended. “That means more than you know.”
“I know exactly what it means,” she said. “That’s why I said it.”
We finished dinner in comfortable silence.
Simone left detailed instructions and a meal plan and promised to return tomorrow with fresh ingredients.
Delphine started clearing plates. Truth excused herself to the bathroom—still nauseous, still struggling, but she’d kept down half the chicken and most of the rice, which Simone said was a victory.
I should have left then.
Should have said my goodbyes and driven back to my side of the city where everything was clean and controlled and made sense.
But I found myself helping Delphine with the dishes instead, standing at her sink with a dish towel while she washed, the two of us working in the kind of easy rhythm that usually took years to develop.
“She’s falling for you,” Delphine said quietly, her hands in the soapy water. “You know that, right?”
I didn’t answer right away. Just dried the plate she handed me and set it in the rack.
“And you’re falling for her,” Delphine continued. “Even if you don’t want to admit it yet.”
“It’s complicated,” I said.
“Love usually is.” She handed me another plate. “But complicated don’t mean impossible. Just means you got to work harder at it.”
“I don’t know if I know how to do this,” I admitted.
The words came out before I could stop them.
“The kind of relationship where you show up and stay and let someone see who you really are. I’m good at contracts.
At transactions. At keeping things clean and controlled.
But this—” I gestured vaguely toward the living room where Truth was. “This isn’t any of that.”
“No,” Delphine agreed. “It’s not. It’s messier and scarier and a hell of a lot more real.
But that’s what makes it worth doing.” She pulled the plug and watched the water drain.
“You seem like a man who’s used to getting what he wants.
So, the question is—do you want my daughter?
Really want her? Not just the baby, not just the arrangement. Her.”
I thought about Truth sitting on that couch looking exhausted and beautiful.
About how she filled silences with words when she was nervous and how she’d stood beside me in the street and fought without hesitation.
About how she was carrying my child, and somehow, that had stopped being the most important thing about her.
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
Delphine smiled. “Then you better figure out how to tell her that before somebody else does.”
I left an hour later, after Truth had fallen asleep on the couch and Delphine had covered her with a blanket. I stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her sleep, her hand resting on her stomach where my child was growing.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” I told Delphine.
“I know you will,” she said.
I drove home through the city, the streetlights blurring past, my mind full of food and chicory coffee and the way Delphine had looked at me when she’d said you got people in this house.
I’d built an empire on fear and control and keeping everyone at a distance.
But sitting at that table, laughing at old stories, helping with dishes—that had felt more like power than anything I’d done in years.
And I wanted more of it.
I wanted all of it.
I just had to figure out how to keep it without destroying it in the process.
Priest was waiting in my office when I got home.
I saw his car in the driveway—the black Escalade he drove when he wanted to be seen, not the unmarked sedan he used for business that required discretion. That alone told me this wasn’t a casual visit. Priest didn’t show up at my house after midnight unless something was wrong or about to be.
I found him in the leather chair by the window, nursing a glass of my bourbon, his eyes tracking the city lights below. He didn’t turn when I walked in, didn’t acknowledge my presence until I’d poured myself a drink and settled into the chair across from him.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time in the Seventh Ward,” he said finally, his voice even but weighted with something I couldn’t quite name.
I took a slow sip of bourbon, letting it burn down my throat before I answered. “Personal business.”
“Personal business gets people talking.” Priest turned to look at me then, his expression unreadable in the dim light. “And when people talk, enemies listen.”
The air in the room shifted. I set my glass on the side table with deliberate care, my mind already calculating what he knew, what he’d heard, and how much damage control I’d need to do.
“What are they saying?” I asked, keeping my voice neutral.
Priest leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the glass dangling from his fingers. “That you’ve got a woman. That you’re distracted. That you’re soft.”
My jaw tightened. The word soft landed like an insult, like a challenge, like the kind of thing that got men killed in our world. “I’m not soft. And I’ve been seen around town with Alexis too.”
“I know that.” Priest’s voice was steady, matter-of-fact, the tone of a man stating an obvious truth.
“But Rahsaan doesn’t. And he’s pressing harder.
Two more shipments hit last week. He’s testing you, Amai.
Seeing if the rumors are true. Seeing if you’re vulnerable.
And anyone with eyes can see you don’t like Alexis.
She’s a placeholder until you decide to move on whoever is in Seventh Ward. ”