I stood on the sidewalk, staring at that house, my heart doing somersaults in my chest.
I could turn around.
I could get back on the bus, go home, and keep working doubles at Magnolia Gardens until my body gave out or my spirit did, whichever came first.
Or I could walk through that gate.
I pressed the button on the intercom.
A voice crackled through: “Name?”
“Truth Renois. I have a 2 PM appointment.”
The gate buzzed and swung open.
I walked through to where everything could change.
Chapter 3
AMAI
Iwoke up at 5:47 AM.
Not because my alarm went off. Not because Syx was making noise downstairs or Priest was calling about territory disputes.
I woke because my body knew.
Today mattered.
I lay in the dark for three minutes, staring at the ceiling, irritated with myself for caring. For the anticipation humming beneath my skin like a low-grade fever I couldn’t shake.
Fourteen candidates in eleven months.
Fourteen women who’d walked into my estate, sat across from Raymond, and failed to be what I needed.
Too eager. Too detached. Too curious. Too scared.
This was number fifteen.
Truth Renois.
And I’d woken up early for her.
I threw off the covers and headed to the shower.
The water hit my skin at exactly 102 degrees—hot enough to wake me up, controlled enough not to scald. I stood under the spray longer than usual, letting the heat work into my shoulders, my neck, and the places where tension lived even when I slept.
I washed with the same precision I did everything else. Methodical. Efficient. No wasted motion.
But today, I caught myself adjusting the temperature twice. Rinsing my hair a second time. Standing under the water an extra thirty seconds like I was stalling.
Like I was nervous.
I shut off the water harder than necessary.
I wasn’t nervous. I didn’t get nervous.
I was a menace. I’d built an empire from the Lower Ninth Ward with blood and strategy and the kind of control most men only pretended to have. I didn’t lose sleep over women. I didn’t wake up early for interviews.
