“Good.” Mama popped the crawfish tail into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Now pass me them potatoes.”
And just like that, the tension broke.
Miss Claudette started laughing. Mr. Jerome shook his head. Rochelle muttered something about Delphine being crazy.
And Amai looked at my mama with something that might’ve been respect.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said again, and passed her the potatoes.
I sat down at the table, my heart still pounding, and watched the two of them—my mama and Amai Landry—eating crawfish in my front yard like this was normal.
Like this was fine.
Like my entire world hadn’t just tilted sideways.
And I realized something that terrified me more than anything else:
Mama liked him.
And that meant I was in deeper trouble than I’d thought.
Chapter 5
AMAI
Ileft Delphine’s house at 8:47 PM.
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 sheate 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?”
