“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 toknow.
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.”
