Page 104 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

Truth froze.

She lifted her head, looking out the large forward windows.

Outside, the dark concrete pylons of the dock were slowly sliding backward. The black shoreline of St. Bernard was receding into the mist. We were moving. The boat was turning into the heavy, southward current of the Mississippi River, heading out toward the open water of the Gulf.

Truth stood up straight, her body going rigid.

“Kaisen,” she said, her voice dropping into a dangerous, razor-sharp register. “Why are we moving?”

“We have to clear the commercial shipping lanes before midnight,” I said, walking behind the bar to pour two glasses of sparkling water. “The river channel gets congested by the grain barges near Belle Chasse.”

She didn’t look at the water. She reached into Tru’s car seat, searching frantically.

“Where is my phone?”

“I moved it,” I said gently. “Cell signals ping off towers along the levee, Truth. If Rahsaan’s people have a scanner, they could track your location. I powered it down.”

Truth took two steps backward, putting herself directly between me and Trumai’s carrier.

The exhaustion was gone from her face. In its place was something terrifyingly clear—the sharp, ferocious instinct of a mother who realizes she’s walked into an ambush.

“Turn this boat around,” she said, her voice dead level. “Right now.”

“Truth, please,” I said, holding my hands up, palms open, showing her I had no weapon. “Drink some water. Sit down.”

“You lying motherfucker,” she breathed, her dark eyes flashing with pure fury. “Amai didn’t send you. Amai didn’t approve this.”

“Amai doesn’t know how to protect you!” I shouted, the frustration finally breaking through my calm exterior. “Look at your life, Truth! Look at what he’s done to you! He dragged you into a war that killed his brothers, he’s lied to you at every turn, and tonight he left you alone in that house while he went out to play gangster in the streets!”

“Turn the boat around!” she screamed, lunging toward the salon door.

She grabbed the heavy brass handle and shoved her weight against it. The door didn’t budge. She pounded her fists against the reinforced safety glass, screaming at the top of her lungs: “Help! Somebody help me!”

“There’s nobody out there, Truth,” I said softly, stepping toward her. “We’re in the middle of the river. The person operating the boat will be taken back to shore after the other boat arrives for him. It’ll be just us.”

She spun around, backing against the steel door, her chest heaving, her knuckles bleeding slightly from hitting the frame.

“You’re kidnapping me,” she sobbed, tears of rage spilling down her cheeks. “You sick, delusional bastard! You’re kidnapping me and my daughter!”

The word hit me like a slap. It broke my heart to hear her say it. She had been so thoroughly broken by Amai, so twisted by his violence, that she couldn’t even recognize a lifeline when it was handed to her.

“Truth, calm down. I’m getting you out.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” she shrieked, looking wildly around the salon for a weapon. She snatched a heavy crystal decanter from the bar cart and raised it above her shoulder. “Let me off this fucking boat, or I swear to God, I’ll kill you!”

“I’m saving you.”

I said the words with complete, unshakable conviction.

She threw the decanter.

I ducked as the heavy glass shattered against the steel door behind me, bourbon and shards of crystal raining down across the hardwood. Truth didn’t wait. She charged me, her fingers clawing at my eyes, her fists swinging with everything she had in her body.

“Stay the fuck away from me and my baby!” she screamed.

Truth caught me across the cheek, her nails opening a stinging red scratch along my jaw. She fought like a cornered lioness, kicking, biting, screaming.

I didn’t strike her. I would never strike the woman I loved.