Page 128 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

By the fourth week, I stopped screaming.

I sat in the corner of my locked room, nursing Trumai, and I forced my brain to work like the nurse I had trained to be. Cold. Methodical. Clinical.

I cataloged everything.

Cameras: There was a lens in the ceiling corner of the salon, one in the galley, one above the bridge access door, and one in the hallway. There were blind spots: inside the pantry behind the tall shelving unit, inside the en-suite bathroom of my cabin, and directly beneath the stairwell landing near the lower storage hold.

Schedule: Kaisen woke at 0500. He spent forty-five minutes checking the engine gauges and generator monitors on the lower deck. He made breakfast at 0700. Between 1300 and 1400, he did physical therapy exercises in the small gym room for his missing spleen and surgical scars—he moved slower during that hour, his breath shallow, his left side visibly guarded. He slept from 2300 to 0330, waking at every unusual vibration of the hull. I knew because he’d stop by my door every time.

The vessel: The boat hadn’t moved under full power since the first week. Ever since Hector ran off with the tender, Kaisen had dropped the heavy anchor in a wide, secluded bend of water surrounded by thick cypress trees and impenetrable marsh. The boat rocked with the slow, lazy drift of a tidal current, but we were stationary. He was hiding in plain sight, waiting for the search grid in New Orleans to cool down.

The locks: All exterior doors required a four-digit electronic passcode that reset weekly. Kaisen entered it with his body angled, shielding the keypad, but on day twenty-six, I caught the reflection of his fingers in the polished brass sconce beside the bridge hatch: 0 - 2 - 2 - 4.

February 24th. My birthday.

I didn’t try to run. Running without a boat meant jumping into murky, alligator-infested bayou water with an infant strapped to my chest. It was suicide.

I needed an opening. A crack in his fortress.

The opening arrived on the morning of day thirty-one.

Trumai woke up warm.

I felt her forehead against my lips—flushed, damp, radiating heat. I pulled the digital thermometer from the diaper kit Kaisen had stocked in the bathroom and slipped it under her armpit.

100.4.

Not a crisis yet, but she was eight weeks old. In the medical world, eight weeks was the milestone. She was due for her first comprehensive wellness exam, her developmental check, and her two-month immunizations: DTaP, IPV, Hib, Prevnar, and Rotavirus.

I picked her up and walked straight out of my room, marching down the hall into the galley where Kaisen was polishing the granite countertop with a microfiber cloth.

“She has a low-grade fever,” I said without preamble, thrusting the thermometer toward him. “And she’s eight weeks old today.”

Kaisen frowned, setting the cloth down. He reached out, gently touching Trumai’s tiny wrist. “Teething? Or just a little heat rash?”

“She needs her two-month vaccines, Kaisen,” I said, my voice sharp, professional, brooking no room for domestic debate. “She needs her pediatric assessment. If she spikes a real fever out here without medical intervention, an infant her age can go into septic shock or respiratory distress in less than twelve hours. You said you wanted her safe. You said you had everything figured out. Prove it.”

Kaisen stared at me, his sharp eyes narrowing as he calculated the logistics.

“We have sterile antibiotics in the medical cabinet,” he said slowly.

“You are not a pediatrician,” I snapped. “And antibiotics don’t protect against rotavirus or whooping cough. If you let this baby suffer permanent neurological damage because you’re too paranoid to get her to a clinic, her blood is on your hands. Is that what a father does?”

I hated using the word. The word tasted like battery acid on my tongue.

But it hit him right in the center of his delusion.

Kaisen’s chest rose and fell. A slow, determined light filled his gaze.

“You’re right,” he said softly. “A father provides. I’ll prepare the shore run.”

“You’re staying aboard,” Kaisen said two hours later.

He stood near the rear exit hatch, dressed in an unassuming dark polo shirt, khaki pants, and a faded baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. On the bench beside him sat Trumai’s car seat and the oversized canvas diaper bag.

I froze, my hands instantly tightening against the counter. “The hell I am. She’s my daughter. I’m going with her.”

“It’s too dangerous, Truth.” Kaisen’s voice was calm, utterly reasonable. “Amai has street soldiers and corrupt deputies watching every clinic and hospital within a three-hundred-mile radius of New Orleans. If your face shows up on a surveillance camera in town, the Landrys will descend on that clinic with automatic weapons. They’ll turn a pediatrician’s office into a slaughterhouse. You know what Amai is capable of.”