Page 133 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

“He piloted a vessel,” Terrance said. “Hector said the Black guy spent months remodeling an old commercial riverboat. Made it look like a floating hotel inside. Hector thought it was just some eccentric rich nigga building a private party barge. But Hector said about a month ago, the guy brought a woman and a newborn baby aboard in the middle of the night.”

The air left the room.

The walls seemed to contract. The static on the baby monitor faded into total silence.

“A riverboat,” I breathed.

“Hector said the woman was screaming, fighting him, calling him a kidnapper,” Terrance continued, his voice dropping lower. “Hector said the woman begged him for help on the deck while she was holding the baby. She told Hector her husband was a man named Amai Landry and that you would pay whatever he wanted to get them home safely.”

A strangled, violent sound ripped out of my chest—half sob, half roar.

She said my name.

She was fighting him.

She had Tru.

“Where is the boat, Terrance?” I was on my feet before I even realized I had moved. I crossed the nursery in two strides, towering over Terrance, my hands gripping his shoulders with enough force to bruise through his work shirt. “Where did he take them? Where is Hector right now?”

“Amai, let him speak,” Priest said firmly, stepping between us and resting a hand on my forearm.

Terrance didn’t flinch, but his eyes were wide, seeing the absolute madness vibrating through my frame.

“Hector doesn’t know where the boat is right now,” Terrance said quickly, holding his ground. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Hector said they moved through the river cuts, heading south toward the coast, but when they dropped anchor near a bayou bend, Hector got spooked. He realized the dude was out of his mind and that if the woman died or the baby got hurt, Hector would take a murder charge. So, when the dude was asleep, Hector stole one of the emergency skiffs off the rear platform and ran.”

“When?” I demanded, my breath coming in ragged, savage gasps. “What day did Hector run?”

“About a month ago,” Terrance said. “Hector floated the skiff down into the marsh near Plaquemines, abandoned it in the weeds, and walked until he caught a bus into the city. He took the warehouse job in Belle Chasse to get enough cash to buy a bus ticket to Mexico. He’s working the four o’clock shift today at the freight depot.”

I let go of Terrance’s shirt.

My mind, clouded by thirty days of blind rage and aimless road trips, snapped into terrifying, crystalline clarity.

For a month, I had been searching the land.

I had been raiding houses, checking toll booths, tracing highway cameras, looking at airstrips, hunting through suburban developments and rural woods. I had assumed my brother would hide the way Landry men always hid: behind brick walls, high-security gates, and steel-reinforced basements.

I had forgotten who Kaisen was.

Kaisen didn’t want a basement. Kaisen wanted a kingdom. He wanted an isolated, impenetrable paradise where no roads could lead to his doorstep, where no street soldier could kick in a door, where he could float between jurisdictions and play family on the water.

He was on the river.

The Mississippi. The bayous. The intracoastal waterways. The vast, tangled, impenetrable network of marshland and coastal channels stretching from New Orleans all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico.

“Priest,” I said, my voice dropping into a low, dead register that made both men freeze.

“I’m here,” Priest answered.

“Lock down the freight depot in Belle Chasse. Pick Hector up before his shift starts. I want him in a chair in the basement in thirty minutes, with water and food. Don’t hurt him. He brought me my wife.”

“On it,” Priest said, pulling his phone from his pocket and immediately turning toward the stairs.

“Terrance.” I looked at Honor’s husband.

Terrance met my eyes. “Yeah, Amai?”

“You just saved my life,” I said. “Go home to Honor. Tell Delphine to start cooking. Because I’m bringing Truth and my daughter back to this house.”