Page 93 of Pregnant By A Rich Demon 4

“I said, let him have it,” I repeated, meeting his stare dead-on without a single blink. “I did my mourning. I sat in the dark, I was pissed about my boy, and I ran through every scenario where I could take it out of Amai’s hide. But the reality is what it is. The boy didn’t make it. The girl is his. Fighting Amai over a surrogate who picked his side is bad business, and I’m a businessman.”

Dad leaned back, the leather creaking under his diminished frame. A slow, satisfied smirk pulled at the corner of his cracked lips.

“Took you long enough,” the old man grunted, coughing into a linen handkerchief before tucking it back into his sweater pocket. “A woman is a luxury, Kaisen. You treat ’em like capital, you end up broke. Amai’s blinded by that girl. He thinks with his dick, he moves with his chest, and sooner or later, some stray from the street is gonna clip him while he’s changing a diaper. You stay focused on the cash flow, you’ll be the only one left standing to run this whole goddamn city.”

“That’s the plan,” I lied smoothly. “I’ve grieved what was lost. I’m looking toward the future.”

“Good.” Winston closed his eyes, his breathing shallow and rattling slightly in his throat. “Good. Now get out of here. I got a conference call with the port authorities at four, and my head feels like somebody’s pounding a railroad spike through my temple.”

I stood up, adjusting my watch. “Take care of yourself, Pop. You look run-down.”

“I took two hollow-points and lived to bury the motherfuckers who shot me,” he snapped, though the bite lacked its usual venom. “I’m fine.”

I walked back through the central hall and found my mother in the kitchen.

She was standing by the oversized marble island, meticulously arranging a bouquet of white calla lilies in a cut-crystal vase. She wore a silk emerald caftan, her gold bangles clinking with every small movement of her wrists.

“Mama,” I said, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

She smelled like lavender water and something metallic—sharp, like rusted iron or copper pennies. She offered her cheek, but her smile was clipped, barely touching the corners of her mouth.

“Kaisen,” she said, clipping a stem with heavy shears. Snip. “You’re walking well.”

“Feeling better every day.” I leaned against the counter, folding my arms. “Pop looks terrible, Mama. He’s pale as a bedsheet and shaking like he’s got a fever. Did the doctor check his blood work this week?”

Usually, mentioning Dad’s health around Mama was like dropping a match in kerosene. She’d launch into a twenty-minute tirade about his stubbornness, his sodium intake, and which specialist was failing him.

Instead, she didn’t even look up from her lilies.

Snip.

“Your father is old, Kaisen,” she said, her voice smooth and chillingly flat. “He survived a shooting that would have killed a younger man. The body takes time to settle after that kind of trauma. He’s just getting older.”

“He looked worse than he did a month ago,” I pressed, watching her fingers. They were remarkably steady. “He could barely hold his teacup.”

“He’s tired,” she said, placing the clipped lily into the water. She turned to me, wiping her hands on a dry cloth, her eyes wide, bright, and completely unreadable. “Getting shot took a toll on his body, that’s all. A few more weeks of rest, his medicine, and my cooking… Winston will be good as new in no time. You don’t need to worry yourself over your father.”

A cold prickle ran across the back of my neck.

There was no frustration in her tone. No anger. Just a quiet, polite finality that felt heavier than a locked vault.

“If you say so,” I said softly, giving her another casual smile. “I’m heading out to the docks.”

Mama nodded, smoothing down the front of her caftan. “Go on, then. Your daddy in good hands with me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

I turned and walked out the front door, leaving the heavy silence of that dying house behind me.

The drive down to the abandoned pier took forty-five minutes.

To anyone tracking my GPS, I was inspecting an asset—a commercial investment vessel docked in an industrial corridor off St. Bernard Parish, ostensibly being prepped for offshore entertainment charters once the river permits cleared. The exterior had been repainted in muted slate gray and maritime white, blending seamlessly into the rusted barges and tugs moored along the silt-heavy Mississippi waterline.

I punched the six-digit code into the heavy steel gate, walked down the private gangway, and unlocked the reinforced side hatch.

The moment the pneumatic seals hissed and released, the world outside ceased to exist.

Inside, the riverboat wasn’t a vessel. It was a palace carved out of steel and soundproofed walnut.