Page 84 of Creed

“It was alright.”

He gave me one of his looks that let me know that it was anything but alright, and then, he eased past me and made his way into the house.

Brian stood there with his arms crossed, glaring at me with one of his disapproving expressions. I hated how easily that look could still rattle me. It had a way of pulling me right back into that place where everything felt like it was my fault. It was a place I’d worked hard to get away from, and I wasn’t going back. “What do you want, Brian?”

“We need to talk.”

“About?”

“I know you’re back with him.” There was no missing the annoyance in his voice as he said, “I saw his motorcycle parked in the driveway last week.”

He was pissed, but I knew he would be. I knew how he felt about Jameson, and it had to be eating him alive that I was seeing him again. But that was his problem. Not mine. “My personal life is none of your business.”

“It became my business the second you brought that trash around my kids.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Brooklyn isn’t a fucking criminal, Devin,” he snarled. “You think I’m gonna just sit back and let you play house with this guy and my kids.”

“In case you forgot, they’re my kids, too.”

“You’d think you’d remember that when you brought this guy around them. You were a cop once, remember? Did you forget what happens to people who get too close to trash like that?”

“You don’t know anything about him.”

“I know more than you think.” His eyes narrowed. “He and that club of his are being investigated.”

“Investigated for what?”

“Trafficking.”He answered so final and so confident, and it hit me like a punch to the gut. And he wasn’t done. “We have reason to believe that they’re behind that night at the mattress warehouse.”

“That’s not possible.”

“But it is,” he countered. “They had an attempted abduction over at the Vault just a few weeks ago.”

“That’s not true.”

“Damn. You’re so fucking hard-headed.” I tried to step back, but he moved with me. “You need to end this and end it now.”

“Or what?”

“I’ll take them from you, Devin. Don’t think for a second I won’t. And I won’t have to work hard to do it. You know how easy it would be to prove you’re putting those kids in danger just by knowing this guy, much less fucking him.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would, and I will.” His smile was cruel, satisfied, as he took a step back and cocked his brow. “Think about it, Devin. Because the next time we talk about this, it won’t be on your porch.”

And then he turned and started back towards his truck like it was any other day—like he hadn’t just gutted me. I stood there for a moment, clutching the doorframe, trying to catch my breath, when I heard the kids talking in the kitchen.

They didn’t know that their father had just threatened to take them from me. They didn’t know that he’d just pulled the rug from under my feet and broken my heart. I had no idea what I was going to do if Brian decided to make good on his threat.

I couldn’t lose my kids.

I wouldn’t.

They were my everything, and I would put my life on the line for them. They knew that, and Brian knew it, too. He was using them against me. I don’t know if he would actually go through with trying to take them from me, but the fact that he would go so far as to tell me that Jameson and his brothers were involved in trafficking and had a part to play in that night told me a lot.

I don’t know if it was true or not.