Page 62 of Creed

Suddenly, I need to know details that could make or break my decision to allow myself to have any contact with him in the future.

“What is your family all into?” I ask quietly.

He stills immediately, then slowly lifts his eyes to mine.

For a moment, I think he’ll remain silent. When he places his fork on the plate, rises, and walks across the room, I'm unsure what he's doing. He presses the wall beside the TV, a panel opens, and he enters a code.

Then he returns to the table and sits down, watching me closely. “We can talk freely about this now.”

I realize what he’s done. Some spy-worthy James Bond tech is wired into this private suite, and he has just activated a device. Probably so no one can overhear if they’re listening.

Listening, because they had planted listening devices.

Unease settles into me. I’m an idiot to ask this question and to be here.

But I can’t make my body obey to stand and run out the door.

“What would you like to know, angel?”

“You’d tell me?” I don’t know if that makes me more uneasy.

“I won’t or can’t give you too many details. One, because I’m protecting you. Two, because of the need to protect my family. And three, I don’t have details because I’m not involved in that part of my family’s empire.”

Empire.

Christ Almighty.

Taking a breath, I ask the question that has haunted me since I found out his family was the Italian mafia. “Are you involved in human trafficking?”

“No.”

“Is your family?” I amend the possible loophole in my question.

“No.”

I search his face for a lie. His eyes are steady and calm, his expression open.

“Our family abolished that arm of income five generations ago,” he adds. “And we refuse to work with any factions involved in that.”

Relief sweeps through me. “How many generations has your family been in power?”

“Massimo, my brother, will be the seventh when he becomes Don.”

“Your father… he’s getting sicker?”

That day, when everything came crashing down, I overheard Creed speak with his father on the phone when I returned to get my laptop.

Pain etches his face. “Yes. We’re keeping it hidden how sick he truly is, though. Enemies will use any weakness, perceived or actual.”

“I would never say anything,” I whisper.

“I know, angel.”

I take another deep breath, working up the courage to ask about my second deal breaker. “Drugs?”

Given my family’s efforts to keep me away from my father and his life in a drug cartel, I knew they would never understand or forgive even a friendship if Creed’s family was involved in that.

Creed’s eyes remain steady on mine. “We don’t sell or distribute. We control California, which includes the ports, and our import-export channels are used.”

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