Page 4 of Creed's Vengeance

I nodded my head. I didn’t know why I was pissed off, but I was. Or maybe I was mistaking my anger for grief.

“Creed, you smell good,” Ollie said, having no filter.

Creed smirked, and his gaze went to me. “Thanks, Ollie.”

“My dad has this one,” she said, her little finger on Creed’s chest, touching the president patch. I felt my heart tighten at her words. She wasn’t to know that Creed’s patch across to the mother chapter hadn’t been cleared before Dad got hurt. In reality, Creed should have had a vice president patch on his chest if things hadn’t happened. But they had, so he still had the north president patch on his chest instead of the mother chapter vice.

Ollie’s eyes lit up. “Does dad answer to you, too? Can you make him do stuff?” It wasn’t what Ollie asked Creed but how she asked it.

“What do you mean—does Dad answer to him too? Dad does not answer to you,” I pointed out, still slightly annoyed with her because she was so damn gorgeous that you couldn’t stay mad at her. It was her blonde pigtails and those doe-like blue eyes.

“Dad does what I say,” she said proudly. “I say I want waffles. Dad makes waffles. Dad never says no.” She also gave me a pointed look with that. For a four-year-old, she always got across those pointed expressions.

Again, the thought that Dad really needed to learn to say no to her went through my head.

I noticed Ollie’s eyes began to get glassy, and I knew it is due to the mention of Dad. The hard part was, I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t say that it would all be okay because I honestly didn’t know.

Ollie dropped her head to Creed’s shoulder, and I couldn’t help but think how comfortable she was with him when she’d only met him moments ago.

Pausing at Creed’s door, I wasn’t sure what to do or say. He wasn’t my boyfriend, so he didn’t have to put up with my little sister, let alone put us both up in his room. I suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable because I wouldn’t expect this of any other member or man I was fucking, so why was I letting Creed have to deal with this?

I opened my mouth, my gaze going to Creed. I was about to bail. I didn’t expect this of him. But as I looked at him, his smoldering ash-gray gaze was locked on me, telling me to calm down, almost as if to say that I was his problem, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. And that sent confusion through me.

What he was dealing with right now was beyond what was expected of him. He never agreed to stand by me in the good or the bad, let alone deal with my little sister, who was slowly falling asleep on his shoulder.

“Open the door, Holly,” he said softly, as if not to wake Ollie. His gaze held mine.

Thoughts ran through my head—how did he know me so well? How could he tell that I was freaking out, and how could one look from him, calm me completely down? Why was I letting him back into my life? After every wall that I had put up in place to keep him out?

I had accepted us having sex, but I never thought we would be more. Was that just denial?

“So, when are you heading back to work?” I asked, seeing as her career had always been her focus. I knew Hades and Kobra wouldn’t want her neglecting it. At the same time, I understood that it might cause her stress if she were at the hospital.

Her eyes avoided mine, and instead, she looked at Ollie, who was watching the television while eating cereal.

Her phone lit up, and when I saw his name on her screen, my stomach dropped for a moment. I had thought he was providing an update on Hades, but Holly rejected the call, which told me immediately he wasn’t contacting her about her father or brother.

“Holly, is everything okay?” I asked her this time. Something other than her brother and father fighting for life was wrong.

She ignored me, so I stepped in the way of her view of Ollie, forcing her to look at me.

“It’s nothing,” she said, and as soon as she said that, I knew something was wrong. “And not your problem.” She then threw the blankets back and got up, weaving past me and heading for the bathroom.

Was she really going to do that? Fucking play that card? Fuck that. I gripped the door, stopping it from shutting, and walked into the bathroom behind her, closing the door behind me. Ollie’s eyes had been glued to the television for the last half an hour.

Holly spun around, her eyes widening with fright. I moved so quickly that she wasn’t fucking expecting it. I pushed her up against the vanity and placed my hands on either side of her body, locking her between me and the vanity.

“Start explaining.” The two words came out firmer and harder than I wanted them to. I knew that Holly tended to run from confrontation, but fuck I,. I wasn’t letting her dodge this subject anymore. Something was wrong. “Why are you ignoring your calls from your boyfriend?” I couldn’t stop the words from being tainted with anger.

The fact another man saw her as his pissed me off.

Her eyes hardened on me right away. “He is not my boyfriend.” She basically spat the words out while looking at me like I had insulted her. No, insult was the wrong word. It was as if I had hurt her. “Leave it, Creed. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I do.”

“Well, you can fuck off.”

“You had a fight with him?” I just went for the general reason a woman stopped talking to a guy.

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