Chapter Ten

The street appeared darker than it had been the previous night and Creed killed the headlights on the truck.

It wasn’t hard for him to notice the two street lights nearest to the apartment building were blown out. Fucking amateurs. Creed eased his truck a few more feet and pulled over to the curb.

“What?” Kellum said roughly, coming out of the light sleep he’d fallen into during the drive. Aaron and Dylan were both fast asleep in the back.

“Something’s not right,” he murmured and reached over to open the glove compartment. He pulled out his forty-five Colt revolver and shoved it at Kellum and then he reached beneath his own seat and lifted out the nine-millimeter he’d tucked beneath it before entering the mall.

“Stay here,” he murmured and reached for the door.

“Creed!”

He turned when Kellum hissed his name and gripped his arm tightly. “Let’s just go.”

The flit of emotion swarming over Kellum’s face in the dim light of the dark wasn’t clear, but Creed imagined he saw fear or maybe it was terror.

Creed had a decision to make at that very moment, and so did Kellum. If anything, he had to be honest with Kellum because it wasn’t in his nature to be anything else.

“If we leave here, I’m taking you all home with me,” he said and slowly turned his head to hold Kellum’s eyes. “And I won’t let you go.”

“What?” the man’s voice trembled.

Shit. Fuck. Damn it.

“Until you’re all completely safe,” Creed added. He didn’t want to freak Kellum out by his possessive side. “So, you need to choose right now.”

“We’re…” Kellum cleared his throat. “We will come with you.” The man still had a death grip on his arm.

“Okay, then.” Creed released the door handle and pulled out his phone. When Stone picked up, Creed avoided Kellum’s annoyed sound in the back of his throat.

“Get whomever you can over to that apartment building where Kellum was. I’m taking them with me because someone is here or was and I need recon.”

“Damn…bossy much?” Stone grumbled.

“I’m calling in a favor,” he said, and took ahold of Kellum’s hand. When the slender man tried to pull away, Creed married their fingers together.

“You don’t need to do that. I’ll handle it,” Stone said and ended the call.

Creed hung up, tucked his gun in his holster, and started the truck one handed. He didn’t let Kellum pull away as he backed the truck through the dark and around the corner before he sped off. He didn’t turn the headlights back on until they were several blocks away, and he backtracked and took as many different routes as possible to make damned sure they weren’t followed. He didn’t take a relieved breath until they’d driven through the secured gates of his neighborhood and parked in his driveway.

“You…you live here?” Kellum squeaked, and Creed smirked at the man’s stunned expression.

“Mhmm, come on.”

“Where are we?” Aaron asked sleepily from the back seat.

“My home,” Creed assured the boy and unclipped Dylan from the seat. He laid the boy’s head against his shoulder and placed a hand at the small of Kellum’s back when he found the younger man just standing and staring at his home.

Unlocking the front door, he turned off the alarm and then headed down the hallway to the left. At the end, he opened the door to the guest bedroom and walked to the bed. Placing Dylan on the wide bed, Kellum pulled off the boy’s shoes and jacket and tucked him inside the comforter. He’d wanted to put Dylan and Aaron in the kids’ rooms that he had created for his nieces and nephews when they spent the night, but he didn’t want to freak Kellum out.

Creed turned to find Aaron standing in the doorway yawning. “Get your stuff off, buddy, and crawl in.” He ruffed the boy’s hair on his way out into the hall.

Several trips later, Creed had all the packages inside the front door and the alarm reset.

When he turned, he didn’t expect to find Kellum standing there in socked feet minus the jacket he’d bought earlier.

“You should get some sleep.”

Kellum’s eyes searched his in the dim light. “Okay.”

Creed nodded and then snapped his fingers. “And don’t think of leaving in the middle of the night. The alarm goes off when the door is open unexpectedly. And it’s very, very loud.”

Kellum squinted at him like he didn’t believe him and his lips pressed together tightly.

“You can’t keep us here.”

Try me, he wanted to say, but he knew better.

“I know that. Just stay for tonight,” he said and rubbed at the tightness growing in his chest.

Kellum stayed silent for a long moment and then slowly nodded before he turned and disappeared into the guest room and closed the door.

Creed let out the breath he was holding and walked to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.

It was going to be a long night.

Kellum found Creed at the kitchen table the next morning in front of a laptop and he wondered if the man had slept at all. He must have showered at some point because his dark hair was damp. He sat wearing a pair of ripped jeans and a skintight black t-shirt that looked painted on, and Kellum’s mouth went dry.

“Coffee?”

“Yes, thank you.” He slipped into the chair across from where Creed was sitting.

Creed placed a cup of black coffee and then a carton of half and half milk. “Sorry, I don’t have sugar.”

“No, this is perfect,” he said, pouring the creamer and stirring it with the spoon Creed provided.

They sat like that for a long time, him sipping the creamy coffee and Creed drinking it black. The man was looking at the laptop and tapping the keys every once in a while.

A sigh emerged before he could stop it and Creed’s gaze shifted to him before the man closed the laptop.

“Ready to tell me what’s going on?”

What was he supposed to say? That a madman was hunting him? That he’d killed someone? That the guy would use his brothers to control him? That he’d been abused to the point he no longer wanted anything to do with anyone?

“I killed someone,” he blurted, and then clamped his hands over his mouth, blinking at Creed.

“I know.”

Okay, that surprised the hell out of him. “What? How?”

“I was there.”

“You were?”

“Mhmm. Now tell me why you shot the guy on purpose.”

“How do you know it was on purpose?”

Creed pointed a finger to his own forehead. “Center mass.”

Kellum hung his head and then gulped at the cooling coffee before saying, “I told you I was a marksman.”

Creed’s snort brought his head up to find the man smirking. He took in all of Creed. The ink on his arm ran from the short-sleeved t-shirt in jagged colors ending at his wrist and Kellum wondered if the sleeve tattoo was attached to something else on Creed’s chest.

Those freaking blue eyes staring at him were so clear it was startling. When Creed lifted a hand to run his fingers through his cropped beard, Kellum’s stomach jumped.

Clenching his teeth, Kellum tipped his chin. Creed was the strong, silent type. He never had much to say unnecessarily, but when he spoke, people listened. Right then, Creed was pinning him beneath a gaze that almost demanded he answer.

Kellum’s breath stuttered in and out and before he knew it, he was panting and almost falling out of his chair to get away. Strong arms caught him easily and held him tight, and Kellum struggled, not to get away, but to stop the sobs trying to punch their way free of his throat.

“I’ve got you,” Creed whispered the words next to his ear and Kellum clung to them. He lifted his head, bringing their faces so close he could feel Creed’s breath on his lips. He wanted to taste Creed’s mouth and, from the look of frozen surprise, Creed wanted that too.

Two things happened simultaneously at that very moment. Aaron appeared in the doorway from the hall and the front doorbell rang.

“Shit!” Kellum pulled from Creed’s arms and raced to his brother.

“It’s okay, only a few people know where I live,” Creed said in a calm, soothing tone of voice that Kellum was sure was for Aaron’s benefit.

“What if we were followed?” Kellum gulped and put Aaron behind him.

“We weren’t,” Creed assured him, but pulled the gun from an open ledge near the kitchen door. The shelf was high over the doorway and Kellum suspected that Creed had it specially built to hold his weapon. But why put a weapon up that high when you didn’t have kids? Or…did Creed have kids? The idea was so foreign to him, Kellum could only stand and stare at the man’s wide shoulders as he checked the window next to the front door and found Owen on the porch.

“Come in,” Creed huffed and opened the door.

Owen stepped through the door with several plastic bags of groceries hooked over his arms. “I suppose Stone called you?”

“You guessed it.” Owen cackled and then spotted him in the doorway. “Hey, Kell.”

“Hey.” He gulped and gently pulled Aaron from behind him. “Aaron, this is Owen.”

“Hi,” Aaron said shyly and then stared at Creed.

“Owen is one of the good guys. We work together,” Creed gently told Aaron. At the big man’s words, Aaron’s scared expression disappeared and he smiled.

“Do you play computer games?” Aaron asked Owen, hopefully.

“He does not, but I do,” Jordan said, walking up the steps and through the front door with two twenty-four packs of sparkling water in his arms.

“I told you I’d grab those,” Owen growled, taking the top level of packs from Jordan.

“Like I can’t carry fu…er freaking water?” Jordan gave Owen an annoyed look and stalked past the guy and toward the kitchen.

“What kind of games do you play?” Aaron asked, trailing after Jordan.

Creed snickered at Owen, who stood gazing after Jordan until he heard Creed and then squinted. Creed only smiled wide and Kellum wondered what the heck was going on.

Before the door could shut, it was moved open with a hand pressed to the wood and in stepped Ace followed by Jacob.

Great.

Kellum’s groan was heard by every person in the now crowded hallway.

The gang was there.

Clancy Durn turned from the morning sun shining through the window of his multi-million-dollar estate and glared at the man sitting across from him, as well as the two in the doorway.

“Well?” he demanded from two of his men in the door.

“We lost him. He had help.”

“This is not my fault,” Durn said to the man sitting casually on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other, arms stretched along the back.

“You promised me the toddler,” Senator Garner said cooly. “You know what will happen if you go back on your word.”

Durn stared at the sick son of a bitch and hid his shudder. For some reason, Garner had taken an interest in Dylan several months ago and Durn was now taking advantage of the man’s desire.

He didn’t give a shit about Garner, all Durn wanted was Kellum back under his control. His young nephew with his blond curls and wide blue eyes. Kellum was all he wanted, all he desired, and he’d use every last penny of his massive fortune to get Kellum back.

“What about the other brother?” Garner asked.

Durn rubbed at the hair on his chin, pulling at the small goatee. He didn’t give a shit about Aaron, and his only regret was that Kellum would be sad. Oh well, there was nothing he could do about that. “My other nephews are getting in my way.”

“He’s the perfect age for trafficking,” Garner said.

Turning his attention to the two men in the doorway, he snapped, “Find Kellum.”

“What if we can’t?” one of the men dared to ask.

The senator stood and looked at the two men. “Find them or I’ll do everything in my power to see that neither of you will be breathing air for long.”

The two men gulped and hurriedly disappeared. When Senator Garner turned on him, Durn took a step back and bumped into his desk. He regretted asking Garner for a favor in the first place, but he had no way out now. They were both in this too deep.

“You know what happens if you fail.”

Bile coated Durn’s mouth, but he managed to answer evenly.

“I’ll make it happen.”