13. Maddox Creed
MADDOX CREED
Ihadn’t stopped thinking about that damn therapy session.
Four days had passed, but Luciana’s confession still found its way back into my head every time things got quiet.
I stopped taking my birth control.
Those six words had done more damage than she probably realized.
My phone rang before I could think about it any longer. It was a call from an unknown number, and I already knew who it was.
Something shifted in my gut the second I looked at the screen. It wasn’t fear. It felt more like recognition—the kind that settled in when you’d been waiting on something long enough.
Rozay had come to the office to kick it and noticed the change in my expression.
I stared at the phone for another second before answering.
“Yeah?”
The investigator’s voice on the other end was straight to the point.
“Mr. Creed.”
My grip tightened around the phone.
“What you got?”
Silence settled between us for a few seconds, and that alone told me this wasn’t going to be a simple conversation. Whatever he’d found wasn’t something he wanted to discuss over the phone.
“I think it’s best if we meet.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
Across the desk, Rozay’s expression changed immediately. He didn’t know what the investigator had found, but he knew enough to recognize that something was coming.
Something big…
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
The answer came without hesitation.
A weight settled in my chest, and I already had a feeling I knew why.
Twenty minutes later, I was pulling into the parking lot of a small restaurant on the other side of the city.
The investigator had picked the location.
I killed the engine but didn’t get out right away.
“How much worse could it possibly get?” I asked myself, only to tell myself to stop asking stupid fucking questions.
With a slow breath, I grabbed my keys and climbed out.
The investigator was already inside when I walked through the door.
He was sitting in a corner booth with a folder resting on the table in front of him. The second he spotted me, his expression tightened just enough to tell me everything I needed to know.
That wasn’t a good sign. Even so, I slid into the booth across from him. Neither one of us bothered with small talk or reached for a menu.
He had worked for me long enough to know I hated wasting time.
“What you got?”
The investigator looked down at the folder before meeting my eyes again. He didn’t answer right away, and that immediately got on my nerves.
“If you got something to say, then say it.”
“You were right.”
My eyes narrowed.
“About what?”
“You said this was bigger than your wife.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
The investigator opened the folder and spread several documents across the table. Phone records. Financial records. Notes. Dates. The kind of paperwork people couldn’t explain away once it was sitting in front of them.
“I spent the last several weeks tracing everybody connected to Gia.”
My eyes moved across the paperwork until one name stopped me cold.
Apollo Creed.
For a second, I honestly thought I was reading it wrong.
“Walk me through it.”
The investigator leaned forward.
“Your father knew about Gia’s pregnancy.”
Silence settled over the booth.
“He knew?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Almost from the beginning.”
I dropped my head and then shook before bringing my eyes back up to meet his. “What exactly are you telling me?”
The investigator slid another document toward me.
“I’m telling you your father wasn’t just aware of the situation.”
My eyes dropped back to the paperwork. The first name I recognized was Luciana’s.
My stomach tightened as I kept reading, and then I saw it…
…Apollo Creed.
The page was filled with phone logs, dates, and a list of calls between the two of them. I read through it once, then went back and read it again, trying to convince myself I was misunderstanding what I was looking at.
…but I wasn’t.
I slowly looked back up at the investigator.
“What the fuck is this?”
“They communicated.”
“About what?”
“Gia. The pregnancy. The child.”
I just stared at him.
“No.” The word left my mouth automatically. “No… Luciana… My fuckin’ wife did this.”
“She did,” he said. “But she wasn’t operating alone.”
I tilted my head. “What are you saying?”
The investigator folded his hands together.
“From everything I’ve found, your father and your wife were communicating about the situation. They didn’t make every decision together, but your father knew what she was doing, and there were multiple conversations between them while Gia was pregnant and after Nylah was born.”
I looked back down at the paperwork.
Every phone call.
Every date.
Every timestamp.
Every piece of it pointed to the same thing.
Luciana hadn’t carried this secret by herself.
The investigator didn’t say anything, and he didn’t have to.
The paperwork sitting between us said more than either one of us ever could.
I looked back down at the phone logs. Different dates. Different times. Different conversations spread out over months. None of it looked accidental.
None of it looked like a man who’d simply stumbled onto information.
“This wasn’t one conversation,” I said, more to myself than to him. “This shit kept going.”
He gave a slow nod.
“Yes.”
I let out another bitter laugh and leaned back against the booth.
“So every time Luciana thought she was protecting me…” I shook my head. “She had my father standing behind her.”
“From everything I’ve uncovered,” the investigator said carefully. “Your father believed he was helping keep the situation under control.”
“Under control,” I repeated. The words tasted like bullshit. “That little girl wasn’t a situation.”
“No, sir.”
“She was my daughter.”
The investigator lowered his eyes for a second before looking back at me.
“I know.”
I rubbed both hands over my face, trying to make sense of something that would probably never make sense.
“My wife tells herself she was protecting our marriage.” I let out a laugh. “My father tells himself he was protecting my future.”
I looked up at him.
“You know what nobody bothered protecting?” He didn’t answer but it didn’t stop me from continuing. “My right to choose.”
The words hung between us, and for the first time since I’d sat down, the anger gave way to something else.
Betrayal.
Not the kind Luciana had already left me with—something deeper.
Apollo wasn’t just my father. He’d been my example. The man I’d spent my whole life believing always knew what he was doing. Now I was staring at paperwork proving he’d spent years helping keep me away from my own child.
First it was Rozay and Solae and now me and Nylah… That man just didn’t know when to quit.
I looked down at the documents one last time before slowly closing the folder.
That was enough.
Shit, more than enough.
I pushed my chair back and stood.
The investigator looked up at me, but he didn’t say anything. He must’ve seen it on my face. There wasn’t anything left to explain.
I grabbed the folder, tucked it beneath my arm, and tossed a few bills onto the table without bothering to count them.
“Mr. Creed…”
I stopped, but I didn’t turn around.
“If anything else comes up, I’ll?—”
“It won’t matter…” My voice came out calm. “I already know enough.”
I walked away before he could respond.
The bell above the restaurant door chimed as I stepped outside. I stood here for a while with the folder tucked beneath my arm, trying to make sense of everything I’d just learned.
Apollo hadn’t just known.
He’d chosen.
That was the part I couldn’t get past.
He’d looked at his son, looked at his granddaughter, and made a decision he never had the right to make.
For the first time in my life… I wasn’t mourning my father. I was disappointed in him.
By the time I pulled into Ma’s driveway, the anger had worked its way back into my chest.
I cut the engine off and looked at the house before grabbing my keys and getting out.
“Ma,” I called out as soon as I walked inside.
“In here.” I followed her voice to the living room. The second she looked up and saw me, her expression softened.
That lasted all of three seconds before she tilted her head the side and narrowed her eyes.
“What done happened now?”
I took a seat on the couch.
“Did you know?” I asked, not even in the mood to beat around the bushes.
Her forehead creased. “Know what?”
Here it was… The moment I’d been driving over here for. This was the moment I’d been replaying in my head the entire drive over.
I studied Ma’s face, paying attention to every reaction, every expression, every little movement before finally answering her.
“About Nylah…”
“No…”
The breath I’d been holding escaped before I even realized I’d been holding it. It wasn’t relief. It just kept me from immediately losing my shit.
“You sure?”
“Yes I’m sure.”
I kept my eyes on her, searching for hesitation or anything that felt off. Anything that suggested she wasn’t telling me the whole truth.
I didn’t find it, though.
She sounded honest, but that still didn’t do a damn thing for the knot sitting in my chest.
“Then why you look like that?”
Ma closed her eyes for a brief second. When she opened them again, the confusion was gone and sadness had taken its place.
“Because I know where this conversation is going.”
I leaned back in my chair, the folder suddenly feeling heavier beneath my arm than it had a few minutes ago.
“He knew…” The words came out rough and low. So low that I barely recognized my own voice.
The look on Ma’s face told me everything before she ever opened her mouth.
It wasn’t surprise…
It was pain…
Her eyes drifted down to the coffee table before she slowly nodded.
“Tell me… what exactly did he know?”
The question came out sharper than I’d intended, but Ma never flinched. She didn’t get defensive or raise her voice.
“I didn’t know about a child…” The answer came immediately, and there wasn’t an ounce of hesitation behind it. “I need you to hear me when I say that.”
I stayed quiet and let her talk.
“Your father never told me about Nylah.”
The certainty in her voice made it hard to doubt her.
It still didn’t mean I liked any of this.