Chapter 10: CREED

Everything I did was with her in mind. I never wanted her to be that helpless little girl again, and me being me back then there was no guarantee that I'd always be around to protect her. Lately though I've been thinking really hard about a long life. A life with her and my kids!

It was the first fucking dream I'd ever allowed myself, the only one I haven't tried to kill at its inception. As the day of her twenty-first birthday drew near it was all I could do to stay the fucking course. I'd been lining shit up in my head almost everyday, when I wasn't killing myself to stay busy until the time came.

It figures that as soon as the time drew near my patience was at an end. But I made myself hold on for her, and because of the secret promise I'd made myself. I told myself she was worth waiting for, and that if I could hang in there until D-day, well then I would've proven just that to myself, and in the bargain, proven that she meant more to me than the rest.

Then word had come through late last night from my boy Law that the aunt's piece a shit racist fuck boyfriend had been going into her room at night. Word was that he hadn't struck as yet, but I wasn't gonna give the fucker the chance. I'd been on the road not long after I'd heard that fuckery, not even taking time to safeguard my own shit; she comes first always.

I don't even want to remember the way I felt when I heard that shit. If the asshole had been standing in front of me then he would've been dust. The idea that he'd even looked at her beauty was his death sentence. No one else was supposed to lay eyes on that but me, the fuck.

I couldn't just go around offing motherfuckers though, I had too much to live for and a hell of a lot to look forward to. But there were still plenty of ways to deal with his ilk, and I knew them all. I just needed to get her to safety, though it was hard as fuck not retaliating right here and now.

I'd been so focused on what laid ahead for her and I that my head had even cooled a little where he was concerned. I didn't expect that shit to last too long though, just thinking about what the fuck he had in mind when he was standing over her was enough to make me say fuck it and just do the fuck.

I flicked off the water and hoped like fuck that she was asleep by the time I made it back out there. My cock was tenting the towel and I hadn't had the presence of mind to bring shorts with me, since I usually slept in the raw, so there was no way to hide it.

She was gonna have to get used to me like this soon anyway, so I just tightened the shit around my hips just in case she was still up. Hopefully he doesn't pull one of his moves and slip through the cracks. My boy's a pussy hound and he's been hounding this particular gash for way too fucking long.

Of course she was wide-awake with the TV on, sitting in the middle of the bed Indian fashion with her hair in pigtails. Her innocence almost made me weep as I just stood there looking down at her, while the glow from the screen highlighted her cheekbones; willing myself not to look any lower.

My dick was already leaking like a fucking faucet, not that he had been acting any different since I'd entered the house earlier and got my first look at her in almost three years. I was giving some serious thought to sleeping under the stars tonight to preserve her virginity. I had about an ounce of self-control left and that's being generous.

She felt my stare and turned those slanted orbs my way, and not for the first time I wondered what kind of beauty her mother had to be, because the old man hadn't been much to look at.

In fact, after I'd had her for three or four years I'd done an extensive search to make sure that she really was his, and it turns out she was. But I still didn't know anything about the mom, and all the aunt would say was that she was a bitch.

Law had helped me out there too by finding out that the dad had been part of a crew a few towns over. From there I'd learned that her mom had been one of the sheep, one of those women who follow crews around and are shared among the men who were interested. He'd knocked her up at an early age, before she had run off and left the kid behind.

I never told her anything about her mom and had forbid Dee to tell her anything negative about the missing woman, but I was sure now that she'd probably been doing just that behind my back, the hag.

It was late but neither of us seemed ready to sleep, and since fucking wasn't on the menu tonight I decided to go with the next best thing.

"You hungry babygirl?" She smiled and nodded and I picked up the menu on the little side table that said twenty- four-hour room service. "What do you want?" She shrugged her shoulders and picked at the sheet under her.

I never made much of her shy behavior before, but something about it bothered me now. After all the horror stories I'd heard in the last couple years I was always suspicious of shit, what if this wasn't the first time someone had fucked with her? What if...my gut dropped at the mere thought but what if?

Maybe what I'd always taken as shy reserve had been something else. If anyone had hurt her, they were in for a world of fuckery. Before the week was out I was gonna get to the bottom of all the shit she'd endured while I'd been off saving the world, and heads were gonna roll. But fuck it; if someone had out hands on her I was sure to end up in the pen.

Looking at her now I questioned everything I'd been led to believe over the years. All those reports I'd had from the aunt that had kept me from worrying, and made me believe she was growing the way a young girl should. Even her school reports had been encouraging, and the aunt had nothing to do with those.

But I was beginning to think there was something else going on here other than an innate shyness on her part. Not my Jessie, not my babygirl. I would've endured any kind of hell to see that she never suffered any of the shit I'd seen.

I hope to fuck that it's just her sweet shyness and nothing more, but whether it was or not, I didn't want her to be one of those timid types who were afraid of their own shadow. Whatever had happened before today I will deal with, but she was no one's victim, I wouldn't let her be.

I'd done everything I could over the years to foster her independence. I paid for extra shit that the aunt said she was interested in to try to break her out of that shell, but I couldn't see where it had helped much. That got me to thinking now that I wasn't such a blind ass.

"How's your karate class coming?" She looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language and I could feel the blood starting to burn under my skin.

"What karate lessons?" She had a befuddled look on her face and I cleared my throat and tried for peace. If there's one thing I hate it's being made to look like a fool, and right now I was feeling like the world's biggest ass.

If it wasn't for her and my need to get her as far away from Sal the fuck as possible, I would go back there and finish what I started. "Did you take ballet or piano or anything like that outside of your regular classes?"

Those are all the things I'd been told in the almost three years since I saw her that she was suddenly interested in. Of course I never thought to ask her until now.

Though I'd looked forward to those calls I'd always kept them short and Dee was usually hovering somewhere in the background.

I knew she was going to say no before she started shaking her head at me and was already in motion. That was the last fucking straw, this bitch was either crazy or fuck stupid. Either way she was beyond fucked.

I held up my finger for silence, before dragging on my pants and heading towards the door. I didn't want to do this in front of her and I wasn't in the mood to wait. I hit speed dial and was answered almost immediately.