Page 74 of Cursed Love
“He knows what I expect of him.”
She nodded but remained quiet. The threads shimmered a little stronger the farther they got from the apartment. People passed them on the street, unaware of her at his side or at his back as Peter and Brandy wove through the sudden batches. No one noted the shimmering trail, and she wondered if any of them could even see it.
It seemed Ryan had taken the long path to wherever he’d gone. They crossed streets and spotted the threads along blocks they had not walked. At one point, they crossed in front of the café, and her feet stopped moving.
Inside, her workers took orders and filled cups to the brim. Regulars sat comfortably at their tables, either reading, studying, or playing on their devices. It was as if no one noticed her absence.
“Babycakes?” Peter whispered. “You okay?”
“Do they even care I’m not there?” she asked, sounding more dejected than she wanted. Before Peter could answer her with sympathetic words she did not care to hear, she stepped around him. “Come on, Ryan’s not going to save himself.”
Brandy did not know how long it took them to get there after all the weaving, but they eventually stopped in front of Alumbra Fitness. There were no windows on the front of the building, shielding the clientele from being gawked at as they worked up a sweat.
“Come on, looks like he went to his apartment.” Peter removed a set of keys from his pocket as they ascended a set of stairs. He sifted through them until he found the one he wanted. The soft click of the door unlocking echoed, and he pushed the door wide. “Stay here. I want to make sure no one’s lurking.”
When Peter returned and nodded her in, she looked past him at the sparsely decorated apartment. A well-used leather couch sat across from a flat-screen television. An Xbox console sat below it with a DVD player and audio system. There was no coffee table or side table, and a couple of old stains darkened the relatively clean carpet.
Brandy noted the bare walls, free of any personal effects, and followed Peter into the kitchen. He leaned a hip against the counter and produced another power bar. He offered it to her without a word and ran a hand down his face.
“I’m going to be sick of these by the end of the day,” she told him and peeled the wrapper back.
“We’ll find you something else to eat, but it was the best I had. You need to start your vitamins and set up an appointment once we get this dumbass back and make whoever is behind all of this pay.”
It felt strange to plan for a future. With a baby at that. She still could not believe she was pregnant. She did not feel pregnant. Hell, she had not even missed a period. The thought made her open an app on her phone.
“What are you doing?”
She raised the half-eaten bar, asking for a second. Brandy stared at the countdown and cursed under her breath. Her period was five days late. “I’m pregnant,” she muttered to herself.
Peter chuckled. “You are. Why are you saying it like you didn’t know?”
After setting her phone next to Peter, she leaned her elbows on the counter and expelled a breath. “Holy shit… I mean, you said… and then Junior arrived, and I forgot about all those pregnancy tests—”
“They would have said negative anyway.”
“But I guess a big part of me didn’t believe you, or didn’t want to believe you,” she said, ignoring his words.
Peter laid a hand on her back and rubbed. “I get it, but there’s no reason to lie to you, and I promise I won’t. I’ve never lied to Ryan, and I won’t lie to you. You two created life, and once everything calms down and both of you are safe, there’s a huge barbecue with your name on it.”
She offered him a smile, her stomach flipping around and catching up to her mind. “I’m going to be a mom.”
He offered her water and took her wrapper. She took in the threads of magic which seemed to fill the entire space. “Why did you come here, Rye?” she asked, trying to piece together the puzzle.
Peter’s phone rang, and her eyes darted to Peter as he lifted his cell to his ear. “What did you find?”
Her heart thumped against her chest as the seconds dragged by. His face was blank, but slowly his eyes darkened before flashing gold. He was pissed.
“Don’t move,” he barked into the phone and grabbed her by the elbow on the way out of the kitchen. He guided her out, locked the apartment, and walked them into the gym below in complete silence.
Brandy barely had time to register the couple of men and women lifting weights. The smell of dirt hung heavy in the air and became stronger as they moved down a hall. They passed a few closed doors and turned down another hall before stopping at the second from the left.
He released her and turned the knob in one fluid move. “Show me,” he growled, and the two men in the room cowered at the power in his voice.
She stared at the three of them. The men were equally as large, but it was clear the alpha was in charge. Peter had only allowed this side of him to come out a few times, but even then, she had not really understood the strength behind his position.
Tearing her eyes away from them, she followed their attention to various screens. They watched Ryan appear and head up to the apartment for about an hour. The angles changed as Ryan stepped by different cameras watching the outside of the building.
Brandy stepped closer to the screens as Ryan paused. His head cocked to the side, and his mouth moved. “Who is he talking to?”
