Page 3 of Enforcer Daddy
Someone had thrown it away. Literally tossed it in the garbage like it was nothing. Like it was disposable. Trash.
I knew how that felt.
"This is so fucking stupid," I told the puppy as I scooped it up. It weighed nothing, all sharp bones under matted fur. It tried to lick my hand with a dry tongue, grateful for even this doomed gesture of kindness.
I tucked it inside my jacket, zipping it up enough to hold the puppy against my chest. It made me bulkier, slower. The addedweight—minimal as it was—would affect my balance. This was suicide.
But I was running anyway, the puppy's rapid heartbeat joining mine in a rhythm of shared desperation.
The Mens' voices converged ahead of me. They'd figured out where I was heading, moved to cut me off. The construction site to my left was fenced off—no good. The dead-end behind the dentist's office to my right led nowhere. That left up.
The fire escape on the old Murphy building was rusted through in places, missing the bottom ladder. But there was a dumpster underneath it, and if you knew exactly where to jump, you could grab the second-floor platform. I'd done it before, but never carrying something, never with a bloody hand that might slip.
No choice.
I ran at the dumpster full speed, leaped onto the closed lid, and jumped for the platform. My infected palm screamed when I grabbed the rusted metal, but I held on, hauling myself up with my other arm. The puppy stayed silent against my chest, somehow understanding that quiet meant survival.
Up the fire escape, trying not to think about the bolts groaning under my weight, the rust flakes raining down that would show them exactly where I'd gone. Third floor. Fourth. They reached the dumpster below, one trying to boost another up. But they were too heavy, too bulky. The rusted metal would never hold them.
At the roof, I ran to the edge. Six feet of empty space between this building and the next, but someone had laid a plank across it. Probably teenagers using it to drink where cops wouldn't find them. The wood was weathered, grey, maybe two feet wide. Four stories down to the alley.
The puppy shifted against my chest.
"Don't move," I whispered. "Please don't move."
The plank bounced with each step. Halfway across, I heard it crack. Not breaking, not yet, but warning me.
Three more steps. Two. One.
I collapsed on the other roof, gasping. The puppy squirmed, needing air. I unzipped my jacket enough for its head to peek out. That one good eye looked around with mild interest, like being carried across sketchy planks by a bleeding girl while being chased by mobsters was just another Tuesday.
My stomach cramped hard enough to double me over. When was the last time I'd eaten? Yesterday? The day before? Now I had a puppy to feed, too.
I was on a roof next to a bunch of storage warehouse units. I knew this place well—in fact I’d stayed in one of the units a few times. That might be the best thing to do right now. I could still hear the frantic calls of the men—I didn’t have time to waste.
I headed down another fire escape, then headed to unit 39B. It looked like all the others—orange door, heavy padlock, number stenciled in peeling white paint. But I knew better. Some drunk had backed into this door with a U-Haul two winters ago, bent the hasp just enough that the padlock looked secure but would pull free if you knew the exact angle. Emergency shelter when I needed it, which was more often than I wanted to admit.
The padlock came free with a metallic scrape that sounded like a scream. I froze, listened. Nothing but the distant hum of traffic and the skitter of rats in the walls. The door rolled up on protesting tracks, revealing darkness that smelled like dust and something else—machine oil, ozone, that particular scent of electronics that had never been used.
I pulled the door down behind me, sealing us into the dark. My phone's screen threw harsh shadows as I turned on the flashlight, the battery icon showing 3%. Three percent between me and total darkness.
The puppy stirred against my chest, whimpering. "Shh, it's okay. We're safe now. Kind of."
Safe was relative when you were hiding in what looked increasingly like someone's criminal stash house. It had never been full before, but now it was practically bursting.
Boxes. Dozens of them, labeled in Cyrillic. Some had been opened and resealed, revealing glimpses of electronics—laptops, phones, tablets, all high-end. Designer handbags still in their dust bags, worth a fortune. A stack of cases that looked military, metal and locked, with warnings stenciled in multiple languages.
"What the fuck did I walk into?" I whispered to the puppy.
First things first. The puppy needed water and somewhere to relieve itself. I found a stack of newspapers—The Moscow Times, which answered some questions while raising others—and spread them in a corner. The puppy wobbled when I set it down, squatted immediately, then looked at me with that one good eye like it was apologizing for existing.
"You're fine, baby. Everybody's gotta pee."
There was a case of bottled water against one wall, the expensive kind with labels in multiple languages. I cracked one open, poured some into a hubcap I found near the door. The puppy drank desperately, front paws sliding until it was basically lying down while drinking. When it finished, it crawled back to me, curling against my leg with a sigh that seemed too big for such a small body.
My phone battery blinked: 2%.
The USB drive felt heavier than before as I pulled it out. Whatever was on here was worth more than the guns and stolen goods in this unit. Worth enough to mobilize Chenkov's men immediately, to coordinate a hunt through Manhattan in broad daylight.
