Page 36 of Enforcer Daddy
"You didn't make me have nightmares," I said, defensive out of habit more than conviction. "That's been happening since—"
"Since you were a kid?"
I nodded.
"You were talking," he said gently. "Last night, in the dream. You said things."
My hands started shaking. The fork clattered against the plate, loud in the quiet apartment. "What did I say?"
"Enough. Henderson?"
That one word carried weight, understanding, a promise that he knew without making me explain. But suddenly I wanted to explain. Wanted someone else to carry this story so I didn't have to hold it alone anymore.
"The ones who almost adopted me. They were the ones who broke me. Mr. Henderson was a deacon at their church," I started, the words coming slow like pulling glass from skin. "Everyone thought they were perfect. They fostered kids for years, had pictures on their walls of all the children they'd 'saved.' I was going to be their first adoption. Lucky number eighteen."
Dmitry didn't move, didn't interrupt, just listened with that stillness he had when something mattered.
"Like I said last night, Mrs. Henderson was trying to get pregnant. Had been for years. IVF, medications, prayer circles at church. Mr. Henderson said God wanted them to have a child of their own, but maybe I could be practice." The word tasted like bile. "He'd come to my room at night to 'check on me.' Make sure I was being a good girl. Make sure I was grateful for their charity."
My voice had gone flat, clinical, like I was reading from a police report. It was the only way to get through it.
"I tried to tell Mrs. Henderson once. She called me a liar. Said I was a damaged girl trying to destroy their good Christian home. Said if I ever told anyone else, they'd send me somewhere worse. And there was always somewhere worse."
"How long?" Dmitry's voice was controlled, but I could hear something dangerous underneath it.
"Six months. Until Mrs. Henderson got pregnant. The miracle baby. Then suddenly they didn't have room for a damaged teenage girl anymore. Sent me back to the group home with a garbage bag of clothes and a warning to keep my mouth shut."
The silence that followed felt like standing at the edge of a cliff. I waited for him to say something dismissive, to file this away as useful information about my psychological profile, to use it as leverage somehow.
Instead, his jaw tightened like he was physically holding back violence. Not toward me—toward them. Toward people who hurt children and called it charity.
"I could kill him," he said finally, and the calm certainty in his voice made me believe he would. “I would do it for you.”
"He's not worth it," I said, though part of me wanted to give him their address, wanted to see what the Beast would do to a man who hurt little girls.
"You are."
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.
"I trust you," he said suddenly, the words coming out like they surprised him too. "And I care about you more than I should."
My heart did something complicated in my chest, part hope, part terror. "Dmitry—"
"We're going somewhere. Away from this apartment, away from the city." He stood, started clearing plates with efficient movements. "You could run if you wanted. Once we're outside, away from the locks and cameras. You could disappear."
The offer hung between us, real and terrifying. Freedom. The thing I'd been fighting for since the moment he'd grabbed me. He was giving it to me, just handing it over like it was nothing.
"I won't," I said immediately, the words coming out before I could think about them.
He paused, dish in hand. "Why?"
Because you sat with me last night. Because you taught me to breathe. Because you know what Mr. Henderson did and you want to kill him for it. Because somewhere between the first corner time and last night's breathing exercises, this stopped being captivity and became something else.
"Because Bear needs his medication schedule," I said instead.
From his pen, Bear whined at the sound of his name, probably sensing the tension in the room. His tail thumped hopefully against the blankets, eternal optimist that he was.
"Right," Dmitry said, but there was something in his eyes that said he heard all the things I didn't say. "Bear needs consistency."
