Page 76 of Enforcer Daddy
Heat crept up my neck as I forced myself to continue. "Because she had nowhere to go. Because the Morozovs had already put the bounty out, and every small-time thug in New York was looking for a girl with mismatched eyes. Because I saw her and—"
I stopped, the words tangling in my throat. How did I explain that moment of recognition? That instant knowing that she was mine to protect?
"She's been living with you," Alexei said, not a question but a statement of fact he'd already deduced. "For three weeks. In your apartment. She’s the woman you asked me about. Jesus Christ."
"Yes."
"The same apartment the Morozovs now have under surveillance."
"Yes."
Ivan looked up from his laptop, those cold eyes studying me with unusual interest. "What's the endgame here, Dmitry? We can't hide her forever. Even if we eliminate the Morozov threat, she's undocumented in our world. No identity we can verify, no family to negotiate with, no leverage except what she stole. What exactly is your plan?"
This was it. The moment where I had to say the words that would change how my brothers saw me forever.
"She's mine," I said simply. "My Little. We signed a contract five days ago."
The silence that followed was deafening. Ivan's fingers froze over his keyboard, suspended mid-typing like someone had hit pause on his entire existence. Alexei's expression shifted through several emotions too quickly to catalog before settling into something unreadable.
"The homeless woman who robbed the Morozovs is your submissive?"
"She's more than that," I said, defensive instinct flaring. "She's—Christ, I don't know how to explain it. She's brilliant and broken and brave. She fights everything but wants structure so desperately she shakes with it. She needs what I can give her, and I need to give it to her. It's not just kink or convenience. It's . . ."
"It's what Clara and I have," Alexei said quietly, understanding dawning in his eyes. "That recognition. That knowing."
"Yes," I said, relief flooding through me that he understood.
"You've been structuring her," he continued, and it wasn't accusation but observation. "Teaching her to submit, giving her rules, building trust."
"She needs it. Needs boundaries and consequences and care. She's been in survival mode so long she doesn't know how to exist without chaos, but the chaos is killing her. With me, she can let go. Be little. Be safe."
Ivan had returned to his typing, pulling up something new. "Does she understand what you are? What we are? The violence that comes with being a Volkov?"
"She knows enough. She's seen the guns, the security systems. She's not naive about what kind of man keeps military-grade surveillance in his apartment. But she hasn't been exposed to the full reality yet."
"And now she will be," Alexei said grimly. "Whether we want it or not. The Morozovs have her face, her location. She's a target now."
"I know," I admitted, the weight of that failure crushing. "I thought I was being careful. I thought a bookstore and food market were safe enough. I didn't know they were watching me specifically."
"You couldn't have known," Alexei said, surprising me with the absolution. "We had no intelligence suggesting they were tracking individual members. This is targeted, specific. They want what she has, and they know you have her."
He moved to the window, looking out at the Brooklyn skyline, and I recognized his processing stance—the way he stood when working through complex problems.
"She's at your apartment right now?" he asked without turning around.
"Yes."
"Alone?"
The word hit like a punch to the solar plexus. "Yes. With Bear—our dog—but yes, essentially alone."
Alexei turned sharply, and the look on his face made my blood run cold. "The apartment they've been watching. The apartment they have photos of her entering and leaving. She's there alone while we're here discussing her safety?"
The realization crashed over me like ice water. If the Morozovs knew I was here, at our compound for our weekly meeting—a schedule that never changed, that anyone watching us would know—then they knew Eva was unprotected.
"Fuck," I breathed, already reaching for my phone. "Fuck, I have to—"
That's when the security notifications started cascading across my screen. My hands shook as I tried to access the internal camera feeds, but the app kept timing out, spinning uselessly before displaying "Connection Failed."
