Page 77 of Enforcer Daddy
"Get me eyes on my building," I barked at Ivan, who was already pulling up his laptop, fingers flying across multiple keyboards simultaneously.
"External cameras coming up," he said, his voice tight with concentration. "But your internal system's not responding. Could be jammed, could be destroyed."
Alexei had his phone out, his Pakhan voice cutting through my panic. "I need eight soldiers at Dmitry's address now. Full tactical. Possible Morozov incursion." He paused, listening. "I don't care where they are. Get them there."
My phone rang—the building's front desk. I answered before the first ring finished, "Hello? Is everything—"
Silence. Then a click. The line went dead.
The implications hit me like a physical blow. Someone at the front desk, calling but unable to speak. Either threatened or already neutralized. Eva up there, twelve floors up, with only Bear's tiny body between her and whatever was happening.
"Twenty minutes," Alexei said. "Minimum twenty minutes before our people arrive."
Twenty minutes might as well have been twenty hours. Eva could be gone in twenty minutes. Hurt in twenty minutes. Dead in—
I was already moving, sprinting for the door, car keys in my hand before conscious thought caught up. The conference roomblurred past, then the hallway, then the exterior door crashing open hard enough to crack the reinforced glass.
"Dmitry, wait—" Alexei called, but I was already at my car, yanking the door open.
Ivan appeared in my passenger seat somehow, laptop balanced on his knees, still typing furiously. "Go," he said. "I'll work while you drive."
The engine roared to life, tires screaming as I floored it out of the compound. The security gate seemed to open in slow motion, every second stretching like torture. Then we were on the street, and I drove like the devil himself was chasing us.
"Red light," Ivan said calmly as I blazed through an intersection, horns blaring around us.
"Don't care."
"NYPD camera caught that."
"Don'tfuckingcare."
Brooklyn streets blurred past, my brain calculating the fastest route while my hands wrestled the wheel through turns that had Ivan gripping his laptop with white knuckles. Fifteen minutes to my apartment if I obeyed traffic laws. Eight if I didn't. Physics and probability became my only concerns—how fast could I take this turn without flipping, what were the odds that delivery truck would move before I reached it.
"Your system's completely dark," Ivan reported, still typing one-handed while bracing himself with the other. "But I'm accessing neighboring buildings' external cameras. Maybe I can see—"
"Just tell me if you see Morozov soldiers," I cut him off, swerving around a taxi that had stopped for no apparent reason.
Eva in the apartment, maybe hiding in the bedroom closet where I'd shown her the panic button. But she wouldn't hide, not my fighter. She'd try to protect Bear, try to be brave, not knowing that brave would get her killed against professional soldiers.
The FDR Drive opened before us, and I pushed the speedometer past ninety, weaving between lanes like the car was an extension of my will. The East River flashed by in a blur of sunlight on water, the city's skyline mocking me with its normalcy. Somewhere up there, in one of those thousands of windows, Eva was facing God knew what because I'd left her alone.
"Building's exterior looks normal," Ivan reported, squinting at his screen. "No unusual vehicles, no—wait." His fingers paused. "Dmitry, I'm seeing movement in your apartment window. Multiple figures."
My foot pressed harder on the accelerator, engine screaming in protest. Ninety-five. Hundred. The car shook with the speed, but I needed more, needed to be there now, needed to rewind time to this morning when I should have brought her with me, should have never left her unprotected.
"How many?" I managed to ask through clenched teeth.
"Can't tell. The angle's bad and—shit, someone just walked past the window carrying something. Or someone. I can't—the resolution isn't good enough."
Carrying someone. Carrying Eva. My vision tunneled, the world narrowing to just the road ahead and the horrible images my mind conjured. Eva unconscious. Eva hurt. Eva's distinctive eyes closed forever because I'd failed to protect her.
I'd promised her safety. Sworn she'd never be vulnerable again. Given her rules and structure and told her Daddy would always keep her protected. The bitter taste of that broken promise mixed with adrenaline and rage into something toxic.
"Take the next exit," Ivan said urgently. "Surface streets will be faster from here, there's construction ahead on the FDR."
I yanked the wheel right, tires screaming as we flew up the exit ramp at sixty miles per hour. A pedestrian dove out of the way, and I didn't even slow down. Nothing mattered except getting toEva. Laws, safety, sanity—all secondary to the desperate need to reach her.
"Three minutes," Ivan said, and I couldn't tell if he was calculating our arrival or trying to calm me down.
