Page 81 of Enforcer Daddy
The man continued to make muffled sounds through the cloth, rocking slightly on his knees.
"Does it bother you?" Alexei asked me directly, and I knew this was a test. Show weakness and I'd be dismissed as a liability. Pretend it didn't affect me and I'd be lying, which was probably worse.
"Yes," I said, finding my voice though it came out rough. "It bothers me. But I understand it."
"Do you?" His tone suggested genuine curiosity rather than challenge.
I looked at the man, then back at Alexei. "I've seen what happens when there's no consequences for betrayal, no structure to violence. It becomes chaos. Random. At least this has rules."
"Rules." Alexei repeated the word like he was tasting it. "Yes, we have rules. Dmitry, take your woman to the other chairs. Marcus needs to be removed."
Two men entered at some invisible signal, grabbing the man under his arms. They dragged him out, with gentle care. Professional. Practiced. How many times had they done exactly this?
Dmitry guided me to leather chairs positioned near the windows, Bear curling immediately into my lap once we sat. The puppy seemed unbothered by the scent of violence, already falling back asleep, and I envied his innocence.
"You did well," Dmitry murmured, his hand finding mine between the chairs.
"Did I?"
"You didn't run. Didn't panic. Didn't judge without understanding context."
The man—Marcus—had caused deaths through his betrayal. In the normal world, he might have faced trial, prison, eventual release. Here, justice was immediate and physical. Which was really more civilized? The system that would have let himeventually walk free to sell more secrets, cause more deaths? Or this brutal but final consequence?
I thought about my own life, the times I'd been hurt by people who faced no consequences at all. Foster fathers whose wandering hands were explained away. Cops who'd taken what little I had because they could. Other homeless who'd stolen my sleeping spot, my food, my safety, knowing I had no recourse.
Maybe there was something to be said for a world with brutal but consistent rules.
"The Morozovs," Alexei said, drawing my attention back to him. He'd moved to stand by the windows, Manhattan skyline spread before him like a kingdom. "They know who you are now."
The weight of that settled over me like a shroud. I'd thought I was just stealing something to fence, just trying to survive another day. Instead, I'd stumbled into the middle of something huge.
"But you're under our protection now," Ivan said without looking up from his screens. "Which means anyone who tries to hurt you will end up like Marcus. Or worse."
Bear yawned in my lap, stretching his little legs, completely unaware he was in a room where violence had just been dispensed like afternoon tea. His innocence felt like the only clean thing left, and I buried my fingers in his fur, grounding myself in his warmth.
"I need to know," Alexei said, returning to his desk with that same controlled movement, "if you can handle this. Not just today, but tomorrow. Next week. Next year. This is who we are, Eva. This is what loving my brother means accepting."
The question hung in the air like the copper scent of blood that still lingered despite the windows being open. Could I handle this? Could I love a man whose world included this? Could I accept protection that came painted in other people's blood?
I thought about Dmitry's hands—the same hands that had held me through panic attacks, that had built me a blanket fort, that had taught me pleasure I didn't know existed. Those hands also broke bones, pulled triggers, delivered the violence I'd just witnessed.
"I can handle it," I said, and meant it. "I've survived worse things than watching consequences delivered."
Alexei and Dmitry exchanged a look I couldn't interpret, something passing between them in the silence. Then Alexei nodded once, decision made.
"Then welcome to the family," he said, and somehow those four words felt incredibly heavy.
Thebathroomdoorclickedshut behind me like a gunshot, and I barely made it to the toilet before my stomach rejected everything—breakfast, coffee, the careful normalcy of this morning. My knees hit cold tile hard enough to bruise, and I heaved until nothing came up but bile that burned my throat like acid.
Bear had stayed with Dmitry, thank God, while the men talked. I didn't want him to see me like this—shaking and pathetic, unable to handle the reality I'd signed up for.
When my stomach finally stopped rebelling, I sat back on my heels, wiping my mouth with toilet paper that felt like sandpaper against raw lips. The bathroom was weirdly pristine for a mob compound—marble counters, gold fixtures, the kind of soap that came in crystal dispensers. Such civilization to mask the barbarity outside.
I pushed myself up on legs that felt like jelly, stumbling to the sink. My makeup had smeared, making me look like a raccoon playing dress-up in designer clothes. The green silk that Dmitryhad chosen so carefully this morning now felt like a costume I'd never be able to pull off.
The water ran cold against my hands as I rinsed my mouth, trying to wash away the taste of horror. But it clung to me like the copper scent of blood, like the echo of that inhuman scream. This was my life now. This was what loving Dmitry meant—accepting that the hands that held me gentle could also hold a man down while his brother stuffed a gag in his mouth.
The door opened without a knock, and I tensed, ready to face Dmitry's concern or maybe Ivan's cold assessment. Instead, a petite blonde entered, wearing a dress the color of winter sky and a collar that caught the light like captured stars. She couldn't have been much older than me, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five, with the kind of delicate beauty that belonged in fairy tales, not mob compounds.
