Page 100 of Enforcer Daddy
He laughed, the sound rumbling through his chest into mine. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"Would you prefer 'artisanal restoration'? 'Boutique rehabilitation'?"
"I prefer 'us,'" he said simply, and kissed me properly, the music box playing its broken song while Bear snored and the city hummed outside our windows.
When we finally made it to bed—much later, after the music box had wound down and Bear had demanded his bedtime walk—Dmitry pulled me against him in the dark.
"Your cookies are getting better," he lied beautifully.
"They're weapons-grade and you know it."
"I'll eat every batch until you get them right," he promised, and I knew he would. He'd eat charcoal and pretend it was delicious because I'd made it, because that's what love looked like in our strange little family.
"Next week I'm trying her cake recipe," I warned.
"I'll alert the fire department," he said, and caught my hand when I tried to pinch him, bringing it to his lips instead. "And I'll eat every burned piece, little one. Every single one."
The music box sat on our dresser now, the two damaged dancers frozen mid-waltz, waiting for tomorrow's wind to make them dance again. They'd never be perfect. The song would always skip, the male dancer would always move slightly wrong, the female's face would always be cracked.
But they danced anyway, these broken things we'd made whole enough. Just like us.
Theplayroomdoorlookedlike all the others from the outside, but inside was my world made real—everything soft and safe and small enough to hold. Pink walls because I'd always wanted pink walls, even when I was too old to admit it. Even when I was sleeping in storage units and pretending I didn't dream about princess bedrooms and mothers who stayed.
Tonight I was deep in that floaty space where nothing hurt and everything felt possible. Dmitry's t-shirt hung to my knees, soft from a hundred washes, smelling like his detergent and that cologne that meant safety. The fuzzy socks with bears on them were new—he'd brought them home yesterday without explanation, just left them on the bed like they'd always belonged there.
Mr. Snuggles watched from his place of honor on the top shelf while I worked on my mandala. The coloring book was spread on the low table, the one Dmitry had built at the perfect height for sitting on the floor. My tongue poked out—I couldn't help it when I concentrated—as I filled in each tiny section with sunset colors. Orange bleeding into pink bleeding into purple, like the sky that time we watched dawn break from the roof.
The pencils were the good ones, with soft cores that blended perfectly. I had seventy-two colors to choose from, all sharpened to perfect points because Dmitry did that for me every week without being asked. He sat across from me with his laptop, working on something for the shelter—security schedules or budget spreadsheets or one of the thousand details that went into keeping thirty kids safe.
But he wasn't really working. I could tell by the way his fingers had stopped moving over the keys, the way his head tiltedslightly in my direction. He was watching me color, and the knowledge made me warm all over, safe and seen and precious.
"Almost done," I said without looking up, because talking helped keep me in this space where I didn't have to be twenty-two and traumatized and responsible for anything except staying in the lines.
"Take your time, little one," he said, and his voice had that special softness he only used in here. Daddy voice, though I wasn't ready to say the word yet tonight. Sometimes it came easy, sometimes it hid behind my teeth like admitting what we were would break the spell.
I switched to purple for the outer edges, the deepest purple in the box, almost black but catching the light with hints of blue. Each stroke had to be perfect, even pressure, following the curves of the design. The repetition made everything else fade—the shelter's endless needs, the Morozovs still circling like sharks even after the warehouse, the way my wrists still ached sometimes where the zip-ties had cut too deep.
None of that existed in here. In here, I was just a girl coloring while her person kept watch, and that was enough. That was everything.
"Finished," I announced, sitting back on my heels to examine my work. Every section filled, colors flowing into each other like water, not a single mistake or slip outside the lines.
I held it up for his inspection, that flutter of need in my chest that never quite went away—the desperate hope for approval that all the foster homes had trained into me, weaponized, turned into something that could cut if handled wrong. But Dmitry never handled it wrong. He set his laptop aside immediately, taking the page with careful hands like it was something precious.
"Look at this," he said, and the pride in his voice was real, not the fake encouragement of social workers or the patronizingpraise of foster parents who just wanted me to be quiet. "You stayed in all the lines, and these color choices—baby girl, this is beautiful."
"Really?" The word came out small, young, needing the confirmation even though I knew he wouldn't lie to me. Not in here. Not about this.
"Really. We should frame this one."
"That's silly," I said, but I was already imagining it on the wall next to my other pictures, proof that I could make beautiful things even with hands that had only ever stolen and survived.
An hour passed, maybe two. Time worked different in little space, stretching and compressing based on nothing but feeling. I colored three more pages—a butterfly, a garden scene, a geometric pattern that made my eyes cross if I looked at it too long. Dmitry had given up pretending to work, just watched me with that expression that made me feel like I was his favorite show, his best entertainment, his whole world narrowed down to this pink room and the girl coloring on his floor.
When the yawns started, I didn't fight them. That was the rule in here—listen to your body, no pushing through tiredness or hunger or the need to be held. I crawled around the table and into his lap without asking, knowing his arms would open for me, knowing I'd fit against his chest like I'd been carved from his ribs.
"Sleepy girl," he murmured, adjusting so I could curl fully into him, my head on his shoulder, thumb drifting toward my mouth because in here I didn't have to be embarrassed about needing that comfort.
He didn't stop me, just shifted so his hand could rest on my collar, that weight that meant I belonged somewhere, to someone, that I'd never be thrown away again. His other hand stroked my hair in the rhythm he'd learned made me boneless,fingertips against my scalp, gentle tugs that had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with care.
