Hey, Daddy (Semyonov Bratva Book 2)

Hang in there. It gets worse.

—Haze’s secret thoughts

HAZE

“Love you, baby,” I said to my girl.

She wrapped me up in her arms, and I had a flashback of when she was a baby, barely old enough to walk.

She used to try to barely get her arms around my leg, and now she was big enough to wrap me up around the waist and squeeze so tight it was hard to breathe.

“Love you, too, Dad,” she said as she pulled away. “I have to go to school tomorrow, so I’ll see you tomorrow night. It’s still okay to come to your place tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I answered, even though the thought of her coming to my shitty apartment made me feel squigged out. “The lawyer was able to get the emergency order filed. You’re lawfully allowed to be at my place.”

The talk with the lawyer was where I lost Nastya on the way home.

I’d had to pull over because a construction cone had been launched into the street. A man had followed it, and I’d barely missed hitting him.

Around that time the lawyer had called back with an update, and by the time I started forward again, she was nowhere to be found.

I’d driven myself straight to my brother’s place, who had answered the door and invited me in for pizza.

He’d already shared two slices with Finn, who looked like he’d gone through hell with all the pizza sauce all over his face and paws.

We’d talked about the day, my brother, Ben, and me.

Then he’d offered to give me a ride home, which led to now.

“Lock up, sweetheart,” Ben ordered

After hearing the lock click into place, my brother led me to his Porsche.

I got into the passenger side and leaned my head back against the headrest for a few long seconds.

“Your ex-wife is a piece of work,” he said as he started the car.

“Tell me something that I don’t know,” I griped.

“Were you able to get any information on the kid?” he asked.

“John looked him up. Kid’s name is Eddison Cartwright. Daddy has bailed him out of every bad thing that he’s ever done—and there was a lot. Indecency with a minor only being one of those ‘bad things,’” I grumbled.

“Were you able to get ahold of Julia while you were outside?” he asked. “I assumed that was why you were out there so long.”

“No,” I muttered. “She’s yet to call me back.”

“Probably a good thing. At least this way it forces you to get your shit under control.”

He was right, but still.

Maybe this time, I didn’t want to have my shit under control.

Maybe this time, I wanted to treat her like the truly awful person that she was.

“I want to slit her throat and toss her into a cement slab in the middle of Dallas,” I objected.

“Harsh, but not altogether unwarranted,” he said. “That dog was scared of his own shadow. What has she done to him?”

“I wondered that myself,” thinking back to how Finn had cowered when I’d been on the phone yelling at Julia’s voicemail.

Poor guy.

He wouldn’t be going back, either.

My lawyer, who just so happened to be in cahoots with Nastya’s lawyer, was good at what she did.

I’d been putting off the inevitable for years now, and it was finally time to call it quits.

Desi was more than old enough to make her own decisions on where she wanted to live.

And I knew without a doubt it was with me.

But, like me, she hadn’t wanted to hurt her mom, despite her mother’s assholeish nature.

Now, it was time to play hardball and get custody of my girl and our dog.

“Thanks for the ride,” I said as he pulled into my complex twenty minutes later.

“You need to move out of this dump,” he pointed out.

He was right.

I did.

But my new neighbor was definitely something that helped me want to stay, despite knowing my daughter would do a hell of a lot better in a better place.

On the other hand, having a kid that was very susceptible to life, I didn’t want her living in this shitty apartment with me for long.

“Call me if you need any more help with anything,” he said. “What time are you coming to pick up Finn tomorrow?”

“Around noon or so. I’ll come by after I go to Desi’s place and grab some of her shit,” I explained.

“You should just buy her new shit and leave that for when you have a court order to keep your girl,” Ben pointed out.

I sighed. “Yeah, but do you see how appealing it would be to get all of her shit now so that I didn’t have to deal with seeing her later?”

Ben snorted. “You have always been able to deal with Julia. Just do it.”

“But I spent a small fortune on all of the clothes that Desi currently has. Not to mention all of her makeup products. Do you truly have any concept of how much money it will cost to replace it all?” I asked. “I’m a cop, not a millionaire.”

“You’re doing damn good, and you know it. All that money you saved living in that shitty apartment,” he pointed out.

He was right. The rent at the complex was damn near a quarter of what I’d be spending anywhere else, and I’d been living the single life for years.

Other than my child support, which was a hefty chunk of change, I didn’t have any bills.

“I’ll think about it,” I grumbled.

Or maybe I just wouldn’t tell him my plans next time.

Something inside me told me to get all the shit that I needed now, because there wouldn’t be an opportunity later. And Desi had several clothing items that she considered irreplaceable due to where she’d gotten them.

Hell, she was wearing my old bomber jacket from high school all the time. If I didn’t get that back, she’d be devastated.

I’d given it to Desi because she’d loved it so much. But the thought of my ex-wife having a very sentimental item like that in her possession, pissed off and looking to hurt me any way she could, I could see her taking out her anger on Desi’s things.

Plus, she had a three-thousand-dollar-plus Mac desktop that I’d bought her a few months ago for school that I wouldn’t be replacing.

Needless to say, I wouldn’t be taking my brother’s advice on not getting Desi’s things because I didn’t see a point in wasting money.

“Bye, man,” I said as I shut the door on his amused face.

He knew me better than to think I’d just drop it.

“Hey,” I heard called as soon as I turned to head up the stairs that would lead me into the apartment building.

The complex was set up in a U shape with the office in the middle of the U.

Ben had dropped me off at the bottom level of the four-apartment building where I lived on the top floor with Nastya. The downstairs neighbor, a man that was in his late twenties and smoked so much weed that I could smell it in my own apartment, was the one that’d greeted me.

“’Sup, Julius. Haven’t seen you in a bit,” I said as I walked over to him and offered him my hand.

“Tell that bitch next to you that her cryin’s keeping me up,” he grumbled.

I frowned. “You work last night?”

“Yeah.” He sighed. “She fuckin’ got really loud earlier, too.”noveldrama

I sighed. “Well, she was crying because her dog died. And the commotion earlier was from some sick fuck that decided that he wanted to put his hands on my daughter.”

Julius paused. “No shit?”

“No shit,” I confirmed.

“I was wondering.” He shook his head. “She made a lot of noise getting that dog out of the elevator then. The goddamn delivery truck also parked outside my apartment for goddamn ever today. I’m gonna die tonight trying to get through this shift.”

Julius wasn’t exactly the nicest person, but he was a watcher, and he always knew exactly what was going on in his hood.

“The delivery truck is Nastya’s, too. She’s an Amazon Reviewer or some shit,” I said. “And a secret shopper.”

“God help us.” He left, heading to his truck, an old beater that looked like it could stop working at any second if you breathed on it wrong.

I had to laugh when he started it up and it backfired, making it sound like a gunshot had just gone off.

He’s sitting there talking shit about Nastya’s deliveries when every time he started his truck, it sounded like gunfire that for sure woke me up, likely like it did our neighbors.

A smile stayed on my face until I headed for my bed a half hour later.

It slid right off when I heard the obnoxious sound of not only Nastya’s phone making noise, but my own as well.

I glared at the notification on my own phone.

I hacked into her account and had all the same apps that she did on her phone now after seeing how little she cared about her health.

I received a hundred thousand comments in the hours since I’d linked our phones, but I kept the notifications on for one reason and one reason only.

Her utter lack of caring when it came to her health.

As a type one diabetic, she should have way more control over herself and her blood sugar than she did.

But it was like she just didn’t care.

She silenced her notifications. She dismissed them.

She ate what she wanted, when she wanted, then dealt with the consequences later.

I fucking hated it.

My type A personality couldn’t handle it.

That was why I’d cloned her phone, so I could see when she was high.

And right then, she was very high.

So high in fact that it sent an instant jolt of terror through me as I got up and went to the monitors that were on the shelf in my closet.

She was asleep in bed, and she was lying completely still, unaffected by the noise her phone was making.

I cursed and grabbed my lock-picking tools, then made my way over to her apartment.

After getting inside, I walked to the bedroom and tried to wake her up.

It took her a long time to do that, her eyes so heavy that she could barely open them.

“What?” she rasped.

“Your blood sugar is high as fuck right now. What do you need to do?” I asked.

“Dunno,” she grumbled.

When she made no move to explain, I pulled out my phone and called my sister, who was a nurse on the night shift at the hospital.

“Hello?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

I rolled my eyes and said, “I have a friend whose blood sugar is through the roof. She’s a type 1 diabetic, and I can’t get her to respond to my questions on how to get it fixed. What do I do?”

“She likely has insulin in her fridge. Unless she’s on a monitor. Does she have a monitor that gives her insulin?” she asked.

“How would I know that?” I asked.

She walked me through what to look for, and after confirming that she didn’t have the mechanism that would dispense insulin for her, I went in search of the actual stuff.

“You have to get the correct dosage,” she said. “Insulin is very, very dangerous.”

She helped me draw up the correct amount of insulin, then she told me how to administer it.

After injecting her, I asked, “How long will this take to work?”

“The type of insulin you used is rapid acting. It should take anywhere from five to twenty minutes or so,” she explained.

“Got it,” I said. “Thanks, love you.”

“Love you, too,” Caroline said. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

We hung up, and I sat on the edge of her bed and watched her chest rise and fall.

I constantly checked her glucose for the next twenty minutes, watching as it gradually fell back into what the app considered normal range.

Instead of waking her before she was ready, I swung my legs onto her bed and leaned my head against the back of her headboard.

My eyes closed as I waited, and before I knew it, I was fast asleep.