Page 75 of Enforcer's Obsession

She smiled. “It is life. The epitome of life,” she said emphatically.

We set off down the block, Hope walking next to the buildings while I was closest to the street.

“And what explains this love for—how should I call it?—adventurous waffles?” I said.

She shrugged, though I saw a flash of pain in her expression. “Nothing really. My mom was a buttermilk waffle purist, but she always let me get all the fun toppings. She got a kick out of what I picked,” she said.

She’d said it was nothing, but I knew that wasn’t true. I knew that memory meant a lot to her, just as I knew the piece of shit she’d been raised with put a stop to it. Over the last couple of weeks, she’d mention things, just little random statements that she probably thought hadn’t added up to much but had made her past crystal clear.

Among them, the awareness that anything Hope or her mother might enjoy was forbidden by her stepfather.

Not a surprise that a petty little man who was less than nothing in real life would try to lord over a woman and child. I had taken a look at his record, limited as it was. A couple of drunk and disorderlies that I had no doubt were DV charges that had been pled down.

I knew the type.

A bully, one who would never confront a man, but had no problem being playing tyrant to those weaker than them.

Occasionally, men like that found their way into the Moretti family. They didn’t last long. Don Carlo was no bleeding heart, but he always said that men like what I knew Hope’s stepfather to be couldn’t be trusted, and he swiftly got rid of them.

“So anyway, one day you have to try out the bacon and maple. It’s the perfect gateway to?—”

Hope cut off abruptly, and I looked at her curiously, then followed her line of sight.

Saw the man approaching us.

A few inches shorter than me, so maybe six two, late fifties, though he wasn’t gray. He had a solid build with a little softness around the middle. But it was clear he took care of himself. And at first glance, he was just a standard, nondescript man who showed no hint of the monster inside.

Daniel McDonald. Hope’s stepfather, the man who had tormented her.

I looked at her, and she was frozen. She hadn’t been this terrified at Carlo’s that night, but when I looked at her now, her fear was palpable, seemed to keep her stuck in place.

Her stepfather didn’t seem bothered at all. He stopped about two feet in front of Hope, then smiled. Maybe my feelings for Hope were influencing me, but I was sure I’d never seen anyone look more evil.

“What? You don’t even have the decency to greet me after I raised you?” he said.

He was smiling at her, the smile big, taunting.

Hope didn’t say anything, didn’t move, didn’t blink.

She didn’t even seem to breathe.

The man smiled brighter, his disgust with her unmistakable.

“Still freezing like a roach when the lights come on. Like I wasn’t going to see you,” he said.

He dismissed her, then looked at me.

“Found some other sucker to take care of you? Do you have some bastards that you are going to try to pawn off on him to raise?” he said looking back at Hope.

Then he looked at me. “This one needs a firm hand,” he said, whispering conspiratorially.

That got Hope to move.

She flinched, the movement light, almost imperceptible. But I saw it, and it snapped the little control I had.

Before the piece of garbage could react, I pushed him into an alley and kneed him in the stomach so hard he doubled over.

When I let him go, his momentum sent him careening to the ground.

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