Page 72 of Daddies Dark Desires (Forbidden Fantasies)
But who else was he close with? Who else had access to the information they did? There’s only a few other people that Dadworked with in that capacity. That he would usually have in his confidence.
So, if he cut the guys out, and they didn’t do it, who else did he cut out? Who does that leave?
The scribbles in my notebook blur as my lids grow heavy, but I let my thoughts flee, to flow freeform. It needs the space to build connections without my direct interference.
I stare for a long time, tripping over words until I can’t see them anymore.
I drop into a restless peace before the world returns in a haze, but it doesn’t feel right.
Fear cascades down my neck, bunching up my shoulders. Yet, I’m just a fly on the wall, watching as my dad rifles through a desk—one that I’ve seen before but can’t seem to place—and when a man enters, his face is a blurred absence of features.
Fucking dreams.
The two of them spar verbally, throwing out phrases likekeeping secretsandgoing behind our backs.Trafficking girls, peddling drugs, ruining our country…they all swirl in their mouths as I hover above them.
Then, the office blitzes, and we’re standing on a helipad. Rotors spin above my dad’s head, hair dancing across his forehead as his stern gaze narrows. Turns downward. Sad.
“It’s you. It’s been you this whole time. Why?”
Reality shakes, and my eyes fly open. Through my disorientation, I see Trent’s dark gaze and his perpetual frown.
Those big paws brace my cheek, petting my hair away from my face.
He leans me back, and that dark grumble of his is back, but I’m too out of it to be a brat about it.
“What on earth are you wearing, Harper?”
It’s one of my skimpier outfits. The ones that got me in trouble. That Grant set rules over. Today, though, I needed thatsmall rebellion. Especially after everything they’ve been keeping from me.
After all this shuffling around and locking me down. Making me think I’m not good at my job. That I’m not cut out for this when I clearly am.
Trent narrows his eyes at me like he can read my thoughts. His gaze betrays him, flashing over my open notebook and the scribbles there.
“Come on,” he barks, bending and hefting me over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?” I sink my nails into his back and enjoy the grunt it pulls out of him.
His hands squeeze the backs of my thighs. Heat fans across my center, low in my core, but the pang is deep, edges worn by my half-sleepy state.
My head droops, and I relax into his carry. There’s no fighting it.
His heavy footsteps echo in the stairwell as he takes me up. Soon, I’m plopped onto a bed, and a blanket surrounds me with warmth. The softness takes the rest of my fight to stay awake from me, and I fall back into spinning scenarios of what happened to my dad.
The places it throws us give me whiplash—the deck of a boat, a beach, in the back of a helicopter, halfway up a mountain in a lookout, in the office he kept at home.
The final bit has me falling into the twist of a real memory.
I’m seven, living in a world where nothing could ever get me. Not when I have my very own superhero as a dad. My bed still has the princess white canopy and too much fluff when Dad’s arms lift me from them.
I clutch his shoulders, but he purses his lips in a shushing motion. I know enough to keep quiet as he carries me down the hall and into the study. He touches a book near the fireplace,and it shifts, opening a gap large enough for the two of us to slip through before it slides back into place.
The space is dark, but our heartbeats are loud and the scent of gun oil and cedar fills the space. Cocooned in my dad’s arms, I’m in the safest place I could be.
I whisper into his shoulder, “Is someone coming to hurt us?”
I know that Daddy’s job is dangerous. Sometimes, he has to hurt people to keep others safe. No one’s ever tried to hurt me before. But I know strangers could. Ones that are bigger than me. If I’m by myself.
I try to never be alone.
