Page 48 of Pink

ELEVEN

After

Five years later …

IF LIFE guaranteed anything, it was that all things changed with time. It was the one thing Lev clung to at the most difficult points when he became a single dad overnight. Before his daughter, life was just another daily task that he had to get through. Figure out how to survive it—to make sure ends would meet, catch the next bus, and sleep a few hours every night. He hadn’t been living much more beyond that.

Well, the sleep thing hadn’t changed much. He still didn’t sleep enough.

Speaking of which …

Despite his eyes being peeled wide, he hadn’t bothered to shut his alarm off, and he didn’t reach over to stop it when it did start beeping loudly.

Why?

“How many days left now, Daddy?”

The alarm wasn’t really for him. His internal clock was a bitch—he woke up at five every morning regardless of the weekday. He blamed it on the fact that it was the only time he could spare a workout between his duties as a parent and his job for Andino Marcello as the man’s closest and most trusted enforcer.

His kid, though?

That alarm was Arely’s way of knowing it was time to start the day. The only way Lev learned to make the days work with his kid was by getting her on an easy schedule that worked for both of them, didn’t overstimulate her with too many demands, and still allowed for a little bit of wiggle room.

That six-thirty AM alarm started the day.

For her, anyway.

“How many? How many, Daddy?”

His angel’s rapid-fire repeat questions followed the patter of her bare feet against the hardwood of their home. A home he’d only been able to buy two years before because he saved every fucking penny he could. Every single one. Whatever money he had to pay back to Andino, he did. He got them on their feet; steady and healthy and great. The cushion in his savings account and the educational fund for his daughter was something he knew wouldn’t be possible if not for the ten-k that Andino dropped into his account at the end of each month.

But it wasn’t enough.

Lev wanted more—needed his kid to have more.

He could have quit years ago; maybe after the first shoot out where a bullet nicked his arm and after stitches at a bribed doctor’s office, he went home to put his daughter to sleep. Or even when he became totally debt-free for the first time in his fucking life.

Except he didn’t.

And it wasn’t all about the money, either.

He’d come to learn that because he treated his boss well, Andino afforded him the same respect. In every aspect.

But when he was at home?

Off the clock?

None of that mattered.

“Well? Huh? How many days?”

Lev pretended to be asleep until he couldn’t anymore because Arely had climbed up on the large king-size bed. He liked to call her a spider because those long arms and legs of hers could grab onto anything or anyone, and she wasn’t getting off. Just like a little spider on its web or crawling up the wall.

He wasn’t the exception to the rule.

A grunt of disapproval burst from Lev, and his eyes popped open when a little knee came far too close to his groin as his daughter jumped from the empty side of the bed to him. It wouldn’t be the first time that particular hell happened when she woke him up, but she was getting better about being careful.

Big blue eyes met his and dark curls fell in a curtain when Arely leaned over him. She blocked out what sunlight there was from the windows. Her toothy smile was more than enough to brighten up the morning and was an image he’d carry with him for the rest of the day.