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dragged the paunchy asshole out onto the front lawn where he had given him a taste of the pummeling
the man had just doled out to his family. Frankly, that asshole had been lucky Danny hadn t killed him
after he had discovered not only the wife beaten to a bloody pulp but the daughter too.
An arc of pain speared his chest at the memory of Macy s battered face. There were a lot of
things Danny had learned to stomach since falling in with Nikolai s crew, but there were lines that
should never be crossed. A man did not put his hands on a woman or a child in anger. It wasn t done.
Hell, in Nikolai s family, it was a crime punishable by death. The boss didn t fuck around when it
came to protecting the vulnerable and neither did Danny.
As he pulled into his parking spot, he acknowledged that his protective instincts toward Macy
were growing stronger with every passing day. Since he had crossed paths with her nine months
earlier, not one single night went by when he didn t think of her. At first, his interest in the redheaded,
blue-eyed beauty had been purely motivated by concern for her welfare. The afternoon he had moved
in next door, he had seen the bruises on her arms from being grabbed and jerked around by a much
bigger person.
She had been outdoors with her much younger brother and sister when the little boy had crashed
his bicycle into Danny s new SUV. He had been pissed off at the dent but had quickly found himself
unable to scold the boy or his big sister after he saw the panicked fear in reflected in their eyes. He
recognized that look all too well. It was one he had hoped to never inspire.
From that night forward, Danny had vowed to keep an eye on the family next door. The mother
was nice enough but haggard and overworked. As best he could tell, she juggled two jobs and relied
on Macy to keep up the house and do the bulk of the childcare. The father appeared to work
infrequently. What he did make, he pissed away on beer or wasted at the betting tables and on the
sports books at the Black Eagle.
It pained Danny to see Macy trapped in her hand-to-mouth existence with that asshole of a
father ruining any opportunities she might have to escape. At eighteen, she should have been focused
on picking a college and chasing her dreams, not clipping coupons and cooking meals and lugging
baskets of laundry between her home and the complex s facilities halfway down the block. He had
assumed they had been forced to sell their own washer and dryer set or couldn t afford whatever
repairs they needed.
Unlocking his front door, Danny could hear the sounds of two young kids playing and a baby
crying next door. The mother had given birth five months ago. He tried not to think about what that
woman must go through having that fat, drunk fuck pawing all over her at night. Despite how
disgusting Burt was to him, the newest addition to the family, a baby girl named Daisy, was very cute.
Inside his home, Danny tossed his keys into the bowl on the table near the door and loaded up
his arms with the gifts he had chosen. Earlier in the week, he had taken the presents to Vivian s studio
where she had helped him wrap them. Like everything she touched, Vivi had turned the gifts into
works of art with the neatly tied ribbons and hand drawn tags signed in exquisite calligraphy by Santa
Claus. Guilt gnawed at him when he thought about how much work Vivi had put into each gift and
how quickly the tiny hands next door would rip into and shred the paper.
Feeling a bit giddy inside, Danny carted the gifts to the townhouse where there the Garner
family lived and stacked them in a sort of pyramid shape atop the welcome mat. Not wanting to have
an awkward run-in with the family, he rang the doorbell and ran like hell. Safely inside his house, he
pressed his ear to the wall and listened. From the excited cries and laughter, the boxes filled with
toys had made two little children very happy.
Pleased with their reaction to his surprise, he slipped out of his jacket, kicked off his shoes, set
aside the piece Kostya had given him and filled a kettle with water. The steam was just beginning to
whistle through the spout when he heard a knock at his door. He switched off the heat and picked up
the pistol, just in case. A quick peek through the peephole assured him that he didn t need it.
After hiding the pistol in the pocket of his jacket, he unlocked and opened his door. Looking
anxious and chilled, Macy stood on his welcome mat in just her faded flannel pajama bottoms and a
Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt dotted with stains old and new. The oversized top swallowed her small
frame and caused a pang of sadness to filter through him. He was hit by the possessive urge to make
her his girlfriend so he could shower her with pretty things that had never been cast off from anyone
else. He wanted to be able to give her some ease and comfort after such a tough start in life.
Macy! Come inside. It s freezing. He stepped aside and gestured for her to enter the living
room. She seemed hesitant, but a frigid blast of wind convinced her to overcome her hear of being
alone with him. He shut the door and asked, Did you need something?
Um, Danny, she said while nervously pushing long strands of that coppery hair behind her
ear, did you leave those gifts at our door?
No. He lied with a straight face. Someone left gifts? Just like that?
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