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“Okay,” she agreed hesitantly.
“I promise to never ever say anything like that to you again, but I need you to do something for me. I need you to do your best to listen.”
She nodded immediately. “I promise, Daddy.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“Yes.”
She threw herself back into my arms and held me tight, and while I felt like I’d made amends with her, I knew the damage was already done. It would take days or weeks for her to trust me again completely.
“Hey, do you want to come to work with me today?”
She jerked back, a huge smile spreading across her lips. “Yes!”
“Alright, but you have to listen because people are working.”
“I promise,” she said excitedly, bouncing in my arms.
“Okay, let’s get your shoes on.”
She hopped out of my arms and ran around her room to look for them. Sighing, I rubbed my hand over my face, cursing myself for being such a fucking disaster. I still couldn’t believe what I had done.
“Daddy, I’m ready!”
But I put those feelings in the back seat and put a smile on my face because my little girl needed me to make this right for her, and beating myself up right now wouldn’t help her. I stood and held out my hand to her, but she instantly held her arms up for me to pick her up. I instantly obliged, holding her in my arms.
I didn’t know how I was going to get through the day with her clinging to me, but if anyone had a problem with it, they could fuck off. My little girl needed me, and she was more important than any job.
* * *
“When do I get a password, Daddy?”
I chuckled at her excitement. “A passkey. You don’t. Not until you’re much older.”
She pouted, clearly finding that unacceptable. “But what if I need to save you?”
“Why would you need to save me?”
“From the baddies,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “Johnny said you protect me from baddies.”
I was going to kick Johnny’s ass the next time I saw him. “Yep, I do, but I promise you’ll never have to save me.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my job to protect you.”
The doors of the elevator opened to the third floor and her eyes went wide at the massive amount of electronics on the walls and people milling about.
“What do you think?”
“It’s big!”
“This is only one floor. There’s a lot more.”
Her head whipped to mine and her hair smacked me in the face. “There is?”
“Yep. There’s a training floor and—” I was about to tell her about the weapons and the interrogation rooms, but that would have to wait until she was much, much older. “—and a lot of other stuff.”