Under Daddy's Protection

by Serafine Laveaux

  Too soon it was over, though it took a while for the last of the spasms to work their way through him and his lungs seemed to have forgotten how to inhale. “Oh, fuck,” he gasped when at last he could breathe. A few final spasms jolted through him as he sprawled, spent, across the empty bed. At last he could breathe, but that was about it. No way was he getting off the bed any time soon. “Fuck me,” he exhaled weakly. His vision was hazy and he found himself clutching the edge of the mattress with one hand and still hanging onto his cock like a lifeline with the other. Of all the self-induced orgasms he’d ever had, that one crushed them all.

  When he opened his eyes again, sunlight was streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his bedroom. Blinking against the bright light, he rolled out of bed and headed downstairs. The combination of air conditioning and the cool slate tile floor against his bare feet sent a rash of goosebumps across his naked flesh. Programmed for an earlier wakeup call, the coffee was no longer fresh but he poured a cup anyway.

  Every morning Gage got a cup of coffee and then checked his email. Although he primarily worked through direct request now, checking the contract listings was a habit he’d had since he’d first started working and it remained as part of his morning routine. It was relaxing, even comforting in a strange way. There’d been a time when pulling up his inbox gave him butterflies, back when he was just twenty-five and new to the world of mercenaries. Now just a few months shy of thirty-eight, he felt twice that. The lines around his eyes agreed.

  Sipping his coffee, he let his eyes skim over the long list of subject lines. The filter was set to reject anything not coming from a very small list of contacts, but even without the usual deluge of junk email his inbox was full. Business was booming, as always. Luxury Adventure in Dubai! Weekend Getaway in Shanghai! The email read like a glut of travel agency spam, but Gage knew better. Each header was designed to let the recipient know the pay grade, risk level, and location. Slightly more information would be available in the body of the email, coded in a similar fashion of course. If he accepted one of the jobs, his agent would provide any additional information needed to complete it. The entire system was designed for complete anonymity and should an email fall into the wrong hands, it simply looked like an offer for a vacation. There were also emails featuring ads for innocuous-sounding cleaning services, pet sitters, vacation rentals, and delivery services, although he already had reliable contacts for those services on speed dial.

  “Macau,” he mused as he spotted one offering an all-inclusive high rollers package at the Sands Casino in Macau. Maybe a change of scenery was what he needed. Some time spent overseas would help him put the bartender with the kitten ears out of his mind, as well as help his bank account. Not that he was short on funds. He’d always been frugal with his money and tucked a heavy percentage of every payout into one of several offshore accounts he maintained. Still, it never hurt to deposit more. Guys in his line of work didn’t usually live long enough to retire to a tropical island, but he was hoping to buck tradition on that score. He was about to click on the Macau offer when he glanced at the message three emails below it and his fingers froze.

  “Happy Hour @The Velvet Jacket Cabaret, Miami, FL, USA”

  Happy Hour. It meant marginal payout but also minimal risk and effort, the sort of job he hadn’t taken in over a decade. The sort of job he wouldn’t look at twice except for where it was. Out of curiosity he clicked.

  Happy Hour at Miami’s Favorite Club

  The Velvet Jacket Cabaret

  Clean Establishment with Discreet Entertainment

  $50 Keeps The Drinks Coming! One Night Only!

  Beneath the ad was a photo of the club, a swirl of people and color centered around a bar. The only thing truly in focus in the shot was his favorite bartender, setting up a line of shots and wearing a sparkly pair of cat ears.

  “Kitten,” he whispered.

  For a long time he sat motionless, unable to process what he was seeing. “Why her?” he asked the screen. It was the question no one asked in his business, and no one answered. The whys didn’t matter, only the hows and how much, and those were clearly outlined. Clean Establishment meant the job needed to be completed off site. Discreet Entertainment meant it needed to look like an accident or self-inflicted. The client didn’t want the termination to draw attention to the club so no gangland-style hits. One night only meant it needed to be done ASAP, and $50 Keeps meant 50k for the job.

  The payout was what really stood out. Fifty thousand was the minimum to open a contract with the Switchboard, but it was ten times what the job could be done for. The dark underbelly of Miami had no shortage of characters willing to do a job like that for a few thousand bucks, and any client with access to his agency would have known that already. Whatever the client’s reason was for wanting to eliminate her, he wasn’t willing to risk failure just to save money, and that meant the motivation for the contract was a lot stronger than just a jilted ex-boyfriend wanting payback. The seriousness of it made his stomach roll over.

  The ad itself held almost no details and he knew his agent wouldn’t be able to tell him much more, but he fished his mobile out and pulled up her contact anyway. His whole day had suddenly taken a painfully dark turn and there was no way he could finish his coffee and be business as usual now. Years of experience told him there was nothing he could do. Once a contract was in motion only the client could rescind it but he couldn’t turn away that easily.

  “D.C. Gage for Eleanor, please,” he said, and was immediately put on hold. Eleanor had been his handler for over a decade, and while they’d never met in person Gage considered her the closest thing to a friend that he had. If anyone could point him in a useful direction, it would be her. Assuming she was willing to do so. An agent’s first loyalty was always to the agency, and the agency took a dim view of contractors who interfered with business.

  “Gage, how good to hear from you! Tell me you’re ready for some fun. It’s been ages since we went anywhere.” Eleanor’s voice was seductive and flirtatious with a slight British accent, more suitable for a phone sex line than a mercenary agent. He’d often wondered if it matched her appearance but doubted it. For all he knew Eleanor was a man, but he liked to picture Helen Mirren portraying Victoria in the movie Red.

  “What do you think about Happy Hour at The Velvet Jacket? Sound like fun?” Holding his breath, he waited for her response. Happy Hour jobs were typically for noobs and amateurs, not seasoned professionals like himself. No doubt she was taken aback by his interest, not to mention her commission on such a job would be a fraction of what she usually made off of him. Still, people got bored from time to time, so it wasn’t unheard of for a pro to take the occasional dive job.

  Her answer was slow in coming. “Are you pranking me, Gage? Isn’t that a stripper bar?”

  “I’m serious,” he replied. “It would be fun. Like the old days.” Silence filled the line and Gage wondered what the hell he was doing. If he took the job and deliberately blew it, there would be hell to pay. At best he would buy her twenty-four hours, and then the contract would go back on the market.

  “Feeling nostalgic, are you?” Eleanor finally answered. “I suppose it could be fun, however I’m afraid I already have plans for that date. Perhaps we could find something else?”

  Gage’s stomach dropped. If she had plans that meant the contract had been taken, apparently by someone who didn’t sleep in that morning. The clock was ticking now, and if he had any hope of protecting his kitten he had to get a move on. But how? Eleanor wasn’t going to tell him anything useful, certainly wasn’t going to give him the client’s information or do anything that might put the job at risk.

  “Gage?” Eleanor’s voice had taken on a slight edge to it. The last thing he needed was for her to grow curious toward his interest in the menial job. “Sorry,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I was looking at the other packages you sent me. Let me get back to you.” Before she could inquire further he hung
up.

  Gage stared at the Velvet Jacket ad and considered his options. There weren’t many, and only one of them was realistic. Walk away and forget about her. Take the Macau job and be halfway to China by the time it was all over. I don’t even know this girl, he tried to tell himself. After all, the bartender with the kitten ears could just be playing a role designed to rake in tips. Perhaps outside of work she was exactly the sort of person who woke up with a bounty on their head. And yet, did it really matter if she was? To his surprise he realized it didn’t. Something about her spoke to him in a way nothing else had in many years, and it took her photo on a Happy Hour contract to make him see it.

  Time was short but Gage didn’t think it had run out yet. Whoever had taken the contract would need time to make plans and scope out his target, which would give Gage time to do the same. Discretion was paramount, on this job more than any he’d ever pulled before. If he got caught it would be career suicide at best. He didn’t want to imagine the worst case scenario. First order of business was to learn who Kitten was and where she lived.

  Everything he needed to know would be in the personnel files at the Velvet Jacket. It was too early for the club to be open but fortunately he wouldn’t have to wait. Gage maintained a lengthy list of helpful contacts eager to exchange information for cash, and one of the club’s cocktail waitresses happened to be one of them. She answered his ring groggy and grouchy, barely awake, but her attitude did a one-eighty as soon as she realized who had called. One hundred dollars was more than enough to get her out of bed and at the club’s back entrance in fifteen minutes.

  Gage got there in fifteen and found her waiting by the door. She unlocked it as he approached, then took the money from him and returned to her car without a word or backwards glance. They’d been down this road before over the years, different places, different jobs, and she had proven to be trustworthy. Gage had many contacts like her, people always a bit short on cash who didn’t mind helping out on occasion if the money was right. Without them his job would be a lot more difficult.

  Gage slipped inside and gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the low light, then made his way past the performer’s lounge and down the hall. The first door went to a utility closet, the second to the DJ’s booth. On the third he found what he was looking for. The manager’s office was surprisingly Spartan, the only nod to excess being the well-stocked liquor cabinet just behind the worn antique desk. On the wall next to the door was a spreadsheet showing the work schedule for the next two weeks. According to it there had been three bartenders on duty when he’d been in the night before: Kelly, Nikki, and Cashmere.

  He began to rifle through the filing cabinets in search of personnel files. The first three contained assorted vendor invoices and purchase orders, old fliers, and assorted paperwork, but on the fourth he struck pay dirt. He quickly retrieved files for Kelly Andrews and Cashmere Perez. There wasn’t one for a Nikki but when he spied one for Nikita Koshka he had to suppress a laugh. Of course that’s her, he thought. Koshka meant cat in Russian. He didn’t even need to look at the other two files to know it was her. The name was extremely rare even in Russia, and almost unheard of in the U.S. It was fitting she was one of the very few to wear it.

  He flipped through the file and took pictures with his phone of any useful information he came across. Nikita Koshka, twenty-three years old, graduate of University of California in Berkeley with a degree in biochemistry. That took him aback. Why was a biochemist wasting her time in a seedy strip joint pouring drinks until the sun came up? Even more interesting was where she lived. Gage knew Miami real estate well enough to know Brickell Avenue condos were not in the range of bartender salaries. Armed with her address, he carefully put everything back in its place and headed out to pay her a visit.

  It didn’t take long to reach her address, and as he sat across from it now he found himself plagued with even more questions. According to her files, she only made thirteen dollars an hour, nowhere near enough to afford even the smallest unit in any of the Brickell area condominiums. What he was looking at now had to push the half million mark. Everything he’d imagined her to be was getting flipped upside down. Could he really be so wrong about her? He’d always been proud of his ability to read people but he was having a hard time hanging on to his idea of her as a sweet, innocent girl now. The last name, the chemistry skills, the exclusive residence, it all pointed to something a lot shadier than pouring cosmos on Friday night. The most likely explanation was that she had her hands deep in the Miami drug trade with some Russian family. A woman like that could easily wake up with a price on her head. Gage hated to believe it, but for now he had to assume it was possible.

  He made his way into the building without interference, grateful it wasn’t one of the complexes with elaborate security. If there were any security cameras he couldn’t find them, and the two clerks behind the front desk too engaged with their cell phones to pay him any notice. The lack of security was also at odds with the idea that she might be involved in anything illegal. Not even a part-time bookie wanted to live where just any schmuck could walk in off the street unnoticed.

  Her condo was ground floor, opening out to the pool. At first he considered going onto her balcony and accessing through the sliding glass doors, but decided against it. It was almost noon. Even if no one was at the pool, chances were good she was already up and about. Instead he opted to try the front door, and to his disbelief found it unlocked. So naive, he thought as he slipped silently inside and gently pulled the door shut behind him.

  The hallway before him looked like a bomb had gone off on it, leaving a scattered mess of clothing, shoes, and assorted toys that ran the length of the narrow hall from the front door clear to the open living area ahead. The mess gave Gage an instant headache just to look at. He couldn’t fathom how anyone could function in a mess like that, and something told him he’d just seen the tip of the iceberg. Just past the hall he could see the edge of the TV. A children’s cartoon was on, the sound was cranked, and he could hear the sound of high-pitched giggling off to the left.

  Careful not to step on anything, he crept soundlessly to the kitchen. Much like the entryway, it was a disorganized mess of pizza boxes, cereal boxes, dirty dishes on the counter and in the sink, and an empty orange juice carton on top of an open microwave that looked like a plate of spaghetti had exploded inside. A bowl of half-eaten macaroni and cheese sat on the counter before him, beside it a pile of apparently used paper towels that never made it to the trash can. He’d seen worse over the years, but his fingers itched to reach out and clean the mess up. How on earth did anyone live like that?

  The kitchen had just enough wall space to allow him to conceal himself while giving him a clear line of sight to Nikki. She lay sprawled on the floor right in front of the TV, wearing a blue and purple onesie featuring some Disney characters he couldn’t put names to, eating cereal from the box while watching Spongebob. Nestled against her was an assortment of fluffy stuffed animals, mostly cats from what he could see but also a few bunnies and what he thought might be a pink sheep. Or maybe a poodle. He couldn’t be sure. The mess from the kitchen continued in the den, surrounding her with even more pizza and Chinese takeout boxes, an endless array of large soda cups, and more used paper towels.

  The mess was one thing, but what caught him off guard was her hair. Gone were the long silvery white tresses from the night before, replaced now with shoulder-length black hair. Gage had to suppress a laugh at himself for not realizing it sooner. There was no well-paid hairstylist on speed dial for her. She changed her hair up every night with extensions or wigs, and he was an idiot not to have realized it sooner.

  The starfish must have said something hilarious because she fell to giggles again, and he found himself utterly enchanted by this side of her. This was the real Nikita Koshka, the part of her she kept hidden away from the outside world, and it was strangely familiar to Gage. He could almost hear his father’s voice yelling at him and his sister to g
et back from the TV before it gave them cancer. It had been one of his father’s favorite warnings, right up there with the one about not to make faces lest their faces froze like that forever.

  Watching her, Gage felt an overwhelming urge to lie on the floor beside her, steal her cereal, and fight over who got to pick the cartoons. Then he would make her clean up the numerous messes she’d left all over the place. Maybe make her wash her hands while he fixed her lunch. Something with vegetables that she would no doubt try to avoid eating. A smile briefly flitted about his lips before a deadly calm washed it away. Any doubts he’d had about interfering with her fate were gone now. Whoever came for his kitten would have to come through him first. All he had to do now was figure out how to explain what was happening to her.

  Before he could even begin to come up with a plan, the doorbell rang. Nikki jumped up and ran through the house to the door, calling out to ask who it was before sliding to a stop in the hall. Gage was grateful she didn’t just throw the door open. At least someone taught her not to open the door for strangers.

  “Delivery for Nikki.”

  Gage was not surprised to hear a woman’s voice answer. There were a lot of women in the profession and a job like this was perfect for one. Nikki might have been wary of a male outside her door, but the estrogen brigade always trusted each other. He reassessed his surroundings as he pressed himself back against the wall. The condo was spacious but still close quarters, and Nikki would most likely panic in the confusion. Timing was crucial. At least he didn’t have to worry about a messy double tap at the doorway. Whoever it was needed to come inside and have a little privacy before getting to work. Or at least that was how he would have handled it. He could only hope the other person had the same idea.

  He heard the door hinges squeal first, then Nikki when she opened the door. “Who sent me flowers?”

  “I don’t know but there’s a card,” the woman answered. “Let me bring these in and set them down, then I can give it to you.”