Under Daddy's Protection

by Serafine Laveaux

  Nikki stopped caring about the driver or if he was watching. Her only desire now was for the spanking to end. The realization that all of this could have been avoided if only she’d done as she was told only added insult to injury. Defeated, she let her head fall to his leg and sobbed. “Sorry, Daddy,” she whimpered.

  Almost as quickly as it started, it was over, and the hand that had been blistering her backside changed direction and now stroked her hair.

  “What you did could have gotten us killed,” he said softly as he eased her tail out from between her thighs and pulled her skirt over her bruised bottom. “Yefim could have sent someone to meet us at the airport, or hired someone to intercept us on the way.”

  “She just told him right before she sent me the text though,” Nikki said in a small voice, desperate to redeem herself as she struggled to sit up, a near impossible task now given the howls of protest rising up from her bruised bottom and battered thighs. Swiping the back of her hand across her nose, she tried to look as sorry as she felt. “I messed up,” she admitted by way of apology. “I just really thought everything was going to be ok once we got back.”

  Gage fished a tissue out of his pocket and handed it to her. As she blew her nose he patted her leg. “I said everything will be alright, Kitten, and I meant it, but plans can always go sideways. That’s why it’s so important for you to mind me and do as you’re told.”

  She nodded as she blew her nose into the tissue. “I’m know. I should have at least asked first...” Nikki’s voice trailed off as she looked out the window at the houses they passed. The driver had just turned onto North Bay Road, one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Miami Beach, and one she was very familiar with. “Where are we going?” she asked, confused.

  “I told you,” he replied, licking his thumb and wiping away the mascara that had smudged under her eyes. “We’re meeting with the owner of the club.”

  “I know, but why are we here?” she said as the driver pulled up to a fabulous, modern-styled home.

  Gage cupped her chin in his palm and turned her to look at him. “This is Mikhail Petrov’s house, Kitten. We have an appointment to meet him.”

  “This is Uncle Misha’s house,” she argued. “And he doesn’t own any clubs. He’s an insurance salesman or something like... ooooooh...” In an instant a million things from her past began to make sense as she realized perhaps the kind of insurance Uncle Misha sold didn’t come with paperwork or lawyers. The over-the-top security. The business associates who never really seemed like the sort of people you’d hire to run a company. Most of all, the money. So much money. It seemed so obvious now, and she felt like an idiot for never connecting the dots. As a child she would ask what he did and he would say he sold insurance, which sounded horribly boring and she’d never pressed further. As she grew older and they grew further apart it just became a thing that didn’t matter and she didn’t think about.

  “Uncle Misha?” Gage looked out at the house, then stared at her incredulously. “Your uncle is Mikhail Petrov?”

  “My mother’s sister was Uncle Misha’s wife,” she explained. “We aren’t super close. I mean he didn’t know I was working at the Jacket and I sure didn’t know he owned it!”

  “But Yefim thought you did know,” Gage mused as he got out of the car. “He probably thought your uncle sent you there to spy for him.” Nikki slid across the seat to get out with him. “That explains why he didn’t go cheap with some local hitter. He couldn’t risk a screw-up that might lead back to him. The agency cost him ten times more, but guaranteed discretion. And I am an idiot,” he added with a dry laugh. “If I’d had a background done on you when I brought you home, I would have seen who your uncle was days ago. I could have made all of this go away that day.”

  Nikki slipped her hand into his and smiled. The last few days had been a roller coaster ride of emotions that she wouldn’t trade for the world. “I’m glad you didn’t,” she whispered shyly, the tip of her new tail giving a naughty swish as she led him up the path to her uncle’s mansion.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Yefim sat slumped in his office chair, staring at a full glass of ridiculously expensive Scotch. It had been sitting in front of him for twenty minutes but he’d yet to take a sip. Under the circumstances he’d planned to get stinking drunk but now found he’d lost his taste for alcohol. “I am a pathetic excuse for a Russian,” he said to the glass. “And soon I will be a dead one.” It was a fact that left him oddly neutral. His life since leaving Saint Petersburg had been an endless string of unimpressive events and steady downturns. Why should his ending be any different?

  He knew it was his ending as surely as he knew the number of moles on his wife’s fat chin, but that wasn’t what bothered him. It was the reason for it, the deeds that had led him to this point in the first place. The skimming off the second set of books, the whores he ran on the side without paying the appropriate dues, the drugs he funneled through a small handful of unambitious hoodlums, none of it delivered the financial gains he’d envisioned. That was what chewed at him the worst. At best it had afforded him a four-year-old Cadillac CTS for his ungrateful wife, who added it to her lengthy list of reasons why he was a disappointing failure. Now it seemed the used Caddy came with a pair of concrete boots. He wondered if people still did that anymore. Maybe the Italians. Those dramatic fucks always reminded him of the murderously evil but unbelievably stupid villains in cartoons who put people on table saws or tried to kill them with giant lasers, but only after telling them all the details of their master plans.

  “Not Russians,” he explained to the glass of Scotch. “Russians do not fuck around. Russians take you to the warehouse and put three bullets in your head and then go fuck their mistress.” Another failure to consider. All those years he spent being faithful to his wife, and for what? She laughed at him. She would probably laugh at his funeral. “I should have fucked the dancers,” he complained. “Now I am the one that is fucked.” The only silver lining he could see was that his fat bastard cousin would be going down with him. Seeing Ruslin on his knees in front of The Bear, blubbering and squealing for forgiveness, would be a consolation prize of sorts. He hoped he would get to witness that at least.

  He also hoped he would learn how little Nikki evaded a professional contractor from one of the most elite agencies in the country. It occurred to him perhaps she really didn’t have any clue what he had been discussing that night. She was a woman child with the attention span of a gnat. Perhaps if he’d just talked to her in private, things would have turned out differently, but what was done was done. As was he.

  It was another hour before the dreaded knock on the door finally came. Yefim stood up, straightened his jacket and adjusted his tie, then picked up the glass of Scotch and downed it in one smooth gulp before calling them in. Two men in suits entered the room, each one taking a position to one side of the door. Either one could have passed as a pro football player, but Yefim recognized them at once and knew their particular talents lay elsewhere. They said nothing. They didn’t need to. “Well then,” he said as he came around the desk, “let us go for a ride.”

  * * *

  It had been many years since Gage had sat across from Mikhail Petrov in his lavishly appointed office, back when he was young and stupid enough to meet with clients for jobs. He might still be working for the Petrov family today, had he not signed on with the Switchboard. In his line of work, you didn’t just turn in your two-week notice and walk away. If you wanted out, you were generally retired. Permanently. With six feet of dirt over your head. However, Petrov had let him go, and for that he was eternally grateful. Perhaps bringing little Nikki home safe and sound would repay the debt.

  He’d sat silently by her side as she told her uncle everything, from overhearing Yefim at the bar to the woman with the flowers and the silenced pistol, how Gage had saved her and kept her hidden while they figured out what was going on. Halfway through her retelling, Petrov sent a text. Gage didn’t need
to see it to know what it said. Yefim was about to have visitors. The knot that had been in his stomach since he’d first seen the contract posting finally unraveled. His kitten would be safe now.

  When she wrapped up her story her uncle sent her to the kitchen to get something to eat. After the door closed behind her, he leaned across his desk and stared curiously at Gage. The years had settled hard into the old man’s face but his eyes were as sharp as Gage remembered them to be. “It seems I am now rewarded for setting you free, my friend,” he said. “How funny fate can be. I fear your handlers would not find what you have done amusing at all, however.”

  “They would not,” Gage said calmly. “I have a small insurance policy to cover me but I would appreciate if they were kept in the dark.”

  “They will learn nothing from my house,” Mikhail assured him. “You have my word on that.”

  “Your word is the best insurance policy,” Gage said, and he meant it. He could see it pleased the man to hear it, and that was good too. Nothing wrong with buttering the old Russian up a bit.

  “She is a special child, Nikita,” he told Gage. “Always innocent and sweet. My wife, Miriya, loved that girl like a daughter. She made me swear Nikita would never know about the family. She wanted her to live like a normal person. I kept that promise. I sent her to the best boarding school, paid for her college, and made sure she had money to live on, and live well.” He shook his head in frustration. “She graduated top of her class in college! Did she tell you she has a degree in biochemistry? Why would she work at that club? It is beneath her! And you see what happened because of it.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gage said. “For what it’s worth she was very happy as a bartender. Losing that job seems to have upset her more than anything else that’s happened.”

  Mikhail stared at him incredulously. “Mixing drinks with naked tits bouncing around made her happy?” He burst out laughing. “Of course it did. Lights. Music. New people. Why work in a boring laboratory doing chemistry tasks when every night can be a party? Such a child, our little Nikki.” He leaned back in his chair and turned a shrewd eye back to Gage. “But now she has you, yes? She needs you, I think. She needs someone to keep an eye on her, provide her with some structure. Perhaps some discipline.”

  Gage’s mouth fell slightly open. He didn’t know what response would be appropriate so he said nothing.

  “Don’t try to deny it,” Mikhail chuckled as he got up and went to the liquor cabinet. “I see how you look at her. And she at you. You risked everything to protect her. No one knows this more than I. You will be good to her, yes? Keep her out of trouble?”

  Gage nodded without hesitation.

  “Good,” Mikhail said as he poured them both a drink. “But you must make a choice,” he added as he handed one glass to Gage. “I promised Miriya I would keep Nikita away from this life and I have, but you have pulled her back into it.”

  “It’s not so easy to walk away,” Gage admitted. “The agency has a rather unpleasant retirement package.”

  “If I convince them to let you leave, will you?” The old boss sat back in his seat and fixed Gage with an iron stare. “For good?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  Satisfied, Mikhail smiled and raised his glass. “Then let us drink to saving little Nikki.”

  As he raised his own glass in return, Gage couldn’t think of a better reason.

  Epilogue

  Three months had passed since they’d returned to Miami, and much had changed since then. Gage had always assumed he’d remain a mercenary for life, but things had changed rapidly after they returned from Tokyo. Having Nikki at his side had forced him to rethink a lot of things. Although she hadn’t said anything, he knew what he did for a living weighed heavily on her mind. Whether she provided him with the excuse he’d been needing or she simply made him a better man he didn’t know, but he had no qualms about leaving the private contract killing world behind. Mikhail Petrov made it possible, buying out his contract with the Switchboard as repayment for saving Nikki and bringing Yefim’s and Ruslin’s thieving to his attention. Even better, he’d convinced them to let Gage keep his penthouse for the remainder of the year, giving him ample time to find a new place to share with Nikki. So far Switzerland was at the top of the list with Tokyo running a close second.

  A few calls to some former contacts soon had him legally employed for the first time in fifteen years. Now he worked for a Dominican Republic-based private security company that hired out to everyone from governments and multinational corporations to extremely wealthy individuals. The job had meant some major lifestyle changes for him. Gone were the days when he could pick and choose whether or not to work. Now they told him when and where to go, and for the last few weeks that had been in a tent working with a small group of law enforcement in its efforts to combat poaching and smuggling of the local wildlife. The pay was considerably less, but the look on Nikki’s face when he told her more than made up for it.

  The only real downside was the travel, which kept him away from her for days, sometimes weeks at a time. Soon he hoped she would be able to come along with him, but for now she had to remain behind. To repay her for uncovering Yefim’s betrayal and perhaps in hopes she would get out from behind the bar, her uncle had gifted her ownership of the club. She’d been ecstatic, if a bit terrified at first. Pouring drinks was one thing, running a business quite another.

  Gage was proud of how she’d jumped right into her new role as owner of the Velvet Jacket Cabaret, even though he knew she was overwhelmed by the many new responsibilities that came with it. When he’d left for Botswana she’d had her hands full with applications from people hopeful to fill the now open manager position as well as a few other spots recently vacated by some employees who’d been involved in Yefim’s shady schemes. The sooner she had a trustworthy crew in place, the sooner she could accompany him on jobs. The safer ones anyway, ones that didn’t involve tents and spiders and lukewarm four-minute showers.

  Nikki was working when his plane finally landed, so he sent her a quick text letting him know he would be home waiting for her. For once customs didn’t take too long and in less than an hour he was home and enjoying the first truly hot shower he’d had in two weeks.

  Wrapping a towel around his waist, Gage took a disgusted look around the penthouse. Although she still had her condo on Brickell Avenue, she’d been living at his since they’d returned from Japan, though not without hiccups along the way. He’d been working hard to teach Nikki to clean up after herself and put things in their place, but two weeks unsupervised had clearly been more than she could handle. A wide assortment of soda cans, empty chip bags, and Chinese takeout boxes lay scattered across the kitchen and living room, and the sink was filled with the usual glut of dirty cereal bowls and spoons. Teddy bears and fluffy cats and plush ponies lay in a heap around the glass coffee table, with some pillows and blankets left wadded up on the sofa.

  Gage marveled that she could run a club but not pick up one single dish and put it in the dishwasher or return a toy back to its proper place. Dirty laundry overflowed in the bathroom hamper, wet towels on the floor, all trash cans filled to the brim. He wasn’t annoyed though, not really. It was clear she’d trashed the place in his absence, but she could have called housekeeping and he never would have been the wiser. His kitten wanted him to see what she’d been up to while he was halfway around the globe. Evidently she wanted some attention, and Gage looked forward to giving it to her.

  He’d only intended to take a quick nap, half hour at the most, but the hot shower and comfortable bed had him fast asleep in less than a minute. If not for Nikki’s voice softly calling his name he might have slept through to the following morning. At first he thought she was in his dream. Opening his eyes was a struggle but he was quickly rewarded by a vision straight out of his favorite fantasy. She stood in the doorway wearing one of his button-up shirts and the sapphire kitten ears and tail he’d bought her in Tokyo. Smiling saucily at him, s
he twirled the fluffy tail in one hand as she took a step into the room. Fully awake and erect in an instant, he moved to the edge of the bed in anticipation.

  Watching him intently, the pointed tip of her tongue toying with the edge of her upper lip, she began to undo the top button of her borrowed shirt. After two weeks of being denied access to her he was ready to grab her and take her where she stood. Instead he remained frozen on the edge of the bed, savoring her uncharacteristically bold advance. The light from the hallway filtered around her edges, lending her a soft, angelic halo that took his breath away. “God, you’re beautiful.”

  “I brought you something,” she purred as her fingers moved to the next button and then the one below it.

  Gage held his breath until the last one was finally released and his shirt fell open, rewarding him with a partial glimpse of her pale, firm breasts and a flimsy black thong that made no effort to hide anything. As he watched, she ran one small hand under the edge of the shirt to caress an already taut nipple, then slipped it down her tummy until it came to the edge of the thong, pausing for an excruciating minute before teasing its way inside. Gage’s mouth watered as she shifted one leg slightly to allow her fingers better access to what lay just behind the thin, damp black fabric. As her fingers slipped into the juicy wetness within she let out a faint moan, closing her eyes as her head rolled slightly back, and destroying what was left of his restraint.

  Gage rose from the bed naked and fully erect. For two weeks he’d been left with only his hand and her memory for release and he couldn’t wait any longer. Need, desire, and denial left him burning for her as his cock became an iron shaft thrusting toward her. “Come here.”