Protective Daddy

by Lena Little

  This is the worst, and I’m reminded of it the minute Dan walks in the door. Just the sound of the doorbell has me wishing it was Logan. Dan’s a fine person, but he’s not the man of my dreams. By definition, no one is but Logan.

  My dad introduces himself to Dan and then ushers him into the kitchen, giving me smiles and nudges like he’s trying to set the two of us up. This needs to stop, now, but I’m not about to make a big scene about it in front of a guest. My father and I already had it out all of yesterday and today I’m just trying to be as calm as I can, even though inside I’m dying. It’s like a death by a thousand cuts with every minute that passes without Logan.

  “Tell us a little more about yourself, Dan,” my dad asks, looking at me to make sure I’m paying attention…which I’m absolutely not. I just want this project to be over and done with so I can transfer out of community college and to the four year university where dad enrolled me. At least if I’m out from underneath his nose there’s a slim chance of a reconciliation with Logan, although if the way my dad’s acting lately is any indication, even that is a pipe dream.

  Dan pops off some canned replies as if he’s running for a political office. I try and act politely and pay attention, not to mention Dan never did anything to me and he’s a guest. On top of that, I don’t need dad harassing me tonight after he leaves.

  After my dad seems satisfied he pulls out a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet and sets out three glasses. My dad has never offered me alcohol, not to mention I’m underage. This is beyond weird.

  He pours the three shots, one into each glass before Dan asks if we should add a single ice cube to each glass. My dad agrees and moves toward the freezer while Dan turns his back toward me and when he turns back around the glasses are stacked like a triangle.

  “Cool, huh? I should have been a geometry major.”

  “Yeah, it’s neat…a good bar trick.”

  My dad returns with the ice cubes, plunking them in the glasses before offering me one. Next thing I know we’re toasting to my acceptance to a new university and as much as I don’t want to drink, and considering I’m not a drinker anyway, I tip back the shot. Right now I’d do anything to take the sting of Logan not being here and to try and ease this surreal Twilight Zone moment of my dad trying to hook me up with my classmate…who has a preference for other boys.

  My throat burns instantly and my stomach feels like an acid ball just got dropped on it. I quickly make my way to my seat and sit down, ready to finish up this project.

  “Wow, it’s been a while since I drank,” dad says, shaking his head from side to side. “My tolerance must be low.”

  I try and do the same with my head, but it’s throbbing. I start to make some suggestions about the project feeling extremely sleepy. Looking over at my dad I watch him lie down on the kitchen floor. What the…?

  And a second later my whole world goes black as I faceplant into the table.

  12

  Logan

  I beat my thumb against the steering wheel and tap my foot against the floorboard.

  Eric’s not answering my calls and neither is Layla, but then again I’d bet anything Eric’s taken control of her phone.

  I need to get inside that house, past their gate, to state my case. It’s been a day and a half and I haven’t seen anyone come or go, offering me no opportunities.

  Until now.

  A van slowly glides to a stop and someone gets out from the passenger side. Anxiously I grip my door handle, ready to make my move when whoever this crew is enters. A white, unmarked van is clearly here to do some kind of work on their home so I should be able to slip in. Should being the keyword.

  By the time I make out the first face, recognizing it instantly, I think to myself…shouldn’t that kid from the other night be driving something a little more collegiate looking?

  Maybe he just came from whatever job he works to pay for school. But if that’s his job then why hasn’t his co-worker pulled away from the curb?

  My muscles tense at the thought of the same little fucker going back inside their house, after I scared him off, yet me, as the best friend of the owner since childhood and the man who’s claimed Layla, I can’t even get a callback.

  The van idles and via my slightly rolled down window, I hear the engine shut off. What the?

  Being two of the very few vehicles on the block doesn’t make this any easier. I move my big body over the center console, thankful for my illegally tinted driver’s side window. Slowly I make sure not to shake the car, which at my height and weight is easier said than done.

  Once in position, I slide my hand back under the driver’s side seat and unvelcro the handgun I keep for situations just like this.

  Slowly opening the passenger door I slide out, staying low to the ground as I work my way around the back of my car until I’ve got an angle which shows me who’s sitting inside the van courtesy of the driver’s side mirror.

  And who else would it be but a dead man, the same man I shot on a pier in Boston eight years ago when he tried to ambush Eric and me, the last deal Eric ever went out on until I sent him out on the most recent one, which by the way I still don’t know how that one turned out.

  This isn’t making sense. At all.

  I watch as the gate opens and the kid goes inside. I’m too late to slide in behind him, not to mention the gate closes too quickly.

  I don’t like this, not one bit.

  I squat down next to my back tire trying to make heads or tails of this. How could a man I know I killed be sitting in front of Eric’s house right now? I dropped him with a shot that there’s no way he survived, not to mention he faceplanted in the harbor and the police diving team brought out the body. I know because I followed the case and even looked at the pictures after they were released to the public.

  I try and think back to that deal, one of many we do, but for some reason that one seemed off from the beginning. It was a shipment of olive oil from Italy, but in reality, it was empty bottles, and a couple of would be thugs trying to make a quick low six figure payday.

  A couple of thugs. It hits me.

  That guy I killed had a brother he mentioned a few times. From what our intel told us it was a twin brother.

  Fuck! This guy’s here for revenge.

  What was his name? What was his name? I pull out my phone and a quick Google search jogs my memory. Diego Luciano. That’s it! And another quick Google search makes my stomach absolutely drop.

  Wanted in Florida for multiple homicides, armed robbery, and rape in Miami, along with his accomplice…Dante Luciano.

  And staring me in the face on Google Images is a picture of Dante…a.k.a. ‘Dan’, Layla’s study buddy.

  13

  Layla

  “Help me get this bitch in the van,” I hear as I come to, Dan moving quickly toward me as I look at my dad lying on the floor next to me hogtied and gagged.

  “Wait a second. If I don’t get this fucking camera disabled the cops are gonna have more footage of us.”

  An older man with an Italian accent sits not ten feet from me at the same kitchen table where I passed out. He’s got a computer out and he’s doing something…frantically.

  “The app found two more cameras. One upstairs and one facing the street. We’ll get the street camera on the way out. Just let me get this one upstairs,” he says as he darts to the steps with some device in his hand, probably something that locates the signal and exposes the camera locations to him.

  How do I know? Because Logan has something similar that he showed me a few years ago when he was lecturing me on protection and personal safety.

  Logan. God, I wish he was here right now. I wish my dad wouldn’t have flown off the handle and just listened for a second, let us say our piece, and we probably wouldn’t be in this situation right now.

  Dan stares down at me, watching over me as I can hear his older accomplice moving around feverishly upstairs.

  “Please, Dan,” I mumble through th
e bandana stuffed in my mouth. “We have money. You can have it. Just leave us be.”

  He smirks and gets in closer to me, his face just inches from mine and his boot not far behind as he remains standing, just bent over.

  “Oh, bitch, don’t you worry. We’re going to take your money too. All of it. And then we’re going to settle the score for what your asshole boyfriend did to my uncle a few years ago. And as soon as we finish you off, we’re going straight to his house to finish him off. Should be pretty easy with the recordings of your screams we’re gonna get when the fun starts…and by fun I mean pulling out your toenails one by one.”

  “They’ll know it was you. They’ll figure it out when you don’t go back to class,” I mumble.

  “Class? What the hell is that? Study for four years so I can go work for somebody for forty years and maybe retire with enough to take a vacation with some tour group in Italy one day? Or just take your millions and go there now, swimming in the sea for the rest of my days eating all the pizza and pussy I can handle.” Then he turns to my dad. “You do know your best friend was eating your daughter out, right? What a fuckin’ freak show you three are. What a hot mess.”

  “Mess with the bull, get the horns,” a deep growl comes from the other side of the kitchen. Just as Dan goes to turn I hear the sound of a suppressed handgun fire and Dan drops to a weightless pile right in front of my nose.

  I cringe, closing my eyes tight before I hear the sliding of his body being moved away from my line of sight.

  “Don’t move,” Logan says, stalking his way toward the stairs. I roll my eyes at his words, wanting to say, ‘Thanks, Captain Obvious,’ considering we’re still tied up, but truth be told I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life, and for all the reasons you could ever imagine and more.

  “I got it!” Dan’s accomplice says, just before I hear the sound of the silencer attached to Logan’s pistol, followed by a Clint Eastwood type one-liner. “And I got you, asshole.”

  Logan drags the other guy down the stairs and grabs an oversized knife from the kitchen, freeing both my dad and me before sticking its point down into the cutting board.

  “Layla, get the Clorox out of the cleaning supplies and clean this place down like the Pope’s coming for a visit. Eric, grab the other side, and let’s get these bodies loaded up.”

  Now that’s the kind of leadership I can get behind. Without asking a question I do as I’m told, and by the time I’m back my dad is organizing the cameras that the guys had unhooked at the table.

  “Where’s Logan?”

  “He went for a ride.”

  I stick my head out the window and see that the van is gone.

  “What the hell just happened?” I ask, still a bit in shock while still also just trying to follow Logan’s orders. There’s just something about strong leadership, discipline and orders, that removes the stress of thinking, that centers me, and takes all my troubles away like I’m a little girl just playing a game.

  “Nothing happened. End of story. We forget this ever happened.”

  “What about you and Logan?”

  My dad freezes, looking up at me but saying nothing.

  “You’re still mad at him?”

  “We forget that ever happened too.”

  14

  Logan

  The next day

  “You turned them in?” she asks incredulously from my arms as we sit on the couch watching TV, taking a down day after everything that happened yesterday.

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “Yeah, I mean that’s not your style.”

  “Maybe I have a new style,” I counter.

  She shoots me a cocked eyebrow so I elaborate.

  “Little one, you’re right. The old way would be to take them somewhere and bury them so deep they wouldn’t be found for centuries. But then I got to thinking…if I just break their kneecaps and rough them up and then drop them off at the police station, they’re going to be locked up for life. I kill them, that’s, what? A half a day of pain tops. They go to jail with body parts that work, that’s a lifetime of misery. Not to mention if they ever get out, which they won’t because I know the prosecutor, they’d be short-lived because no way are they coming near you again.”

  She says nothing.

  “Don’t get me wrong, baby girl. I’m your protector through and through. But they step outta that place, ever, and I end them.”

  “I’m just surprised you didn’t already do that.”

  “Do you wish I had?”

  “No. I’m tired of…whatever it is exactly that you and dad are mixed up in.”

  “As am I, which is another reason why I put those low lives in jail. By doing so I don’t start a feud with anybody, and that also allows me to exit all my operations with a nice eight figure payday.”

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “Enough to put a house full of kids through school, which was another reason I didn’t off those two guys. Things are different now. I’ve got someone who’s going to look up to me, someone I need to be a different kind of man for, someone our little one can be proud of,” I say patting her stomach gently.

  “You really think I’m pregnant and you really thought this through, didn’t you?”

  “To the very end, and by end, I mean the end of this chapter of my life…and the beginning of the next chapter. As a matter of fact, it’s not even a chapter, it’s a book. This is a totally new story and it starts with the two of us.”

  “I like the sound of that.”

  “I do too, but first there’s a different sound I need to hear first.”

  She narrows her eyes, trying to decipher my cryptic message. “I don’t get it.”

  “One word that means everything.”

  “Daddy?”

  “Oh, that word certainly qualifies in the right time and place, but I’m thinking of another one,” I say, gently lifting her off me and pivoting so I’m down on one knee, facing her.

  “Logan!” she says, her hands coming up to her face as I pull a tiny robin egg colored box from my pocket.

  “Another great word I like to hear, but still not the one I’m looking for.”

  She slaps my arm playfully and before this can go any further I’m determined to get the one single word I want to hear to slide off her lips.

  “Baby girl, you’ve been mine for over a month now, but in reality, you’ve always been mine. I just didn’t know it. But now that I do it’s time to make up for lost time. I want you by my side, tucked into my hip, forever. I don’t want another day apart. I want you close so you’re the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see at night before I fall asleep to dream of you. I want to explore the world with you, spoil you, and protect you, and the family we’re building together, always. And always starts right now. Make me the happiest man on the planet. Make me your husband, your man for eternity, your everything. And yes…your Daddy for life.”

  “Yes!” she yells. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  It’s the word I’ve been waiting to hear. I slide the Tiffany ring I purchased just yesterday on her finger, a perfect fit, and a princess cut of course.

  Scooping her up in my arms I spin her around the room, just like the little girl she is, before kissing her square on the lips. My lips, because she’s mine now.

  “I love you, precious.”

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  Epilogue

  Layla

  One year later

  “Is it playtime again, Daddy?” I whisper into Logan’s ear from behind, or at least as best I can standing on my tippy toes.

  He turns, his meaty hand finding my bottom and he squeezes hard, his hand molding to my flesh. “It’s always playtime when we’re alone, little girl,” he replies with a sideways smile.

  With baby Lucas over at my father’s place for a couple of hours, it gives us a chance to be as crazy and loud as we want, not that we ever tone it down anyway.

  Logan looks at the cas
t iron skillet he was just washing and says to it, as if it can hear him, “I’ll get back with you. Right now there are more…pressing matters to take care of.”

  And that’s exactly what he does, pressing a finger against the hole between my backside cheeks and I gasp.

  “Baby girl, you know you’re supposed to be quiet when Daddy puts his finger there. This is our little secret.”

  He hasn’t even entered me yet and I’m already ready to explode. Then again, I can’t seem to ever quite finish without Daddy’s permission first. It’s just something inside me I need, just like the need to be a good girl for my Daddy and do as he says.

  It’s a unique thing, this Daddy and little girl thing Logan and I have going on. It’s hard to explain and I’d never even try to, especially to our friends. I guess in a way we’re just pretending, but yet it feels so real, and more importantly it completes a part of me that needs completing. There’s just something inside me so deep, this need, that playing with Logan this way fills. From time to time we even pretend like we’re going to get caught, which is one of my favorite games. It’s an easy game today because technically dad could come back at any time.

  My father loves to show up unexpectedly to play with our three-month-old Lucas. As much as he was upset with Logan when he first figured us out, I think my dad has figured out that being a grandfather is the biggest joy life could have ever given him.

  “I promise to be quiet for you, Daddy,” I whisper, looking over my shoulder to make sure no one’s there.

  Logan smirks and takes in a deep breath. “Good girl.”

  I suppress a giggle and then ask quietly, “Are we gonna play now?”

  Daddy growls, nodding. “Yes, we are little girl. Your backside is going to wrap me up in a very tight hug. Do you like that game.”

  “That’s a naughty one, Daddy.” I bring my fingers to my mouth covering it, but I can’t make the words go away or more importantly the desire to play. Desire fills me as he grabs my hips and flips me around, my hands grabbing the counter of the island in the kitchen as I stiffen my thigh muscles and forearms, bracing myself for what I know is about to come.