16. Cage
Chapter 16
Cage
Cage couldn’t decide whether to have a glazed donut or stick to his selection of nuts.
One healthy option versus a sugary treat.
Cage knew for sure which option Katie would select.
Obviously, the sugary donut.
Cage even considered texting Katie for her advice.
But he thought better of it as he didn’t want to disturb Katie or her recordings.
Cage felt another swell of pride as he considered just how well Katie had done. Although Cage didn’t know much about how the industry worked, he knew it was a big deal to get asked to record for an up-and-coming romance author.
It was still very new.
The feeling of having a connection with someone on the Daddy and Little level. Cage had been worried that he was too cynical, not well enough adjusted to be a good influence. To be the right type of personality that a Little needed.
But so far, it actually appeared that Cage’s fears had been misplaced.
Katie seemed to be going from strength to strength.
But it wasn’t just Katie who had benefitted from their relationship.
Cage was feeling better about himself too.
There was the satisfaction he felt from stepping into Katie’s life and providing her with safety, security, and something resembling normality.
Especially after what Katie had recently been through.
But even taking the stalker situation into account, Cage felt like Katie’s life had still been missing the stability that a Daddy could bring.
Alongside the warm feeling of knowing he was helping someone else, Cage had felt himself open up and relax a bit too. He never would have considered calling in sick before.
In fact, he’d gone into work many times over the years feeling like absolute trash. Determined not to miss a single morning. Cage had even cancelled tooth surgery to avoid missing a shift.
Taking a slight step back from work didn’t come easy to him.
Far from it.
But it was a little bit easier now he was with Katie.
It was like he had a concrete reason to put at least some of his energies into something other than solving cases and grinding away at his enormous backlog of police work.
‘Okay, I’m going for the donut, screw it,’ Cage said, laughing with a colleague as the pair of them each grabbed two donuts each and emptied the box. ‘One of the new guys can haul ass and re-fill these later.’
Cage walked back to his desk.
After munching down the donuts, he found it a struggle to keep his head in the work. It might have been the gargantuan stack of paperwork to his right, or the similarly large stack of work to his left, but he just could not focus.
The aircon was also struggling to maintain any kind of consistency. And what made it worse was that not only was it not cooling the office, but it was also making intermittent loud thudding and whirring noises.
‘Shut that fucking thing up!’ Detective Kal Brasenose shouted.
Kal was sitting a few desks away from Cage.
They weren’t exactly best buddies, but on the subject of the faltering aircon both could agree that something needed to be done.
‘I hear that,’ Cage replied, his frustration growing.
Deep down, Cage knew that he didn’t want to be in work at all.
Faulty aircon or not.
Where he wanted to be was with Katie.
But there was work to be done at the station. There was no getting around that. Cage began to slowly plough his way through the outstanding paperwork.
Progress was slow.
Cage even decided to put in his special noise cancelling earbuds. This wasn’t something he liked to do often, and it was definitely frowned upon by his boss who saw it as very anti-social.
But if there was any hope of Cage concentrating, he knew he would need to cancel out as much of the surrounding distractions as possible.
The earbuds worked for a while.
But it wasn’t long before Cage’s mind began to wander again.
Cage couldn’t help but think back to his old partner, Nicki.
It had been a vice bust. Nothing out of the ordinary. Or so they thought. But when Nicki and Cage were ambushed, it turned into a total nightmare. One that sadly Nicki would never wake from.
Despite managing to escape the ambush, Nicki had taken several bullets. She managed to cling on to life for long enough for Cage to get them both to the hospital and into the emergency operating theater.
After that, everything went downhill.
Nicki’s body just couldn’t handle the trauma.
As she passed away in the early hours of that morning, something in Cage changed.
Changed forever.
Up until that point, Cage had been utterly fearless and relentless. He had no fear of any situation on the tough streets. Cage had taken down more bad guys in hand-to-hand combat than he could count.
But losing Nicki in such a brutal way was an eye-opener.
It took a long time for Cage to get his head around the whole situation.
Cage’s mind was plagued with thoughts that it had been his fault. That he could have done something – anything – differently. That if he had made a different move, Nicki would still be alive today.
Cage’s sergeant had seen it all before.
Experienced it himself.
That’s why Sergeant Mase initially allowed Cage to deal with the grief in his own way. Sergeant Mase gave Cage what he craved… and that was space.
But maybe Mase gave Cage too much space.
It led to Cage slowly withdrawing from the social side of the police force. He rarely went out for drinks or socialized with his fellow cops anymore.
Cage could feel himself slowly slipping into introspection.
Policy work wasn’t as enjoyable any longer.
It hurt him.
Not as bad as the pain of losing Nicki, but more like a slow-burn pain. The kind that just nags away at an individual.
The end result was that Cage just didn’t work the beat any longer. He had no one to walk the streets with. He simply wasn’t interested in having another partner.
Why would he be?
The risk of going through the agony of losing a partner all over again just wasn’t something that Cage could even contemplate.
No, he decided he would do police work his way.
And that meant staying behind the desk for as much of the time as he possibly could. Cage would go to crime scenes as and when required of course. That was unavoidable and a huge part of solving any case.
But as far as walking the beat went?
No chance.
Cage was done with that.
Well, that was what he’d always assumed. Since spending time with Katie and seeing how change was possible, Cage had begun to very gradually thaw to the idea of hitting the streets again.
It wouldn’t be easy.
There were still major psychological hoops for Cage to jump through. He considered that maybe it was time to see a therapist to talk over Nicki’s death. Maybe even ask for an extended period off work to focus on himself and return as the cop he knew he once was. The cop who he prayed he could be again.
But Cage figured that if he could keep Katie safe, then perhaps he could trust himself to do the same with the good people of New York City again.
With his mood lifted, a sense of genuine optimism came over Cage.
He used this energy to make a decent dent in the stacks of work on his desk. It wasn’t like he’d got anywhere near clearing it, but he absolutely got through more than he normally would.
It was like his old efficiency and gut instinct was trying to get out. One step at a time. Slowly but surely.
Cage even got a compliment of Sergeant Mase.
This was a rare occurrence.
Mase was tough. Old school.
When Mase said something was good, you knew he meant it.
So, it was with something of a spring in his step that Cage finished off his last case file for the day and headed out onto the sweltering streets outside the station.
It had been a long day’s work.
But ultimately a satisfying one.
Cage was planning on heading directly back to Katie’s apartment without stopping. But then he had an idea. It was time to treat Katie with a reward for all of her hard work.
But it wasn’t going to be a sweet treat.
No, Katie didn’t need any more sugary snacks.
Cage was going to surprise Katie with a brand-new paddle.
One that would be perfect for dishing out a blistering spanking the next time Katie acted a little bit too bratty for her own good.
Or if Katie applied too much sass.
Or if… well, it wasn’t going to take much of an excuse for Cage to spank her.
Cage felt confident that Katie would be very much on board with this surprise. The spanking supplies store was only a couple of blocks detour. Cage figured that Katie would be more than happy to wait a little bit longer before he got home.
Briefly taking a moment to get his bearings, Cage wasted no more time considering it. It was time to pick up a new paddle and then head over to see Katie.
Cage hopped out of the Uber and looked up towards Katie’s apartment window.
The new paddle was safely hidden inside Cage’s work bag. He wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible and had been considering ways he could let Katie in on the secret in the most fun way imaginable.
There were plenty of options.
Cage even considered marching into the apartment and dishing out a big old paddling right there and then.
He figured he would make his mind up when he saw Katie.
After all, if Katie was still working then it wouldn’t be a very Daddy thing to do to distract Katie away from her responsibilities.
That was the last thing Cage wanted.
Cage entered the building and made his way up the stairs. Naturally, the elevator was out of order. This was typical of the building. Poorly managed and in need of a new owner.
Still, if it gave Cage a chance to work off some of the donut-calories from earlier, he wasn’t going to complain too much.
As Cage approached Katie’s apartment, he felt something.
It was the kind of sickening feeling he got when working a fresh case.
Something was up.
The atmosphere was off.
Every one of Cage’s cop instincts kicked in.
Adrenalin pumped around his body.
Cage ran towards the apartment door and noticed that it was off its hinges.
‘What the fuck!’ Cage said, panic in his voice. ‘Katie! Katie! Are you okay? Where are you? Answer me!’
Cage charged into the apartment, but Katie was nowhere to be seen.
There was no sign of a struggle.
It didn’t look like anything had been messed around with.
Barely a single item was out of place.
But the door…
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Cage raged. ‘Katie!’
It was a shout of exasperation.
Katie wasn’t here and the truth was that she had almost certainly been taken. There was no other explanation for the door being off the hinges.
Cage was terrified.
Katie meant absolutely everything to him.
They may not have been together for long, but the bond between them was true.
Cage was Katie’s Daddy.
And there was no way in hell that Cage was going to let anything happen to her.
Not today, and not ever.
It was time for Detective Cage Jenson to hit the streets once more.