Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Kelsey had been too shaken up to sleep by herself, so Stephanie and Trixie brought blankets and pillows into the spare bedroom she’d claimed and made it like a slumber party, sans the fun.
Once they were there, it wasn’t very long before exhaustion carried her into dark oblivion. It was nearly ten the following morning when she awoke with a start.
“It’s okay.” Trixie’s voice was calm and soothing. “You’re safe now.”
The fog gradually cleared from Kelsey’s mind, and she realized that the horrible events that plagued her nightmares had indeed been real just a few hours earlier.
Her breaths came closer together and Trixie got up from where she’d been on the floor and sat on the bed, holding her friend’s hand.
“They can’t hurt you now. Whoever they are.”
A comforting arm draped around Kelsey’s shoulders. She leaned into Trixie and the two hugged for a few moments of silence before Kelsey broke it.
“I guess your Daddy has questions. I can talk to him now, if he wants.”
“Whenever you’re ready,” John’s deep voice said.
Kelsey jumped as she looked in the doorway and saw the handsome man standing there, leaning against the jamb.
He smiled and pushed off to step deeper into the room. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. We’ve been checking on you off and on to make sure you were okay. Except Trixie. She’s been in here the whole time.” He looked proud as he said that.
Kelsey looked at her friend. “You stayed with me?”
“I didn’t want you to be alone when you woke up. Stephanie stayed too, but she just left to help her Daddy go get some food. We figured you’d be hungry when you woke up.”
Now that it was mentioned, Kelsey realized she was hungry. So hungry, in fact, that her stomach rumbled.
“Thank you. I could definitely eat.”
“They’ll be back any time now,” John said. “But do you want to talk until then? Or I can step out and give you a few minutes to wake up and get ready and all that.”
After thinking it over, Kelsey said, “Yeah. Maybe that would be good. I won’t take long, sir.”
John gave her an understanding smile. “You take as long as you need, honey. We’ll be in the main room whenever you’re ready.”
Trixie hugged her again before sliding off the bed and following her Daddy into the other room, shutting the door behind her.
In the attached bathroom, Kelsey found a pair of clothes that looked to be the same size as Trixie wore, which happened to be her size, too.
There was also the toothbrush she’d been given last night, along with the makeup remover she’d used and facewash.
She didn’t need to strip any makeup off, so she simply brushed her teeth, washed her face, and changed from the borrowed pajamas she’d worn to bed.
A few minutes later, she was out in the main room, where Breaker and Stephanie had just entered, carrying cartons of breakfast from a local diner that they placed around the table.
“Good morning,” Breaker said. “Come sit down and grab a bite to eat. We have eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and even biscuits if you want some.”
The aroma wafted in the air and swirled under her nose, reeling her to the table.
“I want extra syrup, Daddy!” Trixie said as she forked a stack of pancakes onto her plate.
It was then that Kelsey noticed for the first time that her friend was wearing a short pink frilly nightie with a big plastic-backed diaper beneath it.
Stephanie was dressed in yoga pants and a t-shirt, and Kelsey figured it was probably because she’d gone out in public.
“Whoa there, little girl. You don’t need too much syrup,” John said.
“But it’s my favorite part!”
“Uh-huh. But you already had a soda this morning, didn’t you?”
The disappointment in her voice was evident. “Yes, Daddy.”
“And do you remember what I told you when you came out of the room to grab that soda earlier?”
Trixie sighed. “That if I drank it, I would have to limit how much sugar I had later because sugar makes me really, super-duper hyper and then I crash and feel awful.”
John chuckled. “Well, cutie, I didn’t quite say all of that. But you got the general idea right.” He patted her hand. “So, let’s just have a normal amount of syrup.” His wink had her giggling, at least.
“Thank you for the food. I’m starving.” She sat down and made her plate.
“You’re quite welcome,” John told her. “Dig in.”
The group started eating and a few minutes passed before anyone said anything. It was Kelsey herself who finally broke the silence.
“I’m sorry to just show up here last night unannounced. Or I guess it was this morning. Honestly, time sort of ran together and I’m not exactly sure when it was.”
John took a drink of coffee to wash his food down with and said, “You don’t have to be sorry, Kelsey. We’re just glad you came.”
“That’s right,” Breaker said. “You’re safe now. We’re not going to let anyone hurt you.”
Kelsey reflected on his words. She believed they’d try to protect her. But were they any match for whoever was chasing her?
“When you’re ready,” John said, “why don’t you tell us what’s going on.”
Part of Kelsey didn’t want to talk about it right now, but she also knew the Daddy Guard couldn’t help her if she wasn’t honest with them. Plus, they deserved to know the whole story. After all, they were sort of putting themselves in danger by housing her.
A little bit of hesitancy still nagged at her. Telling everything she knew might hurt Marco. He’d be implicated in some potentially shady stuff. But telling might also help him. Maybe the Daddy Guard could rescue him, too.
That is, if he was still alive.
The thought he might not be nearly sent her to the floor in a fetal position, so she shoved it from her mind and refocused her thoughts on sharing her story.
“Well, it’s sort of a long story, but… I think you need to know all of it.”
With a deep breath, she began.
“I met Marco online a while back. On a dating site for Littles and Bigs.”
A twinge of bashfulness accompanied the statement, but then she realized there was no need to feel that way around them. If anyone understood, it was the four people in the room with her.
So, she continued.
“We just clicked from the moment we met each other. Like, I knew instantly that he was the one. Things were so good. But he never talked much about work. The company he worked for owns a casino. I know that. It was obvious he was trying to shield me from all that, though. He didn’t want me knowing too much or meeting too many people.
“Anyway, he kept saying things like he was going to find a way out and soon we’d be free from all that—even if he never explained what that was.”
Kelsey saw the glances that passed between Breaker and John, and she suspected that they had a good idea as to the type of work Marco was in.
She hoped they didn’t judge him too harshly. And would it change the way they felt about her? Would they still protect her?
“You said you didn’t meet too many people from his company,” John said. “Does that mean you met a couple?”
“Yeah. A few, actually.”
They exchanged looks again before Breaker said, “Do you know any of their names?”
Kelsey nodded. “The boss is an older man named Enzo. I don’t know his last name. He’s sweet. Kind of grandfatherly. But, his son, Niko, isn’t cool. Kind of gives me the creeps. And that was even before he tried to kill me last night!”
This time there was no wondering what the look the two men exchanged conveyed. Once they were seemingly over their apparent shock, Breaker looked back at her and said, “Honey, does the last name Bianchi sound familiar?”
She thought it over for a moment before answering with a shrug.
“We can pull up some pics in a minute,” John suggested. “But first, tell us what happened last night.”
Kelsey finished the bite of food she’d put in her mouth, took a drink of juice, and then told them about the events that started at the nightclub and then ended with her running through the darkness until she ended up at their doorstep.
By the time she finished, she was sobbing as she remembered the horrible encounter with Niko and his thugs.
“I’m so sorry,” Stephanie said.
“Yeah,” Trixie added. “We sort of know how that goes. The Daddy Guard helped us too. And now they’re going to help you. Isn’t that right, Daddy?”
“Of course, sweetie,” John replied.
Wiping her eyes with a paper napkin, Kelsey said, “You don’t think I’m a bad person because I was with Marco?”
“Of course not,” John told her. “You fell in love with a guy. His choices are his own. Not yours.”
“Yeah. You didn’t put yourself in danger. He did. And he should’ve known better,” Breaker growled.
Looking at him with pleading eyes, Kelsey said, “He’s not a bad guy. I promise! Marco would never do anything to hurt me.”
“He didn’t keep you safe. That’s the same, in my books.”
Kelsey started to speak but didn’t even know what to say. Covering her mouth, she started crying again, hurrying up from the table and running to the room she’d slept in.
Falling onto the bed, she buried her face in the pillow while her body shook.
She felt the presence of someone behind her and finally gathered herself enough to twist around and see Breaker standing in the doorway.
Stepping in, he said, “I want to apologize.” The bed sank lower as he sat on the end of it. “I shouldn’t have said that. You’ve been through enough without me piling on. I’m sorry.”
Kelsey sniffled. “Thank you.”
He nodded.
A heavy silence settled over them. About two minutes went by before he spoke again.
“We’re going to protect you. Those bad men can’t get to you here. But I need you to understand that if we uncover any evidence of criminal activity, we have to report it—whether it implicates Marco’s associates or… well, him.”
Kelsey didn’t like that, but she knew it was the right thing to do. Guilt was already eating away at her, wondering if she should have gone to the cops with her fears a long time ago. Perhaps it would have kept innocent people from getting hurt.
It might have actually been the best thing for Marco in the long run.
There was no changing the past, though. She just had to move forward and hope everything worked out all right.
Right now, of course, she hoped Marco was simply alive. And that she’d stay alive.
The odds of that latter one were pretty high thanks to the Daddy Guard.
But the former was out of her control, and she wasn’t sure there was anything that could be done to help Marco.
“Like I said,” Breaker kept on, “I’m sorry for what I said. We’re glad you’re here and we want you to know that you are safe with us.”
“Thank you, Uncle Breaker,” she said, sitting up so that she could hug him.
“He’s right,” John said as he, Trixie, and Stephanie came into the room too. “We’re all glad you’re here.”
It turned into a group hug, and the affection went a long way in soothing Kelsey’s troubled soul.
“Okay,” John said, once they pulled away. “I hate to break up the love here but we need to get down to business. Do these guys look familiar to you?”
Kelsey accepted the phone he held out and studied the image on the screen.
“Yeah, that’s Enzo and Niko! Like I said, Enzo is really nice but his son is a big jerk!”
“I’d say that’s putting it mildly. That asshole tried to kill you,” Stephanie said.
Breaker’s voice was stern. “Whoa there, little one. Language.”
After a gulp, Stephanie said, “Sorry, Daddy.”
Breaker chuckled. “I guess under the circumstances, it’s all right.”
Handing John’s phone back to him, Kelsey said, “Where did you find that picture?”
John took his phone and smirked. “Let’s just say we have access to a few law enforcement databases.
That photo is from a file the FBI keeps on the Bianchi Crime Family.
Enzo’s grandfather started it back in the old days, after he came over from Sicily.
Began on the East Coast, but they made their way to Vegas early on, back when Bugsy Siegel was just kicking things off in these parts.
And this—” He tapped a few times on his phone and then thrust it out once again to show Kelsey “—is who the Feds believe is next in line for the throne. Who they call the underboss.”
Kelsey gasped. “But that’s… Daddy!”
“Yeah,” John said apologetically. “That’s what I was afraid of. Marco Ruggieri.”
He looked at Breaker and then back at Kelsey, his voice sounding even more dire again.
“Soon-to-be-godfather of the Las Vegas mob.”