Page 25 of Daddy's Oath
“Go,” Ace said. “Take care of your cutie. We’ve got this. I’ll pull some of the other guys in on this. But I’ll drop Lana off at Athena’s. She’d be safe here but I’d rather someone look after her.”
Just then an electronic buzz chimed, alerting them to a visitor at the gate.
“Wonder who that is,” Jack said.
Ace stood and smiled. “That’s the help I called.”
“This is crazy!” Ace said as he studied himself in the mirror. “It doesn’t even look like me.”
He was sitting in a chair in front of a vanity, the bright lights that surrounded the rectangular mirror illuminating the space.
“That’s the point,” Stryker told him. “Sheila is the best in the biz. She’s also a Mommy, so we can trust her.”
“Do you have a Little?” Ace asked the makeup artist.
“Two,” Sheila said. “A boy and a girl.”
She had blonde hair, a matronly build, and was probably about forty or forty-five, Ace figured.
“And you do this for a living?” He gestured at the makeup.
“Yep. Stryker and I have worked on a few pictures together.”
“I’m always impressed by her magic,” Stryker added.
Ace studied himself in the mirror once more. His nose was now slightly bulbous. He had a few acne scars. The brown mustache that hung over his lip was brushy. His eyebrows were much thicker, too.
“I’m not finished, either. We’re going to give you a middle-aged-man gut,” Sheila announced as she walked over to where a round stomach prosthetic hung.
Ace laughed. “I am a middle-aged man.”
“Yeah, but I’m willing to bet you have six-pack abs under that t-shirt,” Sheila told him.
He grinned wide. “Eight-pack abs, thank you very much.”
She took the prosthetic off the wall. “Well, this morning you’re going to have a paunch.”
“And in this uniform,” Stryker said, pointing to the blue-and-white-striped work shirt and black pants that hung on a hook next to where the prosthetic had been, “you’ll be unrecognizable.”
“Huh. I’m sure glad we put in this disguise room when we outfitted this house,” Ace noted. “At the time I thought it was crazy. Now, it’s coming in handy.” Looking from Sheila to Stryker, he added, “I want to thank you both for coming over this morning.”
“It’s my pleasure,” Sheila said. “I hate the thought of a precious Little fearing for her life. I hope you all catch whoever is behind this. I’m sure you will.”
Ace thought of telling her she was damn right they would, but he kept that comment to himself, not wanting to seem cocky.
“All right, let’s talk tech,” Stryker said with an obvious gleam in his eyes. He walked over to the vanity and grabbed several things he’d placed there upon coming in earlier. “This picks up recording devices. Just run it along walls, furniture, or anywhere else someone might hide a bug or camera. It detects their frequencies.” He held up the tiny black box. “Click it on like so.Its default is to beep.” He moved it closer to the other object on the vanity, a miniature camera. The device sounded a high-pitched alert. “But since they might be watching or recording, we don’t want them to hear that. So I’m going to switch it to vibration mode.” He clicked a tiny button and demonstrated again, show the black box as it buzzed in his hand. “Now for the cameras. They’re not quite microscopic. But they’re miniature. They break easy, so please handle with care. I’ll power them on remotely. All you have to do is place them.”
Ace nodded. “Sounds like I need to do this discreetly, just in case they’re watching.”
“That’s right,” Stryker replied. “Stealth is key.”
“So, assuming I find cameras, you don’t want me to disable them, huh?” Ace asked.
“Exactly. We don’t want them to know we’re on to ‘em.” Stryker checked his smartwatch. “I’ve got to be on set in an hour. You think you got this from here?”
Ace stood from the makeup chair. “Just let the Daddy Guard do what we do best.”
With a look of resolve and steel in his voice, he added exactly what the mission was about.
