The winter night was bitter and windy with snow up to a couple of feet in some parts of the city. Plows had been working overtime for two days with the current snow storm that wasn’t quite a blizzard. The suburbs were being pummeled so hard that the depth had already reached forty-three inches, almost four feet, in some towns.
Mac stared out his office window and sighed as he wondered how many bodies would be buried before they could get to them.
“You look deep in thought,” Stella observed from behind. “Or are you just faking it?”
The teasing brought a faint smile to his face as Mac turned to look at her. “That’s for me to know.”
She smiled in return, a full, unabashed Stella-special that always broke through the carefully erected walls around his heart. Of course, it helped that she’d known him since before the Towers had fallen and had all kinds of ammunition to drawn on. “You know you’re spending Christmas with us, right?”
“Oh I am,” he replied, amused.
Nodding, Stella continued, “We’re going full out this year. Aiden’s going to cook from scratch, just the way we both like it, and there’ll be plenty of fully-spiked eggnog to wash it down. Hawkes and Flack are going to stop by at some point that night and you know that if you don’t come for dinner, Aiden’s never going to speak to you again.”
Touched that she would go through so much trouble, even if Aiden was the one doing the work, Mac offered a slightly bigger smile and asked, “That’s a deterrent?”
“Mac...”
“I’ll be there,” he promised with a chuckle.
“Excellent!” she exclaimed, beaming. “I’m off to get some results from Hawkes, but I expect to see you at the apartment tomorrow night at seven sharp, Mister.”
He saluted briefly and watched her go before turning back to view the cold, strangely pristine looking city outside.
* * * *
Christmas at the Sassone’s was a big, sprawling affair with lots of music, food, drinking, and laughter. They always wound up at Sonny’s father’s house, a large, three story place with lots of kids running around and women yelling at the men to get their lazy butts out of the way. The air was filled with the smell of cooking pastries and the carols played loud and cheerful through all rooms in the house.
Usually, Danny enjoyed Christmas because he was at a semi-public event with women who adored him and kept him away from Sonny while they were there. This Christmas, though, he could barely walk from the pain that radiated from his back and ass, both of which had been flayed until they’d bled the night before. It didn’t help that Sonny had shoved a plug into his ass that was just a shade too wide to be anything but seriously uncomfortable, almost painful in its own right. His clothes hid all of this from view, of course, and that made things better and worse. Mrs. Sassone couldn’t rip Sonny a new one for mistreating him, but it also hid his reason for moving slower and with less grace than usual.
“Danny! Get your sorry ass to the kitchen and get us some beers,” Sonny ordered sharply, breaking into his thoughts.
The slap to the back of his head was hard enough to restart his headache. Danny scrambled as quickly as he could to his feet before hurrying to the kitchen. The last week had been almost impossible to live through. His Master was relentless in beating and whipping him long past the boundaries they’d established over the years of his service. It was as though suddenly, for no reason that he could discern, something inside was driving Sonny towards the inevitable conclusion of Danny’s death.
Something that would be a friggin’ relief at this point, Danny couldn’t help thinking as he limped to the kitchen.
“Danny, honey, did you hurt yourself?”
Coming face to face with the plump, sweet Mrs. Sassone, Danny forced himself to smile and lie, “Just tripped and did something to my back, Mrs. Sassone. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
“Well, why don’t you come and sit with us for a while.”
“I would love to, but Sonny asked me to get them some…”
“Sonny can get off his ass and do it himself,” Mrs. Sassone interrupted with a wink. Putting her arm around Danny’s, she led him the rest of the way into the kitchen and continued, “I never get to see you anymore, Danny. I hope that boy of mine is treating you well?”
“Of course, Mrs. Sassone,” Danny lied demurely as they entered the other room. “Sonny takes very good care of me.”
The door closed behind them and Danny stiffened in some alarm as he took in the serious faces of the women present. Carla, Sonny’s older sister, Maria, his aunt on his father’s side, and Nana Sassone were all standing there looking like executioners.
Biting his lip, Danny asked, “Is something wrong?”
“Only that my son is a no good, vicious man,” Mrs. Sassone answered angrily. “You let us take care of you, Danny, and trust me. He’s not going to get hold of you until I’m convinced he isn’t going to hurt you again.”
Alarmed for real now, Danny exclaimed, “Mrs. Sassone, no, please don’t do this. It’ll be fine, I promise. He’s just going through a difficult time right now. Once business picks up…”
She cupped his face and replied, “No, Danny, you listen to me. I know my son and his faults. This is something new and I have no intention of letting him use you to work through whatever is going on in that empty head of his. You’re staying here until I say otherwise.”
And like a lot of men when confronted by a mother-figure, Danny simply looked away and nodded acquiescence. He just hoped that he could live through whatever happened when Sonny found out.