The first couple of months that year were pretty good.
Mrs. Sassone was as good as her word and kept Danny there at the house for most of January. She only let him go back to Sonny on the condition that he be brought in for an inspection each week after that. Technically, she had no right to do so, but as wife to the late, infamous Frankie Sassone, the older woman had a lot of connections that Sonny just didn’t have yet. And if she wanted to make his life a living hell, business-wise, she could.
That didn’t mean Sonny didn’t still take his temper out on Danny, he just did it when there were a couple of days to recover.
Still, the demon that had been driving Sonny seemed to take a backseat for a couple of months and Danny was treated to a minor honeymoon phase. The sex was rough, but not painful, and he actually got off about half the time, which was an unusual thing. Danny couldn’t remember the last time he was allowed orgasms on a semi-regular basis. Or at all, really. There was the added bonus of not being passed around to Sonny’s friends, which Danny thanked his lucky stars for. A couple of them were far worse than Sonny when it came to sex simply because they had an imagination.
It was in the beginning of March that things took a downhill slide. There’d been a few encroaches on the Tanglewood boys’ territory, a few wannabes on top of that, and trouble with a couple of drug suppliers. Sonny’s temper took a definite downward spiral and Danny’s back quickly grew reacquainted with the whip. It culminated at a bar one night when some kid showed up with fake Tanglewood ink and decided to try an impress a girl with it.
When the girl pointed out the newcomer to Sonny, Danny groaned to himself. He knew that look on Sonny’s face all-too-well. The other man wasn’t real creative on most things, but when it came to avenging a slight, or even a perceived slight, he was viciousness personified, no imagination necessary. He got the boy, Paul something, drunk, promising him that he’d become a real Tanglewood boy by the time the night was done. Danny was only along for the almost-certainly-fatal ride as far as the kid smashing Johnny Lucerno on the head with a bat.
Once Paul was in the SUV with the others, Sonny looked at Danny and snapped, “Get your ass home before I beat it.”
He knew better than to argue, even though he was positive that the kid waiting for Sonny in the car wasn’t going to last the night.
* * * *
The more things change, the more they stay the same, Mac thought in dark amusement.
The body he was looking at was half-buried in the snow with the head caved in. There were multiple footprint tracks in the area, on top of the tire treads. Getting molds from the snow was going to be a piece of cake. They would still have their work cut out for them, but at least the evidence would be unmistakable.
He and Stella were at the crime scene for the rest of the afternoon, even after Hawkes had taken custody of the vic’s body. Collecting evidence and taking the pictures, sketching the crime scene was a lot of work for two people. Not for the first time, Mac wished they had another couple of bodies with which to divvy up the work. Aiden was great at doing the lab work and any sculpting that was needed, but she couldn’t come out in the field with them. Technically she could, but Mac wouldn’t allow it, knowing how danger could strike at any moment. The slave would be defenseless if he or Stella weren’t around. It was possible for a slave to carry a gun in the line of duty, but Mac wouldn’t allow that, either.
The big find of the crime scene was a sliver of wood belonging to a baseball bat. Mac was pretty sure that he’d be able to figure out what the blue ink on the wood worked out to spell, which would hopefully lead them to a type of bat and then an owner.
“You know, you really need to think about hiring some more people for the shift,” Stella complained, rubbing her hands together.
Mac huffed a little and countered, “You really need to stop reading my mind.”
She gave him a cheeky grin. “It’s a gift.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get the gear, would you?” Mac ordered.
They packed up the equipment and climbed back into the SUV, ready to head back to the city in more than one way. Mac was never very comfortable without the walls of the city scrapers to keep him penned in. Probably a mild form of agoraphobia, which he acknowledged even as it irritated him. He would never be comfortable outside of the city for any real length of time and that was just a fact.
Back at the office, he left Aiden to help Stella sort through the evidence, and went down to the morgue to talk to Hawkes about the body.
“No ID yet,” the black man reported. “I’d estimate that he’s twenty-two to twenty-five years old. Cause of death is blunt force trauma to the head and the subsequent brain hemorrhaging. Not a fast death, either. He was also worked over pretty good before getting the fatal blow.”
Taking in the too-young face, Mac couldn’t help a regretful head shake as he began taking measured pictures of the footprints on the victim’s torso. He could’ve had a son this age, maybe a little younger, if he’d been less careful in his own youth. Something flashed on the kid’s face when the camera light went off and he paused, murmuring, “What was that?”
He flashed the camera again and Hawkes leaned forward, taking a closer look.
“Looks like high-velocity blood spatter,” Mac observed thoughtfully.
“I found some trace beneath his nails and already sent it, along with his clothes, up to Aiden,” Hawkes continued when he was done. “And look at this.”
Mac frowned when Hawkes turned the body to reveal a blackened patch of skin on the shoulder. “Looks like it was scraped or sanded off.”
“After I post him, I’ll see if I can lift the artwork from the flesh,” Hawkes promised.
Mac offered a brief smile and said, “Thanks, Hawkes. I’ll let you know when a name comes up for him and we have someone to ID the body.”
Going back up to the lab, he discovered that the footprints had been sorted and the women were already going over the clothes with their usual fine-toothed combs. He ordered them to take a dinner break and took a few minutes for himself in his office while they were gone and Chad was going over the trace that had been found in the boots.
* * * *
The ID for their young victim came in only a few short hours. Flack brought in Paul Montinassi’s mother for the ID and then to the waiting area for Mac to talk with her.
The conversation went about as well as could be expected. She was angry and upset about the death of her son, guilty about the part she thought she’d played in it by taking away the stability in his life from divorce. Mac tried to assure her that that wasn’t the case, but knew that he didn’t succeed. When she said that she didn’t know anything about the tattoo, Mac instantly knew that it was the break he’d been looking for. That it was, indeed, gang-related.
A call came in during the afternoon about a robbery/homicide and Mac was forced to let one of the less experienced lab techs work with Aiden while Stella went off to cover it. By the time she got back a few hours later, Mac had pretty much figured out that the bat fragment came from a Mickey Mantle bat.
“So how’s it going with the bat?” she asked, walking up to him.
“I think it’s a Mickey Mantle,” he answered. “If it is, it’s a collector’s item. An autographed bat from The Mick goes for about five grand these days.”
Surprised, Stella observed, “Wow. Expensive murder weapon. Why would you kill someone with a five thousand dollar bat?”
Mac looked at her and replied, “Good question.”
* * * *
Watching Hawkes bring up the ink on the tattoo was both fascinating and disgusting. Mac couldn’t help but think of the tattoos that covered his own body from his time in the Corp. What would they say about him to a stranger if he ever wound up dead, on a different shore, or in another city where no one knew him?
The tattoo turned out to read ‘Tanglewood,’ which caused Mac to groan.
Hawkes gave him a curious look and asked, “Mean something to you?”
“I haven’t spent much time there, but I know someone who has,” Mac answered, taking a picture of the revealed tattoo.
* * * *
He found Flack in the break room, talking to one of the many, pretty assistants that worked in the building. Mentally shaking his head, Mac approached with, “Sorry to interrupt, Detective, but I need to pick your brain about something.”
Flack nodded. “Sure thing, Mac. I’ll talk to you later, Jackie, okay?”
The young woman nodded, walking away from them with a definite sway to the hips.
“Wow,” Flack muttered before dragging his eyes to Mac. “You needed something?”
Amused, Mac held out the folder as he said, “Yeah. What do you make of this?”
Looking it over, Flack frowned and answered, “It’s a fugaisi. A fake. I mean, the ink’s probably real, but this ain’t no Tanglewood boy. There’s no ‘in’ date. You see right here? The real tattoo would have an in date, which is the date you join, and have an out date, which is the day you leave legitimately. Which, by the way, rarely happens. This kid’s definitely a wannabe.”
Mac gazed at him thoughtfully. “You seem pretty certain.”
Flack shrugged and explained,
“I met up with these kids more than a few times on the court and the diamond. I
had a few brushes with them when they were hanging out at the
“What’s the difference?”
“What’s the difference?” Flack repeated, shaking his head. “The difference is these kids don’t give a fuck.”
“What about rival crews?” Mac questioned.
Thinking about it a second,
Flack answered, “Back then, it was the Pelham crew down in
Mac nodded slowly, mulling over the information.
* * * *
The DNA came back as a mix from
the vic, Paul Montinassi, and Johnny Lucerno
from
Finding out about the bar from Lucerno was a bonus. Mac had figured on having to drag the punk downtown in cuffs to get any kind of cooperation from him. And even that wouldn’t have been a guarantee of the kid rolling on whoever had hit him in the head with the bat. When Lucerno made insolent eyes up and down Stella, Mac actually took a step forward, hand on his gun. Stella stopped him from drawing with a light hand to his arm as she dismissed the kid’s attentions with a distasteful look.
From the mall, they got back in the SUV and headed to the sports bar where the attack had taken place. The bartender was less than cooperative, not that Mac blamed him. There was a subtle hint to the ATM machine from the man and when Mac looked over at the machine, he discovered an empty bat case for a Mickey Mantle bat.
“Let’s dust this case for prints,” Mac ordered.
* * * *
“This should be fun,” Stella observed as they climbed out of the car in front of Sonny Sassone’s house.
Mac flashed her a fierce grin and agreed, “Oh it will.”
“Bloodthirsty.”
The muttered comment from Flack caused Mac to grin again, but he donned a carefully blank mask as they walked towards the driveway. There was loud and obnoxious music playing as he approached the house on foot, Flack and Stella in tow. A brand new SUV stood in the driveway, and three men stood around it. One was dancing to the music, though Mac wouldn’t have really called it that, and the other two were just hanging out, one of them talking on a cell phone.
“Yo!” Flack called out. “You wanna turn that pollution down?”
When they were almost there, Stella asked, “Sonny Sassone?”
There was a typical, “Who wants to know?” from the guy in front. He matched the picture that Mac had seen in the database; a solid, beefy man with a cold attitude staring out from hard eyes.
Holding up his badge, Mac answered, “NYPD.”
Sassone turned off the music by way of a remote and that was when Mac discovered that there was actually a fourth man sitting in the back seat of the SUV. A slave, from his clothes and bare feet, despite the snow on the ground. The man had a shock of mussed, golden hair and deep blue eyes almost hidden behind glasses. The chain around his neck was more a steel collar than anything else, in the manner of an old-fashioned, ill-regarded slave. And though the gaze was quickly dropped upon meeting Mac’s, he saw intelligence staring back at him for those few seconds.
And suffering, Mac realized, stiffening in response to it.
Flack started right in with, “How do you know Paul Montinassi?”
“I seen him around, why?” Sassone
answered.
“He’s dead,” Stella informed him.
Sassone smirked a little as he said, “Yeah? Good for
him.”
Mac asked, “Was he a Tanglewood boy?”
“Hell no,” Sassone
replied, shifting a little back and motioning to the other two guys. “You’re looking at the Tanglewood
boys right here. Check the tat.”
Mac looked at the tattoo that Sassone revealed
by half pulling off his shirt and twisting around. It looked just like Flack
said it would, with an ‘in’ date on the upper left edge.
“When was the last time you were at Billy Bats?”
Sassone glanced over at Stella’s question and answered her, “Couple of nights
ago.”
“You like Mickey Mantle?” Flack demanded.
Sassone shrugged. “Who doesn’t?”
“We have proof that you stole a bat from that sports bar.”
There was a brief pause before Sonny said, “That’s why you’re here,
because of a bat. I didn’t steal it! I was messing around with it. I was just
playing around. Danny-boy here was supposed to return it when I was done, so I
guess he forgot. Danny! Did you forget to put that damn bat back in the case?”
The slave’s eyes widened when he was addressed and in the moment before
he dropped to his knees, Mac saw pure panic on his face.
“I’m sorry, Master, I must have, I’m so sorry,” the slave exclaimed,
prostrating himself on the ground at Sassone’s feet.
Without warning, Sassone kicked the slave right
in the gut, twice. The man was down, gagging and gasping for air from the
violent blows.
Sassone snapped, “That’ll teach ya.”
Mac’s jaw tightened as the helpless, pained man was nudged on the ass by
one of the other Tanglewood boys and fell face
forward into the snow. Sassone and his boys laughed.
It was an ugly sound that put Mac further on edge.
“Looks like you put in a new back window,” Stella announced, taking everyone’s
attention from the slave. “They didn’t do a good job of setting it. The putty’s
smeared all over the place. It’s a shoddy job if you ask me.”
“Just got it re-tinted,” Sassone explained
easily. “Those idiots in
Stella continued the informal interrogation with, “New tires too, huh?”
He smirked and answered, “We rack everything new all the time, lady.
Tires, rims, kicks, threads, china, weed, you name it.”
Brazen, bringing up drugs to
three cops, Mac thought
angrily, keeping the neutral mask in place with an effort. “You mind if we
search your car?”
“You got a warrant?”
“We can get one,” Flack told him.
Sassone grinned a little and said, “I know enough to not let you illegally
search my...”
Stella broke in, exclaiming, “We’ll get a warrant.”
“Until then, you’re free to go,” Mac was forced to say.
Sonny smirked outright at that and held up his remote, turning the music
back on as he said, “Guys. We’re out.”
One of the ‘boys’ dragged the motionless slave to his feet and shoved him
in the back seat while Sassone and his other buddy
got in the front. Mac watched the SUV leave through a narrowed gaze then looked
down at the snow where there were footprints left in it. He glanced at Stella
and asked, “Got any of that spray paint left?”
She grinned. “Oh yeah.”
* *
* *
Mac couldn’t get those eyes out of his head. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen a suffering slave before, because there were plenty to go around in New York. It wasn’t even that he’d never personally witnessed a slave being beaten, because that had happened, too. He didn’t know what, exactly, called to him about this particular slave and didn’t really want to know. Not if it kept his stomach as tightly tied in knots as it was.
“Hey, you all right?” Stella asked, joining him at the elevator.
Startled from his thoughts, though he tried not to show it, Mac answered, “Fine, why?”
“Because the elevator door has opened twice while you’ve been standing here.”
Mac snorted. Figured she’d be around to catch his lapse. Glancing at the expectant woman, he questioned, “Do you ever beat Aiden?”
Lips twisting into a grimace, Stella admitted, “I do, but not often. She’s got a strong personality and I have to temper it down sometimes. Never enough to do any real damage, though it hurts like hell for her to suffer through it at the time. I’m always very careful about that.”
What about the ones who aren’t? he wondered silently.
“You’re thinking about that slave today, aren’t you?”
Mac had to nod as he replied, “I am. There was just something…I can’t even explain it. It’s not like I want a slave, nor am I particularly interested in men in general, but there was something about him.”
Rubbing his shoulder, Stella pointed out gently, “You’ve been alone for a long time, Mac. And I know you can’t stand to see anyone in pain. Maybe it’s time to move on and this slave is a way to do it.”
“How? It’s not like Sassone’s going to sell him to me, even if I were to make an offer, which I wouldn’t,” Mac stated flatly. “I wouldn’t give him my spit if he was dying of thirst in the desert, never mind money.”
Stella shrugged. “So nail his ass to the wall. His assets become state property and sold off. You can get the slave then.”
Something that had crossed his mind, but Mac shook his head and said, “No, it’s nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow, Stella.”
Instead of waiting for the elevator to come back again, Mac took the stairs, feeling her eyes on him the entire way.
* * * *
Aiden knew something was wrong when Stella got back to the lab and was even more quiet than when she’d left. Since the other woman had gone to speak with Mac, she had to assume the talk hadn’t gone well. Keeping her own mouth shut, Aiden moved to stand behind Stella and began to massage the too-tense shoulders, placing little kisses on the back of her Mistress’ neck, through the thick hair. It took a good ten minutes, but finally Stella sighed all at once and relaxed.
Turning to face her, Stella’s arms wound about Aiden’s waist, pulling her in close so that she could rest comfortably on the slave’s breasts. Rubbing her cheek against the curly hair, Aiden murmured, “He’ll be fine, Mistress.”
Stella sighed and nuzzled into the softness of her chest as she replied, “I worry about him. He’s so alone, Aiden. No one should be that lonely or that devoted to a ghost.”
“All you can do is what you’re doing,” Aiden told her softly. “You can’t make him open up, much as you want to.”
“I know, I do, it’s just…”
“You worry.”
Stella smiled up at her a bit wanly and agreed, “Exactly.”
“Can we go home, Mistress? You need to eat and get some rest,” Aiden said, kissing her on the forehead.
The smile grew a bit as Stella’s hands slid down to Aiden’s ass and squeezed. “Among other things.”
Heat flared through Aiden at the suggestive tone, something she still wasn’t used to, and she flushed.
Chuckling, Stella said, “I’ll never get tired of seeing you all flustered like that. The unflappable Aiden, utterly flapped.”
Aiden’s eyes rolled and she retorted, “Yes, Mistress.”
A hard slap to her ass provoked a pained gasp and a more respectful, “Yes, Mistress.”
* * * *
It turned out that the sizes for all the Tanglewood
boys were right, but there weren’t any pattern-match on the actual shoe prints.
That meant they’d bought new sneakers and trashed the ones that were covered in
blood.
“We still need to prove that they were with Paul Montinassi,”
Stella commented. She frowned, thinking about it. “Surveillance
camera at the bar?”
Mac thought about it, but knew that there wouldn’t be one. Not in a bar
where the mob regularly hung out. There was, however, one thing they could use.
“ATM.”
She frowned again. “Who’s Adam?”
He smiled.
* * * *
The ATM machine was brought into the lab and hooked up to the lab’s systems. They went through the film stills and found a woman to whom Paul was talking. Stella figured her for knowing the real Tanglewood boys because she left and shortly after that, Sonny and his friends showed up.
“I don’t see any practice swings,” Stella observed.
Mac looked at her. “He wants to take some practice swings at this kid sitting down.”
They saw Johnny Lucerno there as well, which brought up the whole motive thing again.
“He goes out and hits Lucerno over the head with the bat. Why, if he’s not a Tanglewood boy?”
“Let’s ask Sonny Sassone,” Stella suggested. “After we process his Ranger, we have enough for a warrant.”
* * * *
They had to go back to Sonny’s house when the blood sample they found in the Ranger came up degraded. It wasn’t until they searched the tool shed that Stella found what they were looking for.
“A high-powered sander,” Mac observed. Perfect for getting rid of Paul Montinassi’s tattoo. “Cordless.”
Mac sprayed the implement and thankfully, only seconds later, there was a visual positive for blood. He smiled at the sight and pulled out his cell. “Flack. Bring him in, we’ve got him.”
* * * *
Danny drowsed on the sofa, exhausted from being fucked into oblivion by a furious and agitated Sonny a couple of hours earlier. The door burst open and he instantly covered his head with his arms, flinching at the explosion of voices shouting for Sonny and for him to stay where he was. With his nudity and collar, there was no way they could mistake him as anything aside from a slave, but Danny wasn’t sure if that made him safer, or more vulnerable. In either case, there was no way he would move until told to do so.
A woman finally came over to him and said, “It’s okay, honey, you can get up. Here’s a blanket.”
Hesitantly looking up, Danny found a concerned black woman gazing down at him as she put a blanket over him. He clutched at the fabric and pulled it tight as he sat up, keeping his eyes on the floor.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m going to get you checked out and take real good care of you,” she continued, gently petting his hair. “You just trust me on that, okay? My name’s Officer Mary Keaton.”
And even though he hadn’t trusted anyone since his father had sold him to Sonny’s father as a present to Sonny ten years ago, there was something in her dark eyes that caused him to relax. The same something that he’d seen in that detective who’d been questioning Sonny in the driveway two days ago...
Honor.
* * * *
Looking at the man sprawled insolently in the chair at the interrogation table, Mac questioned, “You’re aware that you’re waiving your right to counsel?”
“I don’t need counsel,” Sassone answered. “This’ll settle out of court.”
Stella shook her head. “You can’t settle murder out of court.”
Sassone pointed a couple of fingers at her and asked, “You sure about that?”
“Maybe in your world. Not ours,” Mac countered. “Now, why don’t I start this story for you?”
The actual rundown of the crime didn’t take long: Sassone getting Paul Montinassi drunk, promising him affiliation with the gang, having him do stunt after stunt to get in, and then the robbery gone bad. Stella chimed in now and again, seamlessly picking up where Mac left off as though they’d rehearsed it, which was exactly how they worked, a rhythm put together after years as partners.
Not surprisingly, Sassone nailed his own lid shut with an angry, “That’s right. That’s how we do it, Mafia style. You look a man dead in the eye and you watch the light go out. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you. Copper.”
Mac leaned forward with a hand on the table, trying to control his anger as he replied, “I’m a Marine, you little punk. I put men in the ground in foreign soil so you can sleep at night. But you wouldn’t know anything about that. Would you. Kid.”
Sassone looked away, some of his bravado slipping.
“Let me tell you something about the mob,” Mac stated flatly. “Back in the heyday, these old timers, they dealt in death and violence because of one thing: business. Not sport. They were smart. You punks are idiots.”
Incredulous, Sassone demanded, “You gonna tell me about the mob? Who are you? What do you two make a year, huh?”
“Ninety-five thousand seven hundred forty-six dollars and thirty two cents,” Stella rattled off. “And we earn every penny of it.”
Sassone laughed outright at that. “I spend that a year on blow.”
“Yeah, I can tell,” she quipped dryly, the words wiping the smile from his face.
“Look at me. You see me wearing a silk suit and a fat tie with marinara sauce on my shirt? Forget about old-times, those days are dead as dead. They were suckers. They worked too hard. Tanglewood boys represent the next generation of mobster. Set up shop wherever we want, pull any bitch we want, buy any slave we want, buy the finest china, roll in six-figure cars and snuff out any punk-ass poser rat who needs to be put back in his hole. We have our own set of rules.”
Mac nodded and said, “So do we and I’ve got news for you. You and your buddies are going to Sing-Sing and then straight into a convict camp, regardless of who you’re connected to, Mafia or no Mafia. He’s good to go. Get your ass up.”
Sassone didn’t even blink as he was pulled to his feet by a uniformed cop. “Yeah? Okay. We’ll see. Ask Flack the odds of us really going away. He knows all about us. And we know all about him.”
Mac glared at Sassone as the uniform cop pulled the confident man out of the room. He actually jumped when Stella gripped his arm a few seconds later, barely stopping himself from striking out at her. “Jesus, Stella, don’t do that!”
Hands in the air, she apologized, “Sorry, Mac, didn’t realize that you were so far gone.”
“Well, pay attention next time,” Mac snapped. “I could’ve hurt you!”
Nodding, Stella promised, “I will. You okay now?”
He took a deep breath and released it slowly, trying to disperse the anger with it, but only partially successful. “It’s going to take a few. Why don’t you go on home? I’ll finish up the paperwork on this one. That should get rid of any more violent impulses.”
“Or hone them,” Stella teased lightly.
Mac snorted and ordered, “Go on. Get out of here.”
Smiling, Stella left the interrogation room with a wave.
Mac, on the other hand, sat back down at the table to mull things over for a while. Sassone was right about one thing. It was next to impossible to make anything stick to these mob bastards. The lawyers who defended them were the best that money could buy, men and women who didn’t care about reputation or honor, just about getting their clients freed. If they had to go into the gutters to get things done, they would do just that and not think twice about it.
Probably what would happen, was Sassone and his crew would get some kind of suspended sentence, or maybe one of them would be thrown over to convict slave status as a sacrificial lamb. Not that it mattered, because Sassone himself would then just buy his friend and let him do whatever the hell he wanted, anyhow. The Family would take care of whoever went down for the murder.
Which brought his thoughts to Flack and what Sassone had implied about him. Scrubbing at his hair in a tired gesture, Mac wondered just how far the young cop had gone with the Tanglewood boys but decided he was too exhausted to do anything but go to bed.
And that, of course, brought Danny, Sassone’s slave, to mind. If, somehow, Sassone were convicted and his assets sold off, the slave would be at the mercy of whomever bought him. And while the mobster had obviously been no picnic for the slave to deal with, sometimes the devil you knew really was better than the one you didn’t. He could wind up with someone far, far worse.
A flash of the young man in his own bed went through Mac’s mind and he toyed with it for a few minutes. He’d only had a few male lovers over the years, and that was all before Claire, but it wasn’t really something to forget. All that golden-brown skin and sleek body at his command. Making the slave tremble with pleasure and beg for release. Having the young man whenever and however he wanted…they were all very tempting thoughts and images, but Mac shook his head clear of them in short order. Danny wasn’t for him.
No one in this life was.
* * * *
The holding pen was easy enough for Danny to navigate. After the first night when he’d put down some hulking, no-brain, muscle-neck right from being woken up, the others left him alone. He hadn’t spent ten years as Sonny Sassone’s slave without learning to take care of himself, though he hadn’t ever thought of this particular circumstance coming to pass. Sonny really was going down for that kid’s murder, something that Danny still couldn’t quite believe was real. Nothing ever stuck to him.
But this did, Danny thought in wonder for the hundredth time.
He didn’t know what was going to happen to him now and couldn’t help but wish that Sonny had never run afoul of that detective. Because Danny knew it was that man who’d brought Sonny down and made it stick. Not that Sonny was going to lead any kind of hard life or anything. Danny knew that Mrs. Sassone would buy her son, and his friends, and they’d go on pretty much the same way they always had.
Leaning against the rail, Danny took in the sights of men, women, and children being sold and the people buying them. The majority of the buyers were upper middle class and above, of course, and those who weren’t, Danny figured were there on their employers’ behalf. He’d never really thought beyond Sonny and wondered what kind of person would wind up buying him. He knew he was good looking enough to get some cushy household to be someone’s body slave, but he was maybe too hard, too jaded, for most of those positions. People who were looking for a sex slave didn’t want to deal with baggage; they’d want to train the slave to their own desires and not have to retrain, or put up with bad habits.
“Yo! Blondie! Get your ass over here!”
Danny, along with five other blondes, looked over at the Overseer outside the fence. When he realized that he was the one being yelled for, he walked over to that side of the pen, keeping his eyes on the floor.
“You sure you want him, ma’am? Meaning no disrespect, but this one’s a load of trouble. Already put one of the other slaves in the hospital the first night he was here. I was thinking of castrating him to calm him down.”
“No, he’s definitely the one.”
The familiar voice startled him into looking up and, sure enough, Danny found that woman who’d been with the two detectives at Sonny’s house standing right in front of him. Gray-blue eyes smiled at him from a very pretty face, surrounded by thick, curly hair, and he quickly looked back down. Not, however, before he’d seen the slave woman trailing behind the buyer. He was more than a little surprised that she could afford two slaves on a civil salary, but then, it wasn’t his place to question her finances.
Besides which, if the comfortable looking slave woman was any indication, living with this particular buyer would be a breeze.
“All right, ma’am, I’ll get the paperwork. You! Don’t you move until I get back, you piece of shit.”
Danny kept his eyes on the floor and didn’t move, not wanting to jeopardize anything that would make this sale go through.
“Hey, Danny, it’s okay,” the woman assured him. “Come on, now, look at me.”
Hesitant, Danny did so and found a warm smile on her face.
“I’m Stella and this is Aiden,” she introduced.
Forcing himself to smile, even if just a little, Danny replied, “Um, hi.”
“Now, you know that I work for NYPD, so I’ll tell you that I’m a CSI, a Crime Scene Investigator,” she continued. “I’ve been there for about ten years now and I’ve worked with Mac most of that time. Mac’s the detective in charge of the department and he was with me at the Sassone place a couple of weeks ago. He’s actually the reason that I’m buying you.”
“All set here, ma’am,” the Overseer interrupted. “I just need you to sign the paperwork.”
When Stella moved off to the small table beside the Pen, Aiden stepped closer to Danny and greeted, “Hey.”
“Hey,” he replied, looking her up and down.
She grinned and said softly, “Don’t let Stella see you lookin’ at me like that. She gets a little possessive sometimes. Not that I mind or anything.”
Danny smiled genuinely for the first time in an age. “Good to know. So, you been with her long?”
“Two years now,” Aiden answered. “I screwed up my finances and got sold off for it like six months before the new reform bill went through.”
“Ouch.”
“No kidding. But Stella’s cool. I sort of knew her before, you know? Surprised the hell out of me when she bought me, but we get on real good. She takes good care of me, you know?”
Danny sighed, a little wistful. “I don’t, no. I been with Sonny since I was a kid. I only ever known him and his friends.”
Aiden briefly touched his shoulder and said, “That ain’t the real world, Danny, trust me. These people are good people. You aren’t going to get mistreated, even if Mac’s not the most approachable guy on the planet.”
“And we’re done,” Stella announced, rejoining them. “Bringing him up to speed, Aiden?”
Nodding, Aiden replied, “Just getting to Mac.”
“Well, that’s a long conversation, so let’s go home and let Danny get the stink of this place off him, then have supper. I’m starving, so I can’t imagine how hungry you are, Danny.”
Danny fell into step with Aiden, both of them the proper two paces behind Stella, and left the slave pens with a sense of relief. He might not know exactly what he was getting into, but he believed Aiden’s claim that these were good people.
Or, he wanted to, at least.
* * * *
Feeling more than a little put out by Stella’s apparent desertion of him on the Wilcox case, Mac glared at the hapless replacement and snapped, “If you can’t do a simple trace analysis, why are you even working here?”
“Mac! I got something for you.”
Saved by the bell, Mac thought in dark amusement. Although who was being saved, he didn’t really think about. He turned towards Flack on the other side of the lab and walked towards him. They met almost in the middle and he asked, “What do you have?”
“Stella, in your office,” Flack answered, flashing a grin. “She said to rescue whoever you were torturing and tell you to go see her.”
Mac snorted, but didn’t refute the allegation. He merely left the lab, ignoring Flack’s knowing expression, and headed for his office. He nodded tightly to the people he passed by in the hall and arrived a few minutes later only to stop short, completely shocked, just outside the door. Through the window, he could see that Stella wasn’t alone, that she had the slave, Danny, with her. Shaking off the astonishment, Mac squared himself and stepped inside, glaring at Stella as he demanded, “What the hell are you playing at, Stella?”
“Me? Nothing,” Stella answered, not in the least intimidated. “But your birthday’s just around the corner and I thought I’d get you something you’ve needed for a while now.”
Gritting his teeth, Mac snapped, “I do not need a slave.”
“Maybe not, but you need to be alone even less,” she snapped back.
Arms folding over his chest, Mac informed her, “You bought him, you keep him.”
“Can’t. Paperwork’s in your name.”
“Stella, God damn it…!”
She cut off his tirade before it could really start, putting her hand over his mouth and glaring right back at him. “She’s dead, Mac, and you’re alive. Claire would’ve kicked your ass for what you’ve become and you damn well know it! Start living again, because some of us can barely stand to be around you anymore and yes, that includes me.”
Stunned, Mac could only stare at her back as Stella left the office, her body language screaming just how pissed at him she was. It took a few seconds to remember that he wasn’t alone in the office and Mac turned to his new slave standing just a few feet away, eyes glued to the floor. He sighed and pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes and pressed until colors exploded behind the lids. When he blinked back into focus, Danny was still looking at the floor, tension replete through his entire body.
For a moment, he didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. He just looked at the other man. Danny was just as handsome as he remembered, more so really, given that he wasn’t hiding behind glasses and his eyes, if they were looking at Mac, would be clear to see. The simple beige slave pants and shirt looked almost designer on the younger man, clinging in all the right places, but loose enough to give a bit of mystery, too. And the golden-brown hair was thick and wild, just begging to be used as a handhold while Danny’s mouth was plundered.
“Danny, I’m sorry about that,” Mac began. “And you can look at me, you don’t have to keep staring at the floor like that. Not for this kind of conversation.”
When he did, Mac saw that he was right. It was even better to see those incredible eyes without the barrier of glasses.
“Thank you, Sir,” Danny murmured, blinking owlishly at him, then squinting.
Mac frowned. “Are you that bad off without glasses? Where are they?”
“They got taken at the pens, Sir,” Danny answered. “Don’t want nothin’ that could be a weapon, I guess.”
“We’ll get you some right away then. And I know that it’s not your fault that Stella’s gone off her rocker for the millionth time, you just got caught in the crossfire. I am sorry for going off like that before. That being said…I think it best if I find you another owner or…what do you think about being freed? You’re not a convicted slave, are you?”
Danny shook his head, clearly surprised by the turn in conversation. “No, Sir. I was given to Sonny as a gift by my father when I was fourteen.”
Shocked anew, Mac didn’t reply right away. He finally managed, “Oh, well, all right then. That’s not an impediment to freeing you. Would you like to be free?”
Danny blinked some more and reluctantly admitted, “I don’t…I don’t really know how to be, Sir. I mean yeah, of course I want to be free, but…I don’t know nothin’ about, you know, how to live like that. I don’t have any real education. No prospects for work. Don’t even know how to balance a checkbook.”
Which was a crime in and of itself, from the intelligence that Mac had so far seen. Sighing, he said, “Then I’ll keep you until you can, how’s that sound? I’ll put you in a GED program, get you into college and take care of you until you can stand on your own two feet.”
“I, I don’t know what to say, Sir,” Danny replied, squinting at him. “It’s sure as hell more than I ever thought could happen to me.”
There was something wary in the other man’s tone, but Mac didn’t take offense. The promise of freedom wouldn’t be real to the other man until it actually happened, Mac was sure. He simply smiled and said, “First things first. Let’s get you some glasses so you can see your hand in front of your face.”
A hesitant smile surfaced on Danny’s face and he answered softly, almost shyly, “Thanks, I’d really appreciate that.”
Mac walked over to him and took his arm, saying, “Just until you can see clearly on your own, okay?” and then guided him to the door.
Danny gave him another smile and nodded, lowering his gaze to the floor.
As they walked down the hall, Danny leaning slightly on him, Mac mentally smacked himself in the head and thought, Don’t get used to it, buster. He’s only temporary.
And then the more depressing thought returned to him…
The more things change, the
more they stay the same.