Page 4

“Okay?” Tim asked, hands still on Daniel’s arms, studying him closely. “Good?”

Daniel nodded. “Promise you’ll pick me up in the morning?”

Tim laughed, grabbed Daniel’s coat, and tossed it to him. “Ten on the dot. Don’t make the driver come get you.”

The driver was the same one who’d ferried Daniel for the last four years, a quiet, placid giant of a man named Calvin who Daniel had never once gotten to talk to him in all the time they’d spent together. He could talk—Daniel had heard his occasional “Yes, sir” or “No, sir” or “Ten minutes out, sir” spoken crisply to the dispatcher over the radio. But with Daniel he wouldn’t even answer direct questions. Maybe he resented having to serve another slave, especially a white one; sure, they were all part of the same bottom class, but there was no denying his white skin brought privilege even among the low. He could pass for a freeman at first sight; the blacks, the natives, and especially mixes of the two like Calvin couldn’t. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time a slave had been jealous of Daniel.

Or maybe those were just Calvin’s orders. After all, idle chatter was a sign of idle minds, and a distraction besides, and he’d seen plenty of slaves beaten for less. So he tried not to let it bother him when he asked, “Where to, tonight, Calvin?” and got nothing but silence in return as the car pulled away from the curb.

Daniel stared out the window, too nervous to enjoy this rare glimpse of streets outside his normal route to Hell’s Kitchen. They swung up Park Avenue, crossed west on 79th and then turned down Fifth, stopping before a gorgeous pre-war townhome overlooking Central Park. No way one person owned this whole place—it had to have been converted to condos, right?

The doorman wore bronze slave bracelets that matched the cuff links on his uniform, and he gave Daniel an abbreviated bow when he opened the door for him. “This way, sir,” he said, and didn’t that just pull Daniel up short because he was still a slave just like the doorman, no matter the color of his skin or what metal his bands were made of. But Daniel followed him into the lobby—yep, definitely converted; he passed ten mailboxes on the way in, which meant two condos per floor—and the doorman deposited him in the elevator, turned a private key, and pushed the button for the north penthouse. “I’ll let him know you’re on your way, sir,” was the last thing Daniel heard for the next five floors.

Except, of course, for the too-quick thud-thud-thud of his own heart in his ears. Him. Not a woman, then. A man. With a dick he’d no doubt want to shove places Daniel never wanted to think about again. In fifteen, maybe twenty seconds, Daniel would be meeting the man who’d shelled out six million dollars for a year’s worth of partial ownership. Over $115,000 a week for what’d likely amount to no more than forty waking hours of company. Christ, most top-end companions didn’t earn their masters $3,000 an hour, and he hadn’t spent his whole life learning how to pleasure people like they had. He’d never even learned how not to bleed all over a man.

Despite Tim’s reassurances, there was just no way . . . no way this would be painless. And he had every fucking right to be terrified.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored panel above the elevator buttons and schooled his face. He couldn’t erase the exhaustion, but he was a passable enough actor to clear the fear from his features. He tried on a smile. It didn’t fit. Went for neutral instead.

The elevator stopped. Dinged his arrival. He cleared his throat, swallowed hard, threw his shoulders back and forced his hands to unclench at his sides. Forced himself not to fidget. He’d faced down warlords, terrorists, live-fire combat zones, tornadoes, wild dogs . . . surely he could face down this.

The door slid open.

Whatever it was he’d thought he might see—old man, young man, old money, new money—it certainly wasn’t the talk show host who shared his time slot on InfoGlobe’s biggest rival network.

Daniel froze.

Stood there.

Forgot how to walk. How to breathe. Even forgot to turn his gaze to the floor, to not look a freeman in the eye. Was this some kind of sick fucking joke? Or was fucking him in the ratings not enough for UBC?

Carl Whitman, the charismatic face of UBC’s Whitman Live—and what a big face it was in person, atop an equally big body—smiled down at Daniel like he’d been looking forward to this moment of shock for the last ten years. Daniel thought a greeting might come next, or perhaps a scolding for making eye contact, but instead Carl said, “You’re sweating.” And then, shit-eating smirk firmly in place, “Come on, before you end up back in the lobby. Lord knows I paid enough for every single second of your time.”

Daniel had no memory of walking into Carl’s—his master’s—living room, but there he was, staring obediently at a small patch of ultra-plush off-white carpeting despite the nearly overpowering urge to observe his new surroundings. To observe his master—try to figure out exactly what in God’s name this whole messed up situation was. Why he was here. Why NewWorld had ever agreed to such a preposterous arrangement, put him in such a perilous position.

But he said nothing, of course. Carl was a freeman; he could ask all the questions he wanted. Daniel might’ve been his equal as a talking head—maybe even his better; he didn’t ride a desk all day every day, after all, and he did actual journalism rather than, well, whatever it was that talk show hosts did—but right now, in every way that counted, he was nothing but a slave. Just a slave. And more specifically, Carl’s slave.

He could feel Carl’s gaze raking head to toe, long and appraising, but Carl kept his distance. Yet there was no mistaking the hunger radiating from the man, or the satisfaction—that strange sort of pride only ever seen in freemen, as if they had created rather than simply purchased something impressive.

Finally, after what seemed a long enough stretch to make even the most recalcitrant witness want to spill their guts, Carl spoke. “I saw your show tonight.” He sounded far too amused for Daniel’s comfort. Was that what this was? Why he’d insisted on the secrecy? Six million dollars to catch his rival by surprise and then humiliate him, and worth every penny?

Carl settled down on a black leather couch with an ease and comfort that Daniel knew he’d never feel anywhere, let alone here. Carl hadn’t asked a question or given Daniel permission to speak, so Daniel stayed right where he was, silent and still.

“You looked like a deer caught in headlights all night,” Carl said. He chuckled and added, “Still do, actually.”

Another pause, where maybe Carl was waiting for him to say something, as if the man didn’t know the laws, didn’t know how slaves had to behave. Or maybe he just thought of Daniel as different somehow, like the job he did for the men who owned him gave him magical freedoms outside the field or the set.

“You had four seconds of dead air before the lead on your A block.” Pause. “My EP would give me ten straight years of shit for that, never let me live it down. What about yours?”

“I’ll be punished, Master,” Daniel said to his feet, trying to keep his voice strong, to take ownership of his mistake and make it clear that such lapses were neither commonplace nor acceptable in his eyes. That he wasn’t a bad slave.

“Take your shirt off. What do you mean, ‘punished’?”

The two statements were so disparate that it took Daniel a moment to parse them, and Carl waved a hand and said, “Come on, I’ve been dying to see what’s hiding under the suit and tie since 2008.” When Daniel’s brow furrowed—why 2008?—Carl added, “Chinese earthquake? Nuclear disaster they were pretending so hard wasn’t happening? Those soldiers almost killed you trying to scare you out of there. Instead of leaving like sane people, you and your producer hiked through three miles of rubble to find a spot to start broadcasting again.”

Ah, that. He actually still had a scar from that particular encounter, a bullet graze on his left triceps he hadn’t even felt at the time, he’d been so high on the rush. He bared it as he lifted his T-shirt over his head, hunched in on himself a little once he was topless. He didn’t know what to do with the shirt, didn’t dare throw it on the floor, so he fisted it in both hands, wringing the fabric nervously.

Carl’s eyes were like touches on his skin, a physical weight, pervasive and uncomfortable. “I said,” he reminded Daniel, “What do you mean by punished?”