“What about me? Do I have to hide here forever too?” He asked with a firmness he hoped hid the resignation beginning to enfold his heart.
“I told you I pulled strings for you, Trev. Your charges were pending. Did I forget to mention that? The papers you signed were about your trial, which was not even on the docket yet. Of course the charges were dropped just yesterday when the Bradbury you stole was found in a distant city after a raid on a house of known street thieves. It was returned to the museum intact. But there is still the matter of the prison break, a separate crime. But judges can be influenced—”
“Stop it!” Trev shook his head angrily. “It’s all lies. All of it! You wanted me punished for going behind your back, trying to escape this—this fucking madness. Now you want me to be free again. And Khim? You’ll have him here as a commodity of your business to be used again and again to your own devices. To be controlled, retrained, reconditioned, even raped again if it pleases you—”
Dante’s eyes hardened. “Do not speak to me in that tone! You ungrateful, privileged, whiny baby. And what exactly are you accusing us, your family, of? We do not turn our backs on each other. And this you see around you, this is business. Only that. We are in no position, any of us, to judge when it comes to that.”
“Are you insane?” Trev said under his breath.
Dante ignored the interruption. “Our clients, our customers—we provide services without judgment. We keep this place secret out of respect to our clients, not because it is illegal. How dare you accuse this establishment—us, me—of… of rape!” The word came out a snarl. “The others we have here are designed, bought and paid for. And I just told you Khim will not serve in the brothel anymore. But it does not matter what your altruistic opinion is. The law sees androids as objects. As dolls. Made for this. Trained for whatever their owners desire of them—”
“Not Khim!”
“Yes! Even Khim! It is not my fault he was sold under false pretenses as a whore. But now Khim is mine. And he will stay here and work for me in whatever job I see fit for him. For his own safety and that of our family, he will remain undercover. It would not bode well to have it be known that we harbor a fugitive. For that, he owes us quite a lot, I would think.”
As he spoke, Dante was approaching Trev where he stood next to Khim. When he finished speaking, he reached out. Trev thought he was going to touch him, but instead, Trev turned his head and saw Dante’s hand rise to Khim’s face, fingers gently lifting his chin.
Khim’s head came up.
Dante looked him directly in the eyes. “Isn’t that right, Khim?”
Trev felt bile rise. “You bought him. Now you need to place him in further debt to you?”
Without looking away from Khim, Dante said, “That is how it works with androids. What else can I do? He is not a free man and never will be. But at least I am offering him one more chance. You know best, Trev, how well I reward loyalty and obedience. That’s all I ask from him for the generous offer of my protection. Khim will live, as long as he’s with us. Understanding is lighting in his eyes even now. I want you both to see that if you, or he, tries to escape, you have nowhere to go. But I can always use someone with his training. Stick with me, and you have a chance. Both of you. For life. And for you, Trev, the same freedoms you once had. Neither of you will ever get a better offer.”
Once prisoners of Steering Star, now they were prisoners of Dante. There was no freedom here. Only illusions upon illusions.
Trev stood his ground, but Dante was so close now, exuding a dynamic, almost savage dominance. He could smell the expensive cologne of him and the rushing flames of his power. Strong people feared Dante. All craved his love. But none more fervently than his own children.
Still, Trev fumed. He said, “If Khim stays here, hiding in this brothel, then so do I.”
“No.” One word. Flat. Final.
“Well, Father, you have no problem putting bought-and-sold toys on that hideous stage of yours out there. Why not try me in that capacity and see what happens? I’m not a trained fighter like Khim, but I seem to be bought and paid for too.”
“That is a lie, and you know it. You are my son. Your home is with us. The Damicos.”
“Your adopted son. How much did you pay?”
“I did not buy you, child.” Now Dante’s black heat was turned onto Trev.
“You’ve never told me where I come from. How would I know? And if you feel that way about everything you own, then why not parade me about here, let your wonderful, upstanding clients have me, fuck me any way they want?”
Dante’s hand came out fast. Trev felt the sting of the slap on his face before he even registered he’d been hit. He stepped back into Khim—who did not move—and almost lost his balance.
But the pain only served to enrage him more. “Why not sell me here? To the highest bidders? Do you not think I’d bring in enough income? What’s wrong with me? Am I not pleasing? I’m small, agile, pleasant. Why not sell me here? Why the fuck not?” He was yelling now.
Dante’s face had darkened, and he smacked Trev a second time, hard enough that this time Trev felt Khim struggle to free his arms, as if he wanted to catch him.
Trev’s body hit Khim’s side, slid by him, and dropped back onto the floor. He caught himself easily so he did not hit the floor hard, but his mind was spinning, his head filled with blind fire. He stayed down, knees bent, looking at Dante, thinking about springing up and provoking a third slap.
Then he heard a voice, golden and pure. It penetrated his dizziness, angled through the waves of pain and the burning on his cheek.
“Stop. I will stay. Just don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him anymore.”
Trev leaned back, his hands digging into the carpet, looking up, trying to see through the haze of his anger, his hate.
Khim was speaking. Khim was addressing them all. “I’m grateful for my life. Thank you. I will do as you say. Any jobs you request. Just don’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt Trev.”
Vance’s voice shot in from the side. “I knew it! The android’s sweet on him.”
Trev wanted to attack Vance, beat that shit-eating smile off his face. He struggled to stand, dazed by Khim’s words.
Without looking away from the two of them, Dante stated emphatically, “Vance, you had warning. You will leave this room now!”
Trev stood, still unsteady.
Dante said to Khim, “That’s more like it.”
“If you keep him here, then you damn well keep me here too!” Trev demanded.
Dante’s eyes jerked toward him. “No. You will do as you’re told—for his safety and well-being, of course—will you not?”
Trev’s mouth opened, but no words came out.
Dante, looking as unruffled and cool as if he’d just come from the dressing room, said, “Breq, Blair. Take Khim away. The dungeon. For now.”
Reaching out, Trev grabbed Khim’s bent-back arm with both hands, as if to hold him in place. He did not ask for permission to touch him, but right then it did not seem to matter. He wasn’t going to let Khim go anywhere. “No! If he goes, I go.”
“No.” Khim pulled back, tried to step away from Trev. “You are not going with me.”
Trev clung harder as Blair and Breq pulled Khim backward toward the big room with the stage and the alcoves and couches.
Breq reached out to Trev, but his touch was gentle. “Let go, kid.”
Khim pulled again, hard, knocking Trev aside. “Don’t touch me!”
Hurt, bewildered, Trev stood back in shock. “But you can’t do this! None of you! You can’t!”
He stared through blurring eyes, watching Khim’s golden head bow again as he allowed himself to be escorted away, hands still cuffed behind his back. The white shirt, Renn’s shirt, hugged his back. Even in this dark place, Khim’s hair fell like sunlight in soft, shining waves about his neck and shoulders. Trev remembered tangling his fingers in it. Holding all the specialness that was this man, this human man, in h
is arms.
He couldn’t allow this.
He pushed his way past his brothers and rounded on Khim, facing him again. He heard, and ignored, Dante saying, “Trevor. Get back here now!”
He looked at Khim’s bent head, saw the closed eyes, the resigned features. “I won’t let them get away with this.”
Finally Khim’s eyes opened.
Trev looked deeply into the dark blue depths, saw a flicker, like a momentary, all-consuming pain. Khim’s mouth, a straight line, quivered.
Raising up on his toes, Trev leaned into him, smelling the homemade-bread memory again, the wonder, the beauty. His cheek almost brushed Khim’s as he breathed into his ear. “Khim, I won’t abandon you. I promise. I promise.”
Khim yanked himself back, eyes closing. Shutting him out.
The ache in Trev’s chest was like a stone slowly fracturing under volcanic heat.
Dante was at Trev’s side along with Sonye, and they had their hands on his arms and were dragging him toward the office again. “Get hold of yourself, son!” Dante ordered.
Trev turned away, sagging, letting them lead him back into the office. But he couldn’t feel anymore. His legs just scrambled along the floor on their own. Their hands on his arms were like water. There was only a gray-edged fever, and a slight twinge in his shoulder where the skin-knitting patch flexed against the pulse burn.
They brought him to a chair and forced him to sit.
He thought he might sob right then, crumble into tiny pieces until he was nothing but dust. Instead he sat frozen, very still, hands flat under his thighs, and his slitted gaze saw Dante take a chair facing him. Sonye stood, ever watchful, ever coldly handsome, at their father’s side.
“Get yourself together right now,” Dante repeated, but softer this time. “You’ve just been through a lot. A shock. That’s all.”
“A shock? That’s what you call—” He pulled his hands out from underneath his legs and spread them. “—all this?”
“You’ve had a few harrowing days, and some time in lockdown. But you hurt me, and you needed to know that. Leaving you in prison for a few weeks was the only way. It was all necessary. Now you’re back, and it’s all behind us. All of it.”
“I hurt you? Dad, you hurt people all the time. Khim is my friend, and you hurt him!”
“He’s trained for this sort of—”
“No! You admitted yourself he isn’t. You bought him without knowing that and didn’t bother to find out. Even so, what is all this? I knew you had brothels, but I didn’t think you kept people in them against their will, forced them—”
“I don’t. Not free humans, at any rate.”
“He’s human. Like us,” Trev argued. “Just vat-grown. No metal parts, except for his hand, which he lost in a war.”
“You know the law states otherwise. We’ve just been over this.”
“Since when do you of all people care about the law!” His eyes were burning, his throat tight, but he refused to let his father see him weep.
“I know your escape and all the excitement made you think you formed a bond with him, but you’re above that, Trevor. You are an elite part of my team. You are my son.”
Trev blinked. He should not have been surprised at his father’s words. Proud. Arrogant. Unflappable. Seeing himself in the upper class, above everyone else. Sitting in his cloud mansion overlooking all, lord of the underworld of both sky and sand. Dante truly was a king that no one could stop. He expected Trev to be proud to be his son. Happy. But only if Trev copied him. Only if Trev became the dutiful, good-son mirror to his father’s dark soul.
Trev remembered that time when he was four, his father dressing him in an identical tuxedo for a party, then picking Trev up, holding him close as they gazed at their reflections in a floor-to-ceiling mirror. And Dante had said, “Look at us. Aren’t we amazing?”
Despite being adopted, Trev looked the most like his father out of all his siblings. The last words Dante had just spoken still stirred on the air.
You are my son.
But where had he really come from?
His brothers and sisters were all from the same mother, Dante’s wife, Lotty, who had died before Trev was born. There were few photographs of her, but she had supposedly been the love of Dante’s life, perishing in a flier accident somewhere on the planet below.
Glancing around the strange room, the ornate office, taking in all the ornament of it, the paintings on the walls of classic, tasteful erotica of men enfolded in various pairings and groups, Trev said, “Am I really your son?”
“The circumstances of your birth are no matter. You are my son.”
“But circumstances of birth do seem to matter to you. Greatly.”
“We will talk no more of this. And Khim? I’ve done what I can for him.”
“No, you haven’t,” Trev said. “You haven’t even begun.”
Dante eyed him speculatively.
There was no more talk. As if Dante had grown weary of it, with Trev only more and more insolent. Numb from the neck down, Trev could not even begin to contain the whole of what had happened to him from going to prison, meeting Khim, falling in love, and now being back in his father’s clutches, his life a turmoil of pressure, change, punishment, and reward at his father’s whim.
Dante left Trev sitting as he went to his desk, gathered things, arranged things, and gave soft orders to Sonye.
When Sonye finally came over to him and said, “Up,” Trev asked, “Where are we going?”
Dante turned. “Home.”
Trev jerked. He did not want to leave Khim. But Sonye put a firm hand on his arm.
He had nowhere else left to go.
ONCE BACK at the mansion, Trev stood in the middle of the garage, hands clasped in front of him, looking around. He’d thought never to see this place again, the dark garage filled with beautiful fliers—their shiny, oily scent permeating the air—or the elevator with its melodic, gentle voice welcoming them home.
When they were dropped at the first floor, the sounds of fountains filled the air along with a tender, humid scent of spring.
Dante turned as Trev stopped just inside the foyer of the great living room. “Welcome home.” He reached out and drew Trev into a hug.
When Trev was younger, he’d leaned into those hugs, bestowed generously by this nefarious man when he was happy, charmed, in a good mood.
Today Trev stood stiffly, forlorn, the sense of his loss too acute for words.
He had no idea what time it was but thought that the Damico household should be asleep by now. Instead his sisters Rory and Arla entered the room. They came up to Trev and embraced him coolly.
“Your brothers will be home soon, and then things will be back to normal around here.” Dante smiled.
This was insane. Complete, utter madness.
Trev tilted his head to one side and looked down, hiding his tears.
Chapter Twenty-four
KHIM PACED from one edge of the cell to the other, then back. It was clean but well-worn, dark. There were no windows deep in the dungeon, only the rusted light along the edges of the ceiling that allowed all manner of shadows to gather. It made the slow fan in the ceiling at the end of one far wall, outside the cage, look like a giant, sucking hole in space.
He’d spent less than a day of his life there. Now he was back.
Five cages stood down there; the other four were unoccupied. No talkative information-dump voices, no feral sylphs pounding their fists into the cement walls.
Faster and faster, Khim paced. His muscles burned, strained. He needed to move. To not think. Not be. It was like he was a live wire, spitting and hissing; a time bomb ticking; a pressure point on a trigger. First the world you see in your sights is whole. Then it is broken. He existed in-between, where the trigger was moving, the energy building, but imminent destruction was yet to come.
Closing his eyes should have brought darkness, reprieve. But all he could see was Trev. And around his heart a strong cry
stal was growing, the glass structure of his birth reforming, with Khim on the inside, always looking out. And light and air and life danced upon the glass, sometimes permeating, but meaning nothing.
He tried to focus inward, heard the faint percussion of machinery in the walls. His own forced breaths. The tumble of his heart.
Trev came into his mind, lithe and bright-eyed, a hank of hair flowing against one eye. Trev walked a garden outside a glass porch. Barefoot, leaves and flowers sending accolades on a breeze. When he came back around to face the glass, he leaped all the stairs at once to land just inside the door. That smile. That shimmer of tanned skin.
Khim’s chest tried to cave in on itself. He shook the memory off.
In Dante’s office he had pushed Trev away. It was all he could think to do to help him. Trev’s father was hitting him; Trev’s father was the threat.
How could he make that stop?
The only answer was to close himself off. Obey. Do whatever it took for Trev’s safety and freedom. For love, he would do that.
Khim put his hands to his face—one warm, one cold—and let out a strangled cry. Trev would have said Fuck. Khim could hear him in his mind as if he stood right beside him. Beautiful. Pure. Beloved.
To keep that man safe, he would do anything. He would give his body. His soul. If it would keep Trev free, he would be the best assassin, bodyguard, or, if ordered, the best whore Dante had ever seen.
KHIM COULD not properly assess time. It had been dawn when Breq and Vance had met them in the little motel parking lot. They’d flown for half an hour, traveled into the bowels of the Rainspeer. And Khim had finally met Dante. Had an hour passed since then? Two?
In the time he’d been locked down here, Khim saw no one. Heard no human voices.
He was not tired, not hungry. It couldn’t have been too long.
He couldn’t stop wondering where Trev was now. Would Trev stop fighting? Would he settle and accept the life he’d been given, as Khim was now doing?
It was for the best, really. This was the world they’d both been born into. One person could not change whole worlds, only the self. Things always went better if you cooperated. Khim had learned that in his years of being a soldier. He had not hated it. He had not enjoyed it. He simply lived. Did as he was told. And the rewards were food, shelter, rest, and even a bit of fulfillment for a job well done.
The Android and the Thief Page 25
