by Adara Wolf
On the next landing down, he saw why the GPS was pinging Alex as close by. The collar, broken into a lot of smaller pieces, lay strewn around. Next to it were the shattered remains of two tablets.
Unexpected. Tracht gripped the handrail to keep himself steady. He had to breathe deeply to remind himself that panicking would do absolutely no good. For a moment, his mind blanked, and he was overwhelmed by—by worry, unfamiliar as it was for something other than himself and his career.
Tracht kept going down the stairs, his pace speeding up with every step. He spotted a few drops of blood here and there, and skid marks that indicated something being dragged. The stairwell led to an emergency exit, where the alarm had clearly been deactivated to avoid alerting anybody.
His tablet buzzed. He hit the ‘accept call’ button without looking at the screen.
“Johannes? Have you seen Johan? He isn’t answering his tablet. Markus said he left in the middle of the presentation.” Anna sounded mildly annoyed.
Tracht started walking back up the stairs, forcing himself not to rush. He had to swallow twice before he could speak without risking sounding anything other his usual self. “What kind of tablet does he have?”
He stopped on the landing with the destroyed electronics.
“An Axel 3-II. It had a purple case. Why?”
One of the destroyed tablets was certainly purple. The other one was a simple older model, the same kind that Tracht had refurbished for Alex’s use.
“Anna. I’m going to tell you something now. And you need to stay perfectly calm.” He probably had no business telling her that, when he was already shaking with rage. “Come to the stairwell. I’m on the fifth floor landing. Come quietly, don’t make a scene. Don’t ask anybody else if they’ve seen Johan.”
Thankfully, Anna wasn’t the kind of woman to burst into hysterics. She listened, and she continued to talk to him on the phone as she made her way to the stairwell. Tracht hung up when he heard the door opening.
She gasped loudly when she saw the blood. Her steps hastened to clear the last few steps.
“What is this?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper. “Is that—”
“Alex’s bond collar, his tablet, and Johan’s tablet.”
She started taking pictures. Tracht waited while she pieced things together. He was running possibilities through his own mind. He could see Alex getting into a fight with somebody, but the addition of Johan put a wrench into that scenario. He thought of the Nilsens, coming to claim their payment in Alex’s body, but that was unlikely, since then they’d never see another cent from Tracht. Or maybe Alex’s useless brother, making good on his threat to get revenge.
“I knew it. I knew he was bad news!” Anna hissed. “You said you had him properly trained, that he was at heel, but look at this! He hurt Johan!”
For one brief second, Tracht had no idea what Anna was talking about. When realization hit him, he had to laugh, stress and anger turning it ugly. “You think Alex did this?”
“Who else? It’s obvious! Alex snuck off and cornered Johan. He hurt him—” she pointed at the blood stain further up, “and got rid of all the tracking devices.”
“Why would Alex do that?” Tracht asked, forcing himself to maintain an even voice. He didn’t think he succeeded.
“To ransom him? To force you to release him from servitude?”
“I think Alex knows me well enough to know that I don’t—” Tracht stopped that sentence before he could finish it: I don’t give two shits about your brat. Now was not the time to antagonize Anna further. “Look. Call Vasilis. Get him to send discreet security. Send Chryssy and Markus home and talk to the school so they give you all the security footage.”
Anna took a breath and then nodded. “Yes. All right. If this is a kidnapping, we do have kidnapping insurance.” She pulled her tablet out and called Vasilis.
Tracht leaned against the railing and waited.
[Chapter 2]
Security arrived along with a very harried looking Vasilis. A smartly dressed woman followed behind.
“Johan was with us when Chryssy’s presentation started. I think that was around 15:30?” Anna looked at Tracht for confirmation, and he nodded. He’d pulled up his outbox to see the time stamp on the messages he’d sent, and they were from around 15:40.
He’d also gone through the collar’s readings. It had pinged mild distress from Alex around the same time, but Tracht had turned off the collar’s alerts long ago. He would have been receiving an endless string of messages otherwise.
The last reading was from 15:52.
He gave all of that information to the security personnel and noted that the smartly-dressed woman was taking notes.
“You said you turned off the alerts? Is there any reason to that?” she asked. “You would have been made aware much sooner that something was amiss.”
“I realize the irony in that now, Ms.—?”
“Sofia Koteas. I’m a hostage investigator. And why is it ironic?”
“Because, Ms. Koteas, I turned it off so I wouldn’t get annoyed by messages about Alex’s distress, thus missing the one time I would have liked to know about it.” Tracht realized that towards the end he had raised his voice. It echoed through the stairwell, and everybody stared at him.
“Apologies. The situation is a tad… distressing.”
Koteas nodded. “No worry. We’ll find your nephew soon.”
Did she fail to mention Alex because he simply wasn’t a priority, or because she thought he’d been involved? Tracht decided it didn’t matter. Evidence pointed to Alex’s whereabouts being tied to Johan’s, so as long as the investigation proceeded it would get him somewhere closer to finding Alex.
One of the security staff shuffled closer. “We’ve collected everything we need.”
“All right. Let’s all head back to your home, Mr. Lysander, and see what we can do with the information we have.”
==
Koteas rode with them in the car back to Vasilis and Anna’s manor. It was one of the few free-standing houses on the station, taking up prime real estate that could have held an apartment complex or two. There were enough rooms to house at least three families – at times, it did, when Vasilis’s extended family came to visit. Anna had tried to convince Tracht to use it as his home while on station, but the thought of having to be around three insufferable children and Anna’s constant nagging for more than three days straight had been enough to drive him to stay in space longer.
Koteas and her team set up in the dining room, while the other two children were sent to their rooms accompanied by guards.
“The best case scenario is that the kidnappers call and demand a ransom,” Koteas told Vasilis and Anna. “But we won’t wait for that. The first few hours are crucial. My team will be looking over all of the security tapes, and we’ll be analyzing all the biological evidence we found at the scene.” She looked carefully between the two of them. “Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to do this?”
“Yes! Johannes’s blasted bondservant!” Anna shouted. “He used to be a conman, and he’s indebted to the Nilsens. And he’s a complete thug!”
Impossible to remain calm when he was already so agitated. Tracht sneered at her. “Anna, if you don’t shut up right now—”
“You have this massive blindspot when it comes to him! You dismiss every respectable man who crosses your path but suddenly you have a thing for ugly, ill-mannered brutes?”
“I think—” Vasilis placed his hands on Anna’s shoulders, “I think both of you need to calm down. We don’t know what happened yet.”
“Believe what you want,” Tracht said, “but you’re wasting time and toying with Johan’s life if you assume Alex is the culprit.”
Koteas tapped on her tablet loudly. “You are very sure your bondservant wasn’t involved. Is there a reason for that?”
Tracht resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Alex is completely devoted to me. I trust him with my life; he has,
in fact, saved me both from death and professional scandal. More to the point, Alex does not have the technical skill to have disconnected the alarm on the door, and he probably would have forgotten to ditch Johan’s tablet.”
He couldn’t tell them that he’d forced that loyalty on Alex, that he’d molded Alex in such a way as to cultivate a trust between them that nobody could ever understand. He knew that Anna understood the basic theory of training a servant, but she didn’t use it to the same extent that Tracht had with Alex. In fact, if she knew exactly what he’d done to Alex, she might even decide to cut ties with Tracht.
Alex would never call it rape and brainwashing, but everybody else in the world would.
The argument might have continued if not for the way Anna’s tablet lit up.
She startled and held it out to the negotiator: Unknown Caller.
“Should I—”
“Yes, hold on,” Koteas said. She snapped a slim chip into the tablet’s port and then nodded.
Anna answered the call.
A distorted voice said, “Good evening, Ms. Tracht. By now I suppose you’ve noticed something missing.”
“Who are you?” Anna demanded, and to her credit her voice was firm.
“Nobody you know.” The tablet screen flickered, and then revealed Johan, tied to a chair. He was gagged and blindfolded.
“Johan!” Anna cried. Koteas held up her hand, signaling Anna to calm down. The device she had slipped into the tablet broadcast the video to the nearby screen, allowing Vasilis and Tracht to fully see the image as well.
“What—What do you want?”
“Hmm… what do I want…” the distorted voice slipped into masculine tones. “A nice, hefty ransom.” They named a sum, higher than what Tracht could have paid but still within Vasilis and Anna’s means.
This was all about money? Tracht curled his fingers into his fist, ignoring the bite of pain. If they only wanted money, they had no need for Alex. They could have left him behind.
Or, he might already be dead, his body disposed of somewhere. That would certainly be the smart thing to do.
Tracht was overcome by so much rage that he didn’t hear what was said next. If this kidnapper had done anything to Alex, he didn’t care what it took. He would find them and he would make them pay.
“Just to make sure you know I’m serious: I picked up the bondservant your kid had. He put up quite the fight.”
Tracht’s head snapped up just as the camera panned next to Johan, where Alex was tied to a chair, also gagged and blindfolded. His nose was crusted over with blood.
“I think I’ll give you three days to put the money together. I’ll send a note then about where and what time to deliver it.” A black-gloved hand—the body was off camera—stroked Alex’s hand on the armrest. It withdrew briefly, and then came back on screen with a hammer.
Tracht couldn’t do anything as the hammer slammed down hard on Alex’s fingers. He saw Alex jolt; he heard the muffled scream. The kidnapper waited a few seconds, then slammed the hammer down a second time, right on the same spot.
If Tracht were holding anything, he’d have flung it at the screen.
Nobody was allowed to make Alex scream except him. Nobody.
“I’ll start with this one. But who knows. If you dawdle too long, I might get bored and go for the kid instead.” The hand ruffled Alex’s hair, all while Alex shook his head.
The video turned off.
They all sat in silence for a moment. Anna’s eyes were wide and her lip quivered. Vasilis looked queasy. Even the negotiator looked shaken.
“Still so sure Alex was involved?” Tracht spat at Anna.
That was enough to draw Anna out of her stupor. “No. But—this is good, right?” she turned to Koteas. “This’ll buy us time. If they have the bondservant to draw most of the ire, we could have Johan back relatively unharmed.”
Vasilis and Koteas started nodding.
“Cash will be difficult, but I think I could negotiate with a few banks and get the ransom withdrawn by noon tomorrow,” Vasilis said.
“Next time they call—and they will call—we’ll have to play up your attachment to the bondservant to make it seem like hurting him will be effective. That way Johan will stay out of the crosshairs,” Koteas said.
Anna nodded quickly. “Of course. Anything to spare Johan.”
Not once in his life had Tracht hated Anna as much as he did in that moment. He forced himself to take a breath, and another, before he did something regrettable.
When he was moderately able to control himself, he said, “Aren’t you all forgetting something?”
They all turned to look at him.
“Alex is my bondservant. And I absolutely do not consent to using him as your whipping boy for Johan.”
Anna waved at him dismissively. “I’ll compensate you for the loss. Get you another one, one that looks better.”
“This is really the best way we can keep Johan relatively unharmed,” Koteas added. “Surely your nephew’s safety is more important.”
No. Absolutely not.
Tracht stood and looked straight at Anna. “If you go through with this—”
“Johannes, be reasonable. Your bondservant is already broken and scarred. A few more scars won’t kill him. And if they do, it’ll be a good opportunity to finally let go of that unnatural attachment you have to him.” She flipped her hair, a sure sign that she was irritated.
One of his life mottos was to weigh the consequences of a fight carefully. It was easy to give Alex his revenge on Nick, because Nick was a nobody who would never be able to retaliate.
If Tracht burned his bridges with Anna, it would affect not just his personal life, but also his business. He was certain his relationship with Vasilis would be strained, and he’d find himself receiving fewer contracts and fewer routes. It would also impinge on his ability to pay off Alex’s debt.
It would be so, so satisfying to tell Anna off.
Tracht walked out of the room.
[Chapter 3]
Fuck, fuck, fuck, his hand hurt. Alex tried to clench it, but no, that was not happening. That was seriously the worst pain he’d felt in a while. Even getting whipped by Tracht wasn’t that bad.
Heh, he’d kind of figured that Tracht was taking it easy on him. Maybe the electro-shocks to his dick were worse, except they tended to fade after a few minutes and he was pretty sure he’d been in pain for way longer than that now.
“Did you sell it?”
“I dunno, I broke his fucking fingers, is that enough?”
So, at least two dickbags in the room. One male, one female. No way to tell how many were being quiet. Alex wasn’t so sure on his chances against even just the two of them though, not with his nose stuffed with blood and his hand the way it was.
Shit, was his nose going to get even more crooked? He hoped he hadn’t broken it again.
A bit closer to him, he heard whimpering. That was Tracht’s nephew then. Johan.
Fuck, Alex was starting to regret getting mixed up in all of this. But he’d been going down the stairs to the washroom, and then he’d heard the kid yelling and crying. Anna would probably have been pissed at Alex if he’d told her he’d seen her brat getting grabbed and not done anything about it.
Plus, okay, a fight had sounded way more interesting than whatever the fuck Tracht’s niece was going on about. There was only so much Alex could handle being around a bunch of kids ten years younger who were smarter than him.
“Who is the big guy anyway?” The male voice asked.
“Their bondservant? I did a quick check before I destroyed the bondcollar, registered to ‘Tracht,’ and he came to the kid’s defense. They probably don’t give a shit about him, but I figure it’d give them a scare.”
He couldn’t believe the chick had broken his fingers. Alex hoped she was ugly as hell. He decided that she probably was, and that her face was covered in like, scabs and pus.
He startled when the blindfold and gag
were removed. The bitch and her partner were both wearing masks over their faces, but he didn’t think she’d been one of the people he’d fought at the school. He was pretty sure he’d only fought dudes. Probably. His head was still a bit woozy.
He was in a dingy little room with peeling wallpaper and very little furniture: the two chairs he and Johan were tied to, the camera set up opposite of them, and an office chair and desk. There were no windows either, but one door on each side of the room. An exit, and a bathroom? Alex hoped it was a bathroom, because he was also starting to remember that he’d never gotten to use the washroom before he’d picked that fight.
“So, what’s your name? You think the Lysanders are gonna pay extra for you?”
Alex was pretty sure Anna hated his guts. “Tracht.”
“Huh?”
“Ms. Tracht. She didn’t change her last name.”
He’d tried calling her Ms. Lysander the first time, only she’d gotten bitchy at him, and he couldn’t call her Ms. Tracht because that was just weird, so he’d settled on calling her Anna and letting her twitch in annoyance. That had the added bonus of making Tracht happy because he liked annoying Anna.
The bitch rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. So, they gonna care what I do to you or should I just torture the kid instead?”
“Which answer’s gonna make you not kill me?” Alex asked. He hadn’t wished he was Nick in a long time—not since he and Tracht had fucked Nick up good—but man, he would have loved to have his talking skills right around now.
“Ah, good call. ‘Cus if you don’t matter, I might as well kill you now and be done with it. So what’ll it be? Torture or death?”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. “Tracht’s gonna care about me,” he answered. He watched warily as the bitch walked over to the desk, picked up a tray, and brought it over.
It held several tools, including the hammer that must have been used on his hand.
Also a scalpel and a set of pliers.
His eyes widened and he couldn’t keep himself from trembling. He clamped his mouth shut.
“Oh, I see you know what some of these are for!” the bitch said. He could hear the smile in her voice, even if he couldn’t see it under the mask.