1
Deal with the Devil
“Sit down. Shut up.”
The prison guard barked rough orders at his charge, as if an authoritative snarl could somehow tame the beast he had in his cuffs. A curse was thrown back in his direction. There was a bang and the sound of flesh contacting metal reverberated through the room, like a fanfare of prison trumpets heralding a very particular kind of angel.
The boy made his appearance through the cell door as a wild and wounded creature brooding through pale eyes. There was a bruise under his right eye, and a cut on his lip which made it swell in a way that made the waiting man want to suck and bite it all the more.
The moment Maddox saw the boy, he fell in love.
It was not a romantic love. He was not capable of anything so wholesome, or so pedestrian.
It was something wilder. Something deeper. Something far more primal and self serving. Something that wanted to hurt as much as it wanted to nurture. Something that wanted to command as well as degrade. Twisted needs flashed through the very core of him from the moment the prospect was brought in. He was hunting, not for prey as he usually would, but for something more akin to an accomplice or perhaps an apprentice.
Maddox watched his newest potential charge with a professional detachment tinged with intense personal interest. He had not picked this young ruffian out of the general prison population at random. This meeting was the culmination of more than a year of research, observation, and the culling of unsuitable candidates, until this one, the one who stood before him with messy hair and sweet features worn on a face of cold, masculine fury. He would be charming when he laughed, if he laughed.
The guard pushed him down into the chair with unnecessary force which made absolutely no impression on the boy. The guard then grasped his wrists and hooked the chain between them to the secure point on the metal table. Maddox waited patiently, staying silent through all the little brutalities and humiliations being heaped upon the boy. Now was not a time to show compassion or mercy. Now was a time to observe, to match the facts he had collected over time with the person before him.
William Brown had been convicted of a particularly nasty murder three years ago, and for the last three years he had served time for it in this maximum-security prison which smelled like disinfectant and urine. He insisted on his innocence, like every guilty man here. These were the basic facts of his existence. They were nothing compared to what Maddox suspected lay at his core.
“Leave us,” Maddox said, breaking his silence in order to dismiss the guard.
The guard left and then it was just the two of them together in the room. The boy smelled strongly, but not badly. It was an intense masculinity, a near animal musk which made Maddox run the tip of his tongue under the top row of his teeth. He could feel excitement running over him, electric conduits of need which could not be contained and skittered over his skin, making each and every hair on his arms and the back of his neck lift.
The prospect looked at him with a clear and focused expression which nearly bordered on recognition. They were strangers to one another, but there was an immediate knowing in their shared gaze.
“My name is Maddox,” Mad introduced himself. “I’m here to help you, if you choose to accept it.”
William’s expression remained guarded. He had abandoned hope as a survival mechanism. A life sentence would do that, even to a young man. Hope was a luxury the long-term incarcerated could not possibly afford to indulge in. Better to accept life within thick concrete walls than imagine anything outside it.
The caveat which Mad added, if you choose to accept it, came from a statistical knowledge of Will’s recent misdemeanors. The boy did not accept help readily. He did not accept anything. Not good advice, or well-intentioned help. He was a feral thing in a human suit.
“You’ve been a bad boy,” Maddox purred.
Will’s expression did not change. He kept that clear, disinterested gaze focused somewhere between Maddox’s eyes.
Maddox waited for William to say something. Anything. But he didn’t. He stayed sullen. Maddox used the time to observe what he hoped would be his final selection. There had been several before Will, each of them promising in their own way, but ultimately disappointing. Mad had a different feeling about this one.
Will was a well-built young man. Muscular without being overly broad. Powerful without being obvious. His knuckles were reddened and callused, but not bruised or bloodied. That indicated he used them often for the purposes of fighting, to the extent the skin no longer broke easily. Though obviously capable of great violence, he sat in the chair across from Mad without the slightest aggression. He was self-contained. He was smart.
“I know you’re innocent of the crime of which you were accused, and for which you have lost three years of your life,” Mad tried again.
Will’s eyes flared bright blue. Sweet blue, Mad thought to himself.
“I’m still wearing handcuffs, so you can’t think I’m that innocent.”
The first words Will granted him were smart mouthed. Unsurprising. He was a smart man. Sensitive too. Maddox was certain that prison was hell for him.
“That’s because you haven’t agreed to my deal as yet. I cannot overturn your conviction. I am not a lawyer, and I am not a judge. I work within the corrections system, pursuing alternative treatments for antisocial disorders. I also look for ways and means to turn what society considers to be undesirable traits into useful ones, working with various branches of the government and military.” The spiel was designed to be specific enough to be convincing, but vague enough to convey plausible deniability.
“You’re a psychologist?”
“Psychology is one of my interests,” Maddox allowed. “But that is only part of what I am.”
“If you’re looking for a psycho to use, why choose someone who you believe is innocent?”
“I know you are innocent of the crime you were convicted of. But I believe you are capable of much, much more. I am looking for young men who want to reach their full potential. Are you such a man?”
William laughed. Maddox had been right. He did look cute when he laughed.
“Really. Three years into this sentence, and the spooks send a recruiter in a cheap suit?”
The barb nearly struck home. Maddox’s suit was not cheap. Not by any measure. It was a bespoke piece of tailoring, using fabrics unattainable by most people. If William had any concept of the materials used in the jacket alone, he would not be making smart remarks of that nature. But he was innocent of that knowledge, and for the moment Maddox let the attempted insult slide. There would be plenty of time to teach him manners later.
William looked at the man in front of him and felt flushes of hatred rushing through his body. He saw a suit with authority sneering at him quietly, treating him like a pawn. The man was older than him by a few years, maybe a decade. William had a problem with authority. The man across the table knew that, no doubt. He had the expression of someone who thought he knew everything. The file was probably full of what people considered to be facts about him. But if anybody knew the truth about Will, they would have bled him out, not sent him to prison where his hunger ran almost entirely out of control.
But the smirking expression, the fancy clothes, and the irritatingly incorrect file were not all that was sat before him. The man, Maddox, was also handsome, muscular, and rich. He was everything people were supposed to aspire to be. He had smooth dark blond hair swept back from his forehead, and noble, Nordic features. His eyes were dark and knowing, full of calculations. His hands were large and well manicured. William had a mental flash of those hands gripping his ass. He pushed the thought away. The last thing he ever allowed himself to indulge in were thoughts of men. Especially not in this place.
“I can’t tell you where you’ll be going, or what you’ll be doing. I can tell you that you will be handled by, and answer to me.”
“That’s it? That’s all the spiel you’re going to give me?” William snorted. “That tells me absolutely nothing.”
“It tells you enough if you think about it.”
The man sitting across from him was clearly a master manipulator. William was suspicious and mistrustful, but he was also curious — and an opportunist. With a choice between rotting behind bars for the rest of his life and having a chance at something that might be closer to freedom, the choice seemed clear. Then again, this could easily be a frying pan/fire sort of situation.
He already knew what his answer was going to be. But he wasn’t done asking questions.
“You think you can walk in here like you own the place, and your sheer force of personality is going to make me agree to whatever it is you want me to do? You think you’re that fucking charming?” Will swore and noticed Mad flinch as he did. There was everything Will needed to know. His interrogator was a prude, stuck up, too good for what he’d probably refer to as the F word.
“I think the possibility of leaving prison is all the reason you need.”
“Will I be leaving prison?”
“You will. Sign the paper, and tonight you will be as free a man as you have ever been. Hot, private shower. Freshly cooked food. A bed made with Egyptian cotton, and a room without bars on the windows or locks on the door.”
It sounded good.
Too good.
But the man was right. Will had no choice, not really. Escaping prison on his own was unlikely. Maximum security was almost impossible to breach without allies and significant funds, and increasingly, William had neither.
Maddox flipped the file open to the front page, produced a fountain pen and slid it into William’s cuffed hand. It was a high quality piece of equipment, with a machine-milled steel barrel. A piece of equipment that could be entirely dangerous here.
“Sign here," he said. “And your new life starts.”
“Easy as that, huh?”
Maddox smiled at him, but there was no warmth in it. It was the expression of someone who knew how to mimic human expressions but didn't really understand them. There were several men like that in this prison. Some of them wore prison uniforms. Others occupied offices.
There was no choice, really. William didn’t bother reading the text on the paper. He did as he was told and signed his name.