What frightened him most, besides the fact he was sitting in a bed belonging to a taser wielding maniac, was the fact that Angelo might be telling the truth. There was some kind of connection between them. They spoke the same language. It was a twisted tongue, but it was native to the both of them.

Angelo was right about the loneliness. He had been very lonely for a very long time. A brief respite had only made it worse, driven him mad with the desire for revenge. He wasn’t ready to share stories, or make connections with Angelo. He was ready to get the hell out of here and back to his life, with a lot more security.

Angelo walked away, then returned with something Bobby really didn’t want to see. It was a thick black length of leather - not a belt. Not an implement for beating him, but a collar. He was too tired to resist as Angelo stood over him and looped it around his neck, doing it up snugly so he could feel the leather with each and every breath.

“You look good in a collar,” Angelo said, his voice thick with something even darker than lust. “You’ll look even better on my chain.”

He pulled a length of it from his pocket, a simple dog chain. Appropriate. Bobby shied away, but Angelo grabbed him by the collar and clipped it on.

“Come on, little doggy,” Angelo said, tugging him up from the bed. “We have business to do.”

Angelo walked him through the house, down a stair case and into an office. There, he forced Bobby to his knees next to the desk and clipped the end of the chain to a ring on the floor. The worst thing about this all was the fact that his hands were free. He could take the collar off if he wanted. He could throw it across the room and attack Angelo. He could rebel. He could fight.

But he wasn’t going to do that. And he wasn’t going to do that because he was afraid. Because he had a huge plug in his ass and muscles that ached to the bone. Because he knew Angelo had the means and the muscle to do precisely as he pleased - and this, as humiliating and horrible as it was, was not as bad as it could be.

“Good boy,” Angelo said, taking his seat in the big leather chair.

Chained to Angelo’s desk by the collar around his neck, Bobby knew how fucked he was if anybody saw him like this. All it would take was a single visitor who knew the right people and his rep would be ruined.

His worst nightmare came to almost immediate fruition. Angelo toyed with his phone for a moment and not long after there was a knock at the door.

“Come in!”

Bobby panicked as the door opened. A mild mannered man in a suit walked in. He was as nondescript as it was possible to be. He looked like a suburban father of three. He looked like he rode a mountain bike once a month and held barbecues for his local church. Bobby curled up on himself, trying to hide his naked shame.

The man looked right through him, not flickering so much as an eyelid.

“Mr Vitali,” he said casually. “I have the documents you requested.”

“Bobby, this is Mr Feldman,” Angelo said by way of introduction.

A Jewish name. Thank fuck.

“Should I let him use you too, Bobby?” Angelo reached out and ran his fingers through Bobby’s hair, pulling his head back to force him to look up at the pair of them. There was no hiding from this situation.

It was an idle threat. Bobby was learning to read Angelo just as Angelo read him. Angelo was many things, but most of all he was possessive.

“Yeah, why not.”

His hunch was confirmed when Angelo tapped his cheek sharply. “Greedy boy. He’s not here for you. Mr Feldman has come to arrange the legal exchange of assets.”

Bobby blinked. “What?”

A shark like smile spread over Angelo’s face, the older man taking real glee in the reveal of his plan. “I’m taking you for everything you own.”

“Fuck off you are, this isn’t legal.”

“It is if Mr Feldman says it is.”

“But I’m chained naked to a desk. I’m obviously not consenting to this.”

“Your strange presentation won’t concern Mr Feldman. And it won’t concern you for much longer either. Mr Feldman, the documents, please.”

A bolt of shock went through Bobby as the lawyer began to take sheafs of paper from his case and present them not to Angelo, but to him. When he saw what was written on the papers, his eyes widened and his nostrils flared with rage.

Angelo had not been toying with him. They were property documents. Titles. Bank authorities. His titles. His bank accounts.

“I’m not giving you all my shit,” he said, glaring at Angelo.

“You absolutely are.”

“This is coercion. It’s illegal.”

“Oh, it’s illegal, Mr Boy Mobster? Since when did that concern you?” Angelo’s dark eyes gleamed with near sexual pleasure.

“I’m not signing.”

“Of course you are.”

Bobby gritted his teeth. He could resist, but what was the point? Angelo had already demonstrated his willingness to inflict pain. It was a matter of whether he gave in now, or later. A little sliver of sense was forcing its way through the outrage. He was going to inevitably lose this battle, but he didn’t have to lose the war.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll sign whatever you want me to sign.”

“Good boy.” Angelo handed him a pen. A beautiful fountain pen. Bobby restrained the urge to drive it right through Angelo’s eye and somehow found the strength to kneel next to the desk, utterly naked, and do as Angelo wanted. He signed his name to document after document. His bank accounts. His apartment. His warehouse lease. In a matter of minutes they all belonged to Angelo.

When it was done, Bobby slumped on the floor, defeated.

Angelo dismissed Mr Feldman, who left without comment, apparently knowing better than to draw any of the energy in the situation to himself.

“That was easy.”

Angelo sounded disappointed. Of course. He liked it when Bobby fought him. It was all about the battle to Angelo. Deny him that and it was like denying a fire oxygen.

Bobby shrugged. “Sorry,” he said, his fingers toying with the chain.

Angelo got up and walked around the table, perching on the edge of it, crossing his arms over his chest. He looked down with dark hooded eyes and Bobby felt his chest squeeze tighter. There wasn’t enough air in this room.

“Tell me something, Bobby, seeing as you’re being so obedient right now.”

“Tell you what?”

“How did Aiden Taylor-Chapman break your heart?”

Bobby sucked in a breath. “What? Who told you that?”

“You did,” Angelo said. “You’re a smart boy. Surgical in your actions. You never over exposed yourself until you went after Aiden. You lost far more than you could have ever hoped to gain by killing him. Which tells me it was a matter of the heart. So, what did he do?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t care. You will talk about it. Now.” Angelo’s voice had gone hard again, as had his eyes.

Bobby shrugged. Fuck this. Whatever. It didn’t matter.

“You want to hear about Aiden Taylor-Chapman? Fine. I’ll tell you that too.”

“I do,” Angelo extended his long legs out in front of himself as he looked down at Bobby’s chained form.

“I fucked him,” Bobby said. “And he didn’t call.”

Angelo cocked his head to the side. “That’s it?”

“Uh huh. He pissed me off. So I went after him.”

Angelo’s lips twisted with something like irritation. “Such a pedestrian reason for a ruthless revenge campaign.”

“I guess I’m not as interesting as you thought I was.”

Angelo raised a brow and looked at him thoughtfully. “I’m not buying this, Bobby.”

“Why would you buy it? You already stole it.”

His captor let out a barking laugh. “True,” he said. “And you understand, of course, that when I release you, you’ll have nothing.”

“Mhm.”

“No point pretending not to care, Bobby.”

He wasn’t pretending. He didn’t care. He’d started from nothing. He could do it again. The more Angelo threw at him, the more he realized he could survive. Angelo was trying to break him, but it wasn’t working. He was only growing stronger.