Page 50 of Under His Skin

If Tracht had to hazard a guess—no, Alex had not noticed. Alex knew he was getting money, but he rarely looked at the account, and he never had to actually pay for anything. Tracht was very, very glad that Vasilis had opted not to attend the trial, since he could already imagine the disapproval.

“Guess so.” Alex shrugged and scowled deeper. It was a terrible look on Alex, with the scar becoming even more prominent. “Does it matter?”

The prosecutor sighed loudly and looked at the jury. “It’s clear that Captain Tracht, Anna Tracht’s brother, has been withdrawing the funds from his own bondservant’s account. Now, I ask you, what possible reason could he have for doing something like that? Why would Anna Tracht not simply give the funds to her brother directly, instead of this roundabout method?”

Several of the spectators nodded in agreement.

“I also can’t help but notice that many of the transfer dates happened to coincide with large trials that Ms. Tracht was presiding over. Here, on February 21st of last year—”

Was that true? Tracht glanced over at Anna, but of course she gave no reaction at all. He’d only noticed that she deposited funds after they’d had an argument; he thought it was her attempt to entice Alex to leave.

He didn’t think he could forgive her if she’d used Alex for something as silly as money laundering—but that couldn’t be right, since there was no point in laundering money you were never going to see again. It couldn’t be considered a tax write-off either, no matter how much of a charitable case Alex was.

“No they don’t,” Alex said suddenly. “The money’s not from that.”

The prosecutor’s eyes shot upwards. “Excuse me? You know why Anna Tracht deposited those funds?”

“Yeah. Because she was pissed off at Tr—at her brother.” Alex started grinning smugly at the prosecutor. “All that fancy investigating doesn’t help you at all now, huh. You think you’re so smart, but you don’t actually know anything.”

Tracht had to suppress his laughter, but Alex met his eyes, and he must have recognized the suppressed amusement. After five years, Alex really was well-acquainted with Tracht’s expressions. And Alex always, always took Tracht’s amusement as an invitation to go further.

The prosecutor, of course, saw none of this. “That seems to be a fairly strange way of getting back at her brother for an annoyance. Why would she give you money, only to have him withdraw it?”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Because she wanted me to use the money to pay off my debt, duh.”

At this point, Tracht couldn’t contain the laughter. The jurors looked at him in surprise, and the prosecutor shot him a dirty look. Even Anna’s mask slipped, showing clear annoyance, but it was such an Alex way of speaking that Tracht couldn’t help himself.

“How in the world do you figure that? And how would allowing you to pay off your debt early have any effect on her brother at all?” The prosecutor looked over her shoulder at her team sitting behind her, but the two people sitting there looked just as confused.

Alex laughed briefly. “Ha. It would suck for Tracht because he wants me around, and Anna doesn’t. Pretty simple. Dunno why your fancy investigators couldn’t figure that out, but I guess they’re just busy being dicks to the crew.”

Everybody had told Tracht he was doing a bad job with Alex, that Alex was too uncouth, too uncontrollable. Franziska thought Tracht had completely stomped on Alex’s free will. But Tracht thought he’d done just right. He’d gotten Alex addicted to him, molded him into a loyal dog who would obey any order, but he still had enough bite to scare others and be, quite frankly, more interesting than the sad lumps some bondservants became.

Emboldened by Tracht’s open laughter, Alex went on. “And so what if Tracht withdrew money? You think I care about that?”

“You… don’t care?” the prosecutor asked, probably more out of shock than any calculated question.

“Right. I don’t care. I’m going to stay with Tracht either way. I never wanted to pay the contract off early, and Tracht is a million times better than any of you.”

“Really? He’s better than us?” The prosecutor’s expression turned sly. “How do you explain the slew of sailors whom he’s had discredited and barred from legal work here on the station? Like, for example, a Mr. Jeremy Parsons?”

Alex froze, and his good humor melted away. Tracht wasn’t surprised that this was still a sore subject for Alex.

“What the—what do you know about Parsons?” Alex growled out. A petite juror sitting near the front shrank back at Alex’s aggressive tone, despite sitting a safe distance away from him.

“Official documents say that he angered Captain Tracht and was subsequently put on a do-not-employ list, carried out by one Anna Tracht. She wasn’t a judge yet, but it seems she’s been running illicit favors for people for years. I wonder what her brother has done for her, that she pays him off like this regularly.”

“Okay, first of all: Parsons was an asshole, and he was trying to steal trade secrets. Did your report mention that? Second of all, why wouldn’t she do stuff for him? He’s her brother. Siblings help each other out.”

“Is that a fact? Then how is it that your twin brother was banned for life from Cadmus station? Did you not want to help him when the Trachts decided he was inconvenient?”

Tracht watched Alex’s temper fray, and thought that with a glance or a hand gesture, he could stop this. He could make Alex behave, and be meek and obedient.

But he just plain didn’t want to. He wanted Alex to be himself for the jury, and he didn’t care how that worked out for him or Anna. It was just too fun to watch.

Alex stood up and pointed his finger at the prosecutor. “Shut up about my brother. You don’t know anything about him. Tracht did me a fucking favor by getting rid of him. It was his fault I’ve got this nose, this scar, it’s his fault we were always in trouble!”

The judge started getting red in the face. “Mr. Stone! I run an orderly court. Mind your language or I will find you in contempt of court.”

---