Page 57 of Never Broken

Instinctively, I braced myself, waiting to be scolded.

“What’s your name?” Langer asked.

Wainwright-Phillips overheard and gave me an odd look. “Come on, Max, you know they don’t have names.”

To probably everyone’s surprise, Langer laughed throatily, like this was some funny notion to him, like he and Wainwright-Phillips hadn’t been living in the same world for the past forty years. “And why shouldn’t they?” he said. “I mean, what are we trying to do here? Disrupt slavery, yeah? You were in the corporate world too long, that’s your problem. You don’tquestion things anymore. Disruption, like almost everything, comes down to science. It starts with a hypothesis. A question. Why is this the way it is, and can our product make it better?”

Makewhatbetter? The process of dismembering and killing slave girls? Clearly a million-dollar piece of IP, right there.

My master, though he’d gone quiet, seemed to be pondering this seriously. “Well, I?—“

“And I’ll tell you right now, Keith,” Langer continued, “if you don’t ask it, your competitors will, and they’ll have cornered the market before you even know the market exists.”

I stood rooted to the spot, looking from one man to the other, not sure if I was yet permitted to walk away. And not having expected to suddenly become the center of attention. It’s not that I was opposed to it—even if it was only for serving Langer a piece of shit beverage—but this also had the potential to go south very quickly and rob me ofanychance to figure out what was going on with Louisa.

“Well—“ Wainwright-Phillips paused, clearly racking his brain. “We’re using him as a tutor for Louisa. How’s that for thinking outside the box?”

Langer’s senses seemed to sharpen. “Is that right? Which subject?”

He seemed to be asking Wainwright-Phillips, but he was looking straight at me. Once again, I didn’t dare respond. Of the millions of things a slave should never, ever do, making your master look bad in front of his guests was pretty damn close to the top, and getting smacked across the face right in front of Max Langer wasn’t even close to what I’d had in mind for our first encounter.

“Well, she’s pre-med, and—“ Wainwright-Phillips began.

“Hey, is he deaf or mute?” Langer interrupted. “You’re not, are you, kid?”

“No, sir.”

“Then let him answer.”

I was stunned at how fast my master shut his mouth. Well, then.Let’s go.“Organic chemistry, sir.”

Langer grimaced. “They’re still making pre-meds learn that?”

“Unfortunately, sir,” I replied. “And slaves, too.”

Langer laughed, a sound that, while not unpleasant, definitely insisted on making its presence known all over the room.

I could already see that if Langer had hurt Maeve or anyone else, how easily he might have done it, or ensured that it was done. He was everything Wainwright-Phillips perhaps had once been and wanted to be again: young, rich, smart, handsome, charming, and ideally positioned to get away withanything, including the worst things you could possibly imagine. “How old are you, and where are you from? I detect an accent.”

“Nearly twenty, sir.” Under my hair, I glanced up. Where was Louisa? I needed to know where she wasnow, for her sake and mine. “And Luxembourg.”

“Beautiful country. I partly grew up with my mother in Germany, but I used to go to Luxembourg on business. Last time, I shipped back an entire case of that Cassero liqueur they make. I’ll bring over a bottle sometime for you.”

He made it clear that the “you” meant me and no one else. Like he could just stop by the house one day and start boozing it up with me like two old buddies. Was this man completely and utterly delusional? Yeah, like a fox.

“I expect that’s more up your alley than tequila—which, pro tip, next time, use the silver,” he continued. “The name’s Max, by the way. My dad made me call him ‘sir,’ and that’s the last thing I want to be known by, considering I hated everything about the bastard, except for the million or so worth of startup capital he left me when he died. Also, just so you know, it freaks me outto have you looking at the floor when you talk to me. Makes me think my cosmetic surgeon isn’t worth what I paid him for that eye lift. Anyway, good to know you.”

Look, it wasn’t as if free peoplealwaystreated slaves with contempt and scorn. At various times, I had been fawned over and indulged by lonely women; sympathized with by the occasional closet abolitionist; and all too often, just ignored. But I’d never encountered anyone who quite simply refused to acknowledge that I wasn’t free.

Max Langer acted as if the rules didn’t apply to him. That made him dangerous.

I raised my eyes. Whatever the rest of them thought, I’d have to be an idiot to pass up this free opportunity to look this motherfucker full in the face.

Langer held out his hand.

I stared at it.

For me, it was a rare offer, but I knew that in the world of free men, having a firm grip said a hell of a lot about you. What kind of man you were. Whether you could be trusted. Whether you could be reckoned with.

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