A/N: Frankie inspo

* * * * *

Of course, I panic.

"Frankie, you have to do something about Sawyer."

"Like what, Gray?" he asks, passing me a bourbon.

"Like, help me throw his body in the East River?"

"Okay, I'd feel a lot better about that if I thought you were joking."

"Yeah, me too."

I explain what happened, from earlier in the day and tonight.

Frankie runs his hand over his short facial hair.

"Merde. You know there's very little I can do other than ask the boy if he's willing to leave with Sawyer. And you know as well as I do that he's going to say yes."

I sigh. I do know that. Though there's no way Sawyer wasn't part of the reason he wanted to see me.

"Okay, I may have something. And I will check before I let them leave."

He disappears and returns an hour later, where I'm still nursing the same drink.

"He was happy to leave with Sawyer."

"Of course he was," I growl.

"But I've got Connor to set up surveillance. If anything happens to him over the next few days, we'll know," Connor is his personal protection officer, an ex-SEAL, and entirely kick-ass. Sawyer wouldn't have a hope against him if it came down to it.

"You can't just order Connor to shoot him?" I ask hopefully, and only half joking.

* * * * *

I'm still not sleeping well. Every time I try to close my eyes I see Gabriel's frightened face as I saw him in my offices, or as he looked that night in the club. Worse are the times I close my eyes and see him as he was, bound erotically to the horse.

When I go back to the club to look at the pictures Connor got during his surveillance I head straight to Frankie's office, walking in without knocking, which I shouldn't do, but always do anyway. Ellis is naked, which isn't that big a deal, except Frankie has him pressed hard against the wall, one huge hand grasping painfully into Ellis' thick blond hair, the other around his throat.

I can't hear what he's saying, but he sounds angry, and I'm wondering if he always gets this angry when Ellis does something wrong. Ellis is whimpering in fear, and I'm really not liking that.

The lifestyle is complicated and draws as many different kinds of people to it as you could imagine. For some, thankfully small number of, Dominants, there is a fine line between punishment and abuse. Not for me. For me there's a fucking thick line, and punishments should never leave a sub feeling scared, only appropriately disciplined. Our subs are not battered children, for all we infantilize them at times. And I've always thought Frankie was a lot more on the same page as me than the other. But maybe he's changed. Or maybe I have.

I clear my voice, and Frankie looks up, still with anger in his eyes, though he removes his hand from Ellis' throat.

"Put your nose against the wall and don't move a muscle until I tell you to," he growls at Ellis, who tries to comply, but the huge gasping breaths he's taking make it hard for him to keep his nose against the wall. My heart is breaking for him – he still isn't crying, still holding strong despite the clear turmoil he's under.

I decide to distract Frankie for now, drawing him over to the doorway to allow Ellis time to bring himself under control and to allow us to speak without being overheard.

"What's going on this time, Frankie?"

"He booked a musician gig without checking first with me."

"So?" I'm genuinely confused, "That's his job. You've always followed the tenet that we can't mess with the subs' jobs."

"It's not his job, he's still a student. He has no right to make decisions like that without checking with me."

"What the fuck, Frankie? 'No right'? Seriously, you're confusing the hell out of me. I know you've avoided relationships in the past, but I thought you had it nailed with Ellis. You were so good together. You love his music almost as much as he does. What happened since I've been gone?

"Why are you trying to prevent him living his life? I remember when you first met – you actually told me you loved how full of life he was, how much fun, and what I'm seeing now is that you're turning him into a shell," he's shocked, but I don't care. "You are preventing him from living his life in every way you can think of. You don't let him see his friends, even for extra practice, which would be beneficial to his studying, and now you're stopping him from working. When did what you have turn into such a great need to control him instead of care for him?"

I take a deep breath, but lower my voice because now I'm going for the kill and I know it's going to hurt, for good reason, "And it's not just garden-variety abuse, either, because when you make the punishments relate to his body, like rough fucking, and orgasm withholding, and forced orgasm, all of which I know you use, when you use them in conjunction with physical aggression and control that leaves him in fear, you're turning it into sexual abuse.

"You need to take a long hard look at the way you're doing things here, because at the moment nothing you're doing is about Ellis, it's all about you."

I leave him open mouthed and find Connor in the foyer, who confirms Gabriel was okay after the other night, pictures to prove it. He doesn't mention the black eye in the one of the two of them walking down the street, Gabriel a step behind Sawyer, but I see it instantly. But there's nothing I can do about it – he isn't physically trapped or caged. Even if Sawyer is messing with his head to get him to stay I'm not in a position to un-mess with his head. I don't even know the guy.

So now I have two vulnerable submissives, who I desperately want to help, and I'm not sure I'm going to be any use to either of them.

* * * * *

I don't feel like staying in the club after any of that, so just go to say goodbye to my friends in the VIP area.

"How's Gabriel?" Chase asks me, his deep brown eyes filled with concern.

"I didn't realize you knew him?" is the only thing I can think to say, not least because I don't even know the answer.

"I don't, not really. I only found out his name last week. But Sawyer's been in with him a few times since Christmas, and, well, Sawyer, you know? And I just noticed, well, he was sweet when he first came, pretty innocent, I think. Sawyer used to let him dance with the subs," he points to the small dancefloor, "but he just seems tired now. Just wondering if Sawyer might let him go soon?"

I shrug, "I get the impression Sawyer isn't done with him yet."

* * * * *

A/N: merde = shit, but then it's the one French word every knows, right? :-)