A/N

Here's the longer chapter you've all been waiting for at 2400 words.

Booth felt the room spinning as he came to again. He felt like he was suffocating and the pounding headache had been renewed with a vengeance, like one of those eyeball crushing sinus ones, times a hundred. All the noise wasn't helping.

He tried to take a deep breath and couldn't. The panic just below the surface started up again before he realized it was just his mouth taped shut. He reflexively jerked his head as if to shake off the gag, but he was immobilized even more than before. He forced himself to breathe slowly but deeply through his stuffy nose. He felt better, but it still felt stifling.

He'd opened his eyes, but the right one wasn't working again. He felt more blood on his face and neck and prayed that's all it was. Still, being able to see reduced the sense of claustrophobia; plus, the room settled down to a slower, less sickening roll.

He tried moving his head again and it barely budged. There was tape across his forehead and around his neck up against his jaw which secured him more firmly to the post.

The noise was coming from the running sink and dishwasher, and the TV blaring in the other room. For some reason, a familiar bit of dialogue caught his attention. The irony was cruel.

"Looks like we'll have to send someone down. A lot of people asking for help for a man named George Bailey."

"George Bailey. Yes. Tonight's his crucial night. You're right. We'll have to send someone down immediately. Whose turn is it?"

"That's why I came to see you, sir."

Booth's own unwelcome visitor was no angel, certainly no bumbling but well meaning Clarence.

The running water in the sink shut off, and Max turned around, drying his hands.

"Ah, you're awake. I thought I was going to have to stimulate you." He gestured toward the noisy dishwasher and then the TV in the den. "I figured we might need some privacy." He cocked an ear, listening for a moment.

"Sit down."

"Sit down?! What are we..."

"If you're going to help a man, you want to know something about him, don't you?"

"Well, naturally, of course, I..."

The sonuvabitch actually smiled. "Russ and Temperance always loved that old movie." Max shook himself and tossed the dish towel on the counter by his tools. His expression became grim again.

"Since you want to play dumb I'll lay it out for you, just so you know what you're up against." He stopped for a moment to pull a pair of battered leather work gloves out of a jacket pocket. He slapped them against one hand then donned them, a bad omen if ever there was one. "You've been turned. They got to you by threatening your son, and according to my source it looks like you're playing ball."

What the fuck?!? "NO!"

Of course almost nothing came out past the gag. Booth shook his head as indignantly as his bashed skull and the duct tape would allow.

Max held up a hand to stop Booth from interrupting, as if he really could. "Now, I know you're thinking 'what source?' but just how do you think I learned Delaney was getting close to me and stalking Russ, much less how I've lasted this long in the first place?"

Booth grunted in acknowledgement even though the question was obviously rhetorical. Any tidbit Max let slip might hold the key to his survival.

Max picked up the butcher knife and started pacing as much as the cramped kitchen would allow. "One thing I was never quite sure about was whether all of the conspirators were included in Harper's notes I gave to Temperance. Now I know the answer. I'm convinced Delaney told me everything he knew before I was through with him, but Kirby? I got a little hasty with that cocksucker and didn't get a chance to find out if there were any others not yet exposed."

Max suddenly stopped in front of him and stared at him intently. Slowly, he reached out, raised up Booth's now bloody tie, and cut it off with the big knife, inches from his nose. Booth wouldn't have moved even if he could've. The severed tie fell to the floor, forgotten, and Max stayed put.

"I know how this sort of thing works. They didn't threaten your boy Parker outright, not quite. Instead, they just let you know they know he's your biggest vulnerability. Then they tell you to start spying on my daughter." Max threw up his hands and began pacing again. Booth couldn't take his eyes off the flashing length of the blade. "Hell, why not? It's not that different from what you might be legitimately ordered to do anyway, right?"

Max turned for another lap.

"These bastards aren't stupid either. They use the carrot as well as the stick. They stuff some money in an offshore account for you, probably in the Bahamas." He looked back at Booth briefly. "Sorry, but you don't rate a Swiss bank." He kept going. "Call it the kid's college fund. They have a promotion sent your way. You get used to being their boy, get comfy doing petty shit, and then, before you know it, you're in too deep and you're told to look the other way when my daughter has an 'accident.'" He practically spat the last word.

Max stopped in front of him again, eyes boring in as if searching for something in his expression. "I really don't think you'd do it yourself, but from what I've been able to find out about you, reading between the lines, you've done your share of wet work. You'll have to forgive me, speaking as one father to another, for not being willing to take that risk." He laughed bitterly. "I just can't let this stand without sending a message."

The SOB almost sounded regretful with that last part. Booth struggled to hold down his rising fear. Max was fully in control of himself, hardly the picture of a raving TV villain, but the man was positively paranoid. His odds of getting out of this at all were shrinking by the second.

Max held up the knife in his face again, and traced the unsharpened back of the blade across his nose. "You're going to tell me what you know about your handler and how you contact each other."

There is no handler, goddamit! All he could do was moan through the gag.

Max shook his head and made a shushing sound. "Let's just skip the first round of obligatory denials, shall we? Consider them stipulated for the record so we can get down to the persuasion part."

Max pulled the knife away from his face and set it on the counter. "I can't have you bleeding out too soon on me like Kirby." He picked up the ASP baton, and cradled its collapsed black form in both his hands. "These things are surprisingly nasty for their size. I didn't think you Bureau guys normally carried them." He pointed toward the sink and chuckled. "Much more precise than your frying pan."

Booth could just make out the handle of his old fashioned cast iron skillet sticking up out of the sink. So that's what had done a number on his face and wrist. He didn't carry the baton on the job. It was just something he kept at home to give himself another option short of pulling his gun on a troublemaker.

Max gave the baton a hard flick of the wrist, and it telescoped to its full twenty-one inch length with a clunk, two more sections having been nested inside the handle. The last, and innermost, section was solid steel, as well as the Mentos-sized knob on the end. Max gave it a few practice swings and smiled in appreciation. "Strike softer flesh for crippling bruises, or exposed bone – shins, knees, forearms, elbows, shoulders, skull – for more damage."

Booth tried to brace himself behind the gag…

Max spent the next minute or so carefully and methodically beating him.

It was mostly just the muscle of his thighs and upper arms but it was bad enough. He sagged against the post, only his bonds holding him up for a while. His pants were wet. He couldn't help it but his bladder had finally let go in the onslaught. He tasted blood where he'd bit his tongue, and his throat was raw from screaming behind the gag. Snot and involuntary tears ran down in his face. It was already almost as bad as what he'd gone through in the Middle East in the early '90s, and it was just the start.

As his wits slowly came back, Booth tried to use the respite to think.

If he just stuck to the real facts and denied that there was anything, he was a dead man. If he made up a boatload of bullshit to feed Max, to tell him what he wanted to hear, well, in his state he probably wouldn't be able to keep his story straight. Even if he could, he'd just confirm for Max that he couldn't be trusted, and it appeared Max only knew one way of solving that particular problem, a lethal one.

His only weapon after all was the truth, to somehow make Max believe him.

The sickening thing was, he wouldn't put it past Max to cover his own ass with Bones by telling her he'd confessed to everything anyway.

And Parker was still coming.

He was torn, debating whether or not to tell Max Rebecca was on the way and appeal to his better nature. He didn't want his boy to see him like this, whether alive or dead. On the one hand Max had a code of honor that he'd thought would preclude him from hurting a child, but, on the other hand, if it was to protect his own?

Before he could finish making up his mind about Parker, Max doused him with a glass of cold water. He choked on some of the water that made it up his nose before blowing it out, adding to the mess on his face.

Max set down the glass and moved closer again. He barely wrinkled his nose at the pungent smell of piss. "Ready to talk?"

I should've shot you in front of Bones, you crazy mother fucker.

Booth nodded microscopically, and Max ripped the duct tape off his mouth, jarring his broken cheek again. He hissed then began taking deep, shuddering breaths.

Max gave him a moment to get some air. "Well?"

"I swear to God that I am not spying on your daughter, and I have not been approached by anyone. I swear it on my son's life."

Max looked disappointed. He raised the baton again for another blow.

"Wait! Please…" Something in his eyes or his voice made Max pause. He ran with the thought that popped into his head. It had to be… "Did it occur to you that I'm telling the truth, that they set up your source, and I might just be the bait in some sort of trap to lure you into the open?" If Max wasn't having delusions, it was the only explanation that fit all the facts.

Max dismissed it. "My source doesn't give me much, but he has never been wrong. How else do you think I've survived this long? I watched this place for two hours before I entered. There's no one else out there." He looked increasingly impatient.

Booth rushed, "Even if they had threatened me I would never turn on Bones. I'd find a way to fight them, I swear."

Max's eyes narrowed dangerously, but, for the moment, he settled for more talking.

"Just how would you do that?" he mocked. "You know you couldn't count on Witness Protection for your son. Better yet, we both know you're more like me than you care to admit. I've done some homework. You would literally do anything to protect your child. Why would you risk him for my daughter?"

"Because…" Booth licked his lips. His life depended on his answer.

Max grabbed his collar and got in his face. "Why?"

The honest truth…

"Because I think I love her."

Once he said it, he knew it really was true, and for a second he felt a small measure of peace.

Max let go of Booth's shirt and stepped back to consider him. After a few seconds he looked calmer. Maybe he was finally getting through to him.

Max reached over to the counter and smacked the baton against it, knob down, to telescope it back into itself. Booth sagged in relief as the other man looked at the collapsed baton in his hand for a moment.

Then Max turned and used it to punch Booth square in the balls.

Between the concussion and pulverized nuts he vomited.

When the red haze began clearing he was choking and coughing, and his nasal passages burned. He felt that old sickening, lingering deep ache that felt like his testicles were still being squeezed at the same time as his guts were being twisted and pulled out. He would've been in the fetal position on the floor if he could have

He was utterly helpless as the other man gagged him with tape again then ripped his shirt open to the waist. Insult to injury, it looked like his puke had missed Max almost completely.

Max tucked the baton in a jacket pocket and picked up the butcher knife.

"The greater the trust, the worse the betrayal. Enough bullshit. This is where it starts to get messy..."

Suddenly, Max froze with the knife barely a hair from his skin, interrupted by a single loud knock immediately followed by the sound of clinking keys and the door unlocking.

Booth nearly died right there.

Parker and Rebecca!!!!

He was about to find out Max's true colors.

The door swung open toward them, and her voice called out from the other side…

"It's me! I can't believe you of all people left your keys in the lock. I forgot to give you Parker's pres--"

The door began swinging shut. Bones saw them and gasped in shock, her eyes wide.

The keys and the brightly wrapped gift hit the floor.