Nikolai couldn’t have been more pleased.

He paced into the grand foyer, the heels of his dress shoes echoing satisfactorily off the marble tiles. He stooped to pick up the steel pear—delicately, by the key, between the tips of two fingers—and turned his gaze on his new charge. The man—Mathias—was slumped against the front door, knees drawn up, arms wrapped tight around his stomach, leaned to one side so as not to put pressure on his no-doubt aching hole. “That was quite a show.”

Mathias turned his head when Nikolai spoke. It looked like it took whatever dregs of reserve energy he had left. “Fuck you,” he grumbled. Always classy, these untrained beasts. “Where’s my brother?”

Nikolai studied him a moment longer: pale, drawn, sweating, trembling. The hired brutes had no doubt come in through the side door by now, would be waiting in the next room—gorillas indeed, but well-trained ones; he’d used them before—but something told him he wouldn’t need them. Not just yet. Not ever, if he’d gambled right.

And he always had been a winner.

Mathias let his head thunk back against the door, even as Nikolai crouched down in front of him, close enough to smell the fear-sweat, close enough to lick it away. But he knew better than to touch now. Soon, though.

“My name is Nikolai,” he said, laying the soiled pear at Mathias’s feet with a deliberate click against the tiles. “Though you may call me ‘sir’ or ‘master.’” The baleful look at that, so pathetic from such a weakened body, almost made Nikolai smile. He’d not been wrong about the fire in this one. “There will be many rules in this house, but one above all others you must understand. Are you listening?”

A slow, heavy, hate-filled blink.

“I am not a man who threatens; I find the whole business uncouth. But in life there are choices, and there are consequences. There are always consequences. And the one I think you fear most of all is harm to your brother, am I right?”

A wobble in that baleful glare. Ah, hello, truth.

“I think we both know who among us would win in a fight. So let me make this perfectly clear right from the start. If you ever harm me in any way—contemplate biting my prick off, perhaps, or my fingers, or even so much as swat a hand at me when I choose to touch you—I will kill your brother. I didn’t buy the pair of you for him. I have no use for him. I don’t particularly have time for him. And lest you get it into your head that death is preferable, understand that I will kill him slowly. Over months. I’ll pull out every tooth, every fingernail, every toenail. Gouge out his eyeballs. Cut off his ears, his nose, his tongue, his balls, his cock. Cauterize his wounds and leave him to die of sepsis. Do you understand?”

Mathias’s exhaustion and hatred left little room for expression, but Nikolai was an expert reader, and he watched them flash one by one across Mathias’s face: horror, fury, disgust, panic, comprehension . . . and yes, the inevitable resignation. Slowly, Mathias met his eyes and nodded.

“Do you believe me?”

Mathias nodded again. “So what do you want?” he gasped out. “You want me to suck your cock, is that it?”

Nikolai backhanded him. “Next rule. Don’t speak to me that way. I may do a job that seems . . . distasteful to the untrained eye, but I am not a crass man, and I don’t abide them, either. If ever you use language like that in my presence, it will be to serve a higher purpose and it will be on my terms.”

Another nod, as hateful as before. Not broken, simply biding his time. That was fine.

“And as for what I want? Only to teach you. You’ll not be with me long, Mathias. A month, two, perhaps four or six on the outside. Normally I would congratulate you—I’m very good at what I do, and every one of my charges has left my care very much in love. Your brother will too, one day. A gift for him. When he’s ready, he’ll find such contentment and peace and pleasure in service as he’s never known. A purpose in life. A direction. No more rolling in his own shit with the rest of the animals out there.”

“He already had a purpose,” Mathias growled, but his tone was belied by the shine of tears—more than mere physical pain—in his eyes. “Has a purpose. He’s gonna be a doctor. You have to . . . Please. Just . . . Keep me. I’m worthless. But not him. He has his whole life ahead of him. Please.”

Nikolai smiled. “He does indeed. And unless you force my hand, my solemn promise to you is to make that life glorious. But . . .” He shrugged, in part to cover the rather inconvenient surge of pity he felt looking into Mathias’s earnest, aching eyes. “I regret that I cannot say the same for you. My client has particular . . . tastes, you see. Our work together these next however many weeks will be to teach you to fulfill them without breaking your spirit.” Nikolai preferred transformation and ascension to brute terms like “breaking,” but Mathias wouldn’t understand those words. Never would understand, unlike his brother.

He reached out and swiped a single tear from Mathias’s cheek with his thumb. Gentle. No call for force yet. “He does not want you broken, fighter. Do you understand?”

No, clearly he did not, from the confusion, the fear in his eyes.

“He desires the appearance of danger, but not danger itself. He wishes you to fight, but he must also be assured that he can win those fights if he so chooses. A good slave learns to love service. Crave it. You, on the other hand . . . you will hate it and never stop hating it. But you will know your place. I will teach you that much.”

Mathias blinked. Blinked again. Nikolai knew that look—that desperate confusion, that terror, that unwillingness to believe what the senses were perceiving, that fierce hope it was all a dream, that it would end soon, that they were mistaken. He reached out once more, cradled Mathias’s head in both hands, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Mathias was too confused to recoil from him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into Mathias’s ear. “But business is business, you understand. Your life will never be happy, but your time here needn’t be so harsh. I do hope you’ll let me help you as much as I’m allowed.”

Mathias said nothing, but then, Nikolai hadn’t expected him to. He rocked back on his heels. Stood. Deliberately turned his back to Mathias, just to see what he’d do. “Now come,” he said when nothing happened. “We’ve much work to do. Best to get started.”

He took four steps down the hall and paused again, disappointed but not at all surprised that Mathias hadn’t risen to follow him. He stopped, turned back, let his disappointment show on his face. “Passive resistance is a choice I’ll never stop you from making,” he said. Mathias blinked up at him, so very weary, so clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop. “But as I said before, choices have consequences. It will always be in your hands to decide—within reason—if the consequences are more or less distasteful to you than the order you’ve been given. But know that I will not start easy; it’s a disservice to you, you see, to keep you from understanding just how bleak the consequences can be. So I’ll ask you one more time: will you come under your own power?”

Mathias met his gaze, let his head loll against the door, and closed his eyes.

Nikolai sighed and went to fetch the guards. Well, this was to be expected, he supposed. But he’d not tolerate a wild animal in his personal living space, and he’d not tolerate disobedience either. And neither, he was certain, would his client, despite the man’s desire for a little token pushback.

The guards were quick—and disgustingly eager—to collect his new charge. When they picked Mathias up and began to drag him bodily across the foyer, his eyes locked on the steel plug.

Nikolai smiled mirthlessly. “No, we won’t be using that again, at least not for a while. You’re of no value to anyone with a ruined body. I have something more logical . . . and simultaneously much, much worse in mind.”

The fear in Mathias’s eyes eased, but the man would learn to distrust his own sense of relief soon enough.

For now, Nikolai let him keep his illusions, and they left the front hall and the wicked plug behind. The ground-level portion of the house was its public face, not that Nikolai entertained many guests: only the occasional client or fellow trainer. But keeping up the appearance of normality was necessary just in case. He hated the necessity of walking untrained animals through these halls, filthy and likely to piss on the rug as they were, but oh how he looked forward to the day when he could bring them back up again as proper pets.

Never Mathias, he reminded himself. Mathias would go to the basement now, and would return to the ground floor only on his way out again. Never to be trusted, or loved, or brought pampered to his bed upstairs. The upstairs—Nikolai’s private rooms, his sanctuary—was locked to everyone but him and a trusted few.

Poor bastard.

The basement. His workspace. Accessible by all manner of hidden doors and stairwells—today’s choice a secret panel set into the wall of a small storeroom—most of them known only to him, whatever dead man had been the architect of this place, and the man he’d inherited it from. Windowless. Soundproof.

As they descended the narrow, twisting stair, he wondered if these secret ways and rooms had always been used for the purpose he put them to now, or if it had a different pedigree. Illegal gambling? Smuggling? They were so far from everything here, he couldn’t imagine a drug trade or import/export or the pale, disgusting shadow of his own work with unsuspecting women trafficked in from the Third World and sent to work for cheap pimps. Why had he never asked his mentor when he’d had the chance?

Other things on my mind then, I suppose. They’d had so little time together, all things considered.

And really, did the place’s past matter, when its present work was so important? No more than it mattered that his fighter’s brother was supposed to become a doctor. Irrelevant.

Burn the past.

Says the sentimental fool who buys up his old charges.

Nikolai smiled to himself. Well, one could spare oneself the odd hypocritical indulgence.

Downstairs, he passed by the more traditional dungeon cell and had the guards place Mathias in a basic bedroom. Bending a will as strong as his without breaking it meant walking a line as fine as spider-silk; the man would need some comforts to stay on the right side of that line. Besides, as with those fortunate souls transformed at Nikolai’s hand, carrot would come into play in Mathias’s training as well as stick. Let him have a bed.

Even if, for the next several hours at least, he’d be chained to it.

“On the bed, gentlemen, if you would. Just chain one ankle, no need to pin him. A little slack is fine.”

Mathias fought like the animal he was, clearly thinking he was about to be used, and badly. A fine opportunity to test how desperate he was to protect his brother. Nikolai stepped into the fray, and sure enough, the thrashing limbs instantly stilled. Mathias looked on, face stamped with panic, horror, and said all in a rush, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit you please I didn’t—”

“No,” Nikolai said, silencing him with a gentle hand to one twitching cheek. He was so pleased he almost considered forgoing the punishment, but that wouldn’t do, wouldn’t do at all. “You didn’t hit me. That was very good, Mathias. You’ve pleased me.”

Panic morphed into relief, and then, a moment later, disgust. Sheer contempt, as if the thought of having done something that pleased Nikolai was fundamentally offensive to his sensibilities.

“If I were training you as I train the others, I might just now have offered reprieve from the consequences you earned with your earlier disobedience. Unfortunately . . .” He shrugged—orders are orders, you understand. “With you, there can never be escape from consequences. There won’t be when I sell you on. The best you can do is choose to avoid them next time. I can’t give you the gifts I want to give you, so I’ll prepare you as best I can for the life ahead. It’s still a gift, if perhaps a bitter one. Now please”—he gestured toward the bed—“lie down.”

Mathias eyed the bed, the guards on either side of him, Nikolai, the bed again. He didn’t move, no doubt figured he was already being punished so why bother.

“You can lie down, or you can fall down. And neither I nor anybody else will be here to make sure you land safely. Consequences.”

Mathias sat down, and then, hesitantly, eyes on the guards, eased himself onto his back. Nikolai smiled to let him know he’d done well, and locked a shackle around his ankle. Not too tight. Just enough to keep him from wandering.

“Now then. I’m afraid you’ll be having something of a miserable afternoon, but you’ll live. Perhaps that will be a comfort for you in the midst of your agony. Perhaps not. It’s not really any of my concern. The key to this punishment, you see, is not merely its severity, but its finality. There’s no use for me to give it any thought beyond the decision to administer, and there’s no use for you to beg or try to make amends. Think of it like an avalanche. Once it’s set in motion, there’s no taking it back, and there’s no stopping it. For five to six hours, anyway, depending on your metabolism. And it will bury you.”

He reached into his suit pocket for the auto-injector he always carried during training, held it up for Mathias to see. The man’s eyes widened, pupils dilating, chest heaving. But when Nikolai laid his free hand over Mathias’s heart, he held still.

“In the hands of a lesser man, I’d almost call it lazy, because it forces the one who administers it to stand by their decisions. A shortcut to pitilessness for the spineless, you could say. Well, I’m not a weak-willed man. This isn’t for me, it’s for you. I want you to know with absolute certainty that I will never take your pain away. No one will ever take pity on you again. The only way to save yourself now is to obey. Fully. Instantly. Forever.”

He jammed the injector against Mathias’s hip and got out of the way before the man’s scream had time to form. Flailing limbs would follow; he wouldn’t be able to help himself, no matter the threat against his brother, no matter his pride.

Sure enough, Mathias thrashed, screamed, screamed again, eyes wide and wild, rolling and wailing like a spooked horse. Nikolai stood by and watched, waiting for Mathias to exhaust himself enough to still. He took no pleasure in the man’s agony, but nor did it upset him.

What did upset him was the fact that he had another project to attend to, one he didn’t want but was saddled with anyway. He’d have liked to send for a cup of tea and sit through Mathias’s suffering, but he had places to be. A few minutes more. Just to see how his new dog took to the drug. And then he’d go. He promised himself he’d go.

Two minutes passed. Three. Five. Mathias was still thrashing, panting, moaning, jaw and eyes and fists clenched, tears leaking down his cheeks. Nikolai had to hand it to him—the man had stamina.

That might get irritating, and fast.

Eight minutes. Twelve. He really did have somewhere else to be; he should’ve finished his speech before he’d injected the man.

At sixteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds, Mathias went silent and still. Nikolai sat on the edge of the bed and rolled him from his side onto his back. He moaned like a dying animal. His sweat soaked Nikolai’s palm.

“Look at me, Mathias.”

Mathias’s head rolled on the pillow, and he blinked open glassy eyes.

“It’s quite something, isn’t it?” No answer, of course. He’d probably already lost his voice. “A proprietary blend of neurotransmitters responsible for carrying pain signals to the brain, some remarkable—but harmless—chemical irritants derived from a variety of pepper plants, and a time-release stimulant to keep you awake to enjoy it all. The pain will build over the next half hour or so as the serum is absorbed from the muscle into the bloodstream, although I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that the fire you feel in your hip now will fade. In about four hours, the serum will start to break down. In five or so, you’ll stop wishing I’d simply killed you. I’ll come to see you again in six, and we’ll have a little chat. Hopefully it will go better than our first one did.”

He patted Mathias quite deliberately on the hip, right over the injection site, and watched him lurch and whimper.

“In the meanwhile, I do believe I’ll introduce myself to your brother. Or whatever’s left of him after the last few days, I suppose. I’m feeling very optimistic about his future here.”