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“Tonight?”

“She had a can of soup yesterday.”

“That’s not enough and you know it. You’re going to make her useless.” A sound followed the other man’s words that Anthony could only attribute to frustration, or disgust, or some other mercurial emotion that flitted through his little brother’s mind.

“I assure you, she is still quite usable.” Parting the oven door enough to glance in at the couscous and Abbaye de Belloc stuffed tomatoes, he shut it quickly so that too much heat did not disperse. “I fucked her just this morning.”

“Right.” Marcus laughed, a low chuckle that did not sound sincere. “And she didn’t come, did she?”

“Your obsession with—”

“Of course she didn’t. The customers want to know they’re capable of responding! You have to at least demonstrate it, and she’d fucking behave if she knew there were alternatives to your games.”

Another gruff sound came over the line as Anthony used a spatula to shift the chicken in the pan so it wouldn’t stick.

“I’m driving down tonight.”

“No. You have incessantly pestered me with your ideas on running two separate operations for the past few months, and now that you are finally setting up your house you are focusing on this slut. Would you care to explain why?” He was prodding his brother’s temper, one of his few entertainments in the world outside of food and breaking slaves, and at the next growl of rage from the phone he smiled.

It had worked. Of course.

Anthony flipped the chicken in the pan just as Marcus exploded on the other end of the line. “I’m focusing because you’re fucking this up! The house is on schedule, but I’ve been watching the feed, and you’ve made absolutely zero progress.” Another growl peppered the line. “Look, I have people installing the security measures on the doors right fucking now, and soon the house will be ready to go, but I need to be out of the way for them to finish replacing the floors and sealing over the windows. I’ll be there before midnight.”

“Her willpower will not last forever, Marcus. It’s already flagging. She never attempts to stand in my presence unless I order her to, she keeps her eyes down,

she crawls. She is adjusting to her new state as they all do.” The timer on the microwave interrupted his update, and he pressed the little button to stop the incessant beeping.

“Yeah, adjusting. You’ve got her suspended in ropes again, how the fuck is she supposed to display submission when she’s not even touching the floor?”

Anthony glanced at the feed on the tablet he had leaned against the backsplash. Pretty, pale limbs wound in perfectly clean lines of dark rope. “She looks submissive to me.”

“She still hasn’t called you Master.”

With annoying precision, Marcus zeroed in on the issue that had actually managed to burrow its way into his thoughts. No matter what he’d done to the girl, she had yet to actually use the word as a title. He had forced her to say it in reference to the rules numerous times, but she refused to use it with him. Refused to acknowledge her position, even when that position was bound painfully off the floor.

It was a problem.

“I can get her to call me Master. I always do.” Pride tainted Marcus’ voice, and it was the one emotion that Anthony picked up on easily. His brother had always tried to best him, to exceed him in a variety of invented competitions — and he had consistently failed.

Yet… this was an avenue where he might actually succeed. The slaves always clung to him, to his pathetic urge to give them pleasure. It wasn’t subservience that he plucked from them, it was a need for companionship. The human need to connect, to want, to feel.

Anthony was only interested in the girl’s fear, her destruction — not her dedication or affection.

“Marcus, you just want to make her care for you like you have the others. That does not serve our purposes.” Plucking the tray of tomatoes from the oven, he rested them on the cool side of the stovetop. “And, again, I will remind you that your presence is not requested, or needed. She will break. It has only been a week.”

“A week of nothing but her fighting you,” Marcus retorted, defensive.

“It has been entertaining,” he acknowledged, monitoring the chicken for the right moment to pull it from the searing heat.

“I doubt our customers feel the same way.”

“Actually, I’ve received a flurry of emails asking me to punish her in various ways for her disobedience. They are ecstatically waiting for the moment I take her ass.” Plunging the spatula beneath the chicken, Anthony lifted it and transferred it to a plate, immediately draping it in foil that crinkled loudly in the silence of the house.

“Why have you waited for that? You could have—”

“It’s her last virginity, Marcus. Rushing it would only remove an opportunity to break her at the right moment.” Anthony turned off the stove and oven, waiting for his dinner to be ready to eat. “When I claim it she will have nothing left. Nothing hidden from me, or any of our customers. It will lay her bare, and force her to recognize her situation. Wasting an opportunity like that is foolish.”

“I could break her without fucking her ass.”