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For a moment he’d been sure he had killed her, and then he had forced her head to the side, dropped the pitcher and lifted her shoulder. Holding her in place until biology took over and water had poured out. A quiet, meek gasp, another cough, a gagging heave, more water, and then she’d been limp.

Vacant.

Barely perceptible breaths expanding her ribs, and he had stepped back.

Anger still flickered somewhere in him. At least, the closest thing he could feel to it… because she hadn’t said the word.

She’d broken first.

His phone vibrated repeatedly in his pocket, but Marcus would have to wait. Collecting himself, storing the strange flashes of rage away in his mind, he pushed away from the wall and approached her.

No reaction, no increase in breaths, no sudden twitch to make her limbs fight the cuffs.

Nothing.

Turning the handle at the end of the table, he lowered it flat again. It had been tilted at exactly twenty-five degrees. He had never passed thirty seconds on the waterboarding. Yet, the girl was blank.

Walking to the head of the table, he leaned over her, bracing one hand on the other side of her so he was directly in her line of sight. Brown eyes stared straight through him, lips parted as air rattled its way into her lungs and whispered its way back out.

Fuck.

He despised expletives, but there was no other internal reaction that fit this moment. The girl was supposed to submit, to break enough to call him Master, to accept her position — she wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Anthony caught her chin in his fingers, squeezing hard enough to bruise, but all it earned was a blink. A slow flutter of damp eyelashes.

“Speak, slave.” It was a command. Everything in his tone demanded an answer, the pain he delivered with the force of his grip was irrefutable, but the girl didn’t even react.

Standing upright again he slapped her hard. Her head whipped to the side… and stayed. Staring at the opposite wall, breaths still disturbingly even as the pink outlines of his fingers formed on her skin.

Fuck.

Another set of vibrations came from the phone in his pocket, and he glanced up at the camera in the ceiling and shook his head once. The buzzing stopped a second later.

He needed to think. Something other than useless expletives.

The girl was broken, that was undeniable. She might come back

in a week or two. A month. And he had customers who would pay extra for the opportunity to do things to her in this state — they might even wake her up. Bring her back from this vacant state, to be useful enough to sell to one of his traditional clients.

If not…

Anthony sighed and looked her over. She hadn’t lifted her face back towards the ceiling, had not moved at all as far as he could tell. Even her hands were open, palms towards the ceiling like a doll.

If he couldn’t get her responsive, couldn’t form her into any kind of obedience, then there were always people who didn’t care about things like that. They did not pay as well, there was no acclaim in selling a girl to those parts of the world, but it was some profit.

And if she wouldn’t respond, then there was no other use for her.

Broken dolls simply weren’t entertaining.

Epilogue

Four Weeks Later

Anthony sat in front of the fire, his shoes on the leather ottoman to enjoy the warmth as he tapped out replies to emails.

The business never stopped.

Customers in almost every time zone across the globe. So much hunger. So many dark wishes to be fulfilled.