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DORIN

I’m more than confused as I leave the padded cell.

I went in there thinking I’d feed her, then drag her out and start her training.

But the way she reacted to me changed my motives.

There was no fear or hatred in her eyes.

She didn’t think I was the devil or his spawn.

She thought I was her savior.

In a way, I guess I am, but if she knew what lies ahead, she wouldn’t look at me with all that thankful vulnerability.

She’d be screaming and cursing.

I couldn’t quite make myself ruin all that innocence yet.

Plus, she seemed eager to believe she was in a mental facility, so it was easy enough to keep her in that illusion.

I didn’t even have to lie.

All I needed was to stay quiet and let her come up with her own explanations.

She even gave me the idea for my next step.

Some kind of therapy , she said.

I’m not going to bring her a doctor or a head shrink.

The closest thing we have to a doctor is Dax and his medical training in the army, and the closest thing we have to the latter is Mikhail and his uncanny ability to read people.

Neither will do her any good, and for some reason, I don’t want either man to lay his hands on her or try to worm his way into her head.

What I can do is give her another type of therapy that will keep her in this ridiculous delusion for a while.

I’m not sure why I want to feed the idea of this being a mental facility and not just tell her the truth.

I’d do that with anyone else, if only just to see the horror on their face.

Then I’d give them a good beating to welcome them and shove my cock into their ass while they were screaming.

But this girl has me doing everything differently.

I didn’t even give her the usual cold shower when I took her in last night.

I just brought her straight to her cell, changed her bandages carefully, then left her to sleep.

I do have to do some things the usual way, though, or someone’s bound to ask questions.

If there’s anything I hate, it’s people sticking their noses in others’ business.

So I head for Dax’s office.

On my way there, I find a guard that I order to make sure to give her bathroom breaks since the padded cells don’t have any toilets.

Then I tell him the same as I tell every other guard and trainer I meet on the way: to keep their filthy hands off her and not say a single fucking word to her.

This seems to be the new custom, after all—trainers getting to lay claim to girls.

I fucking hated it when Mikhail did it with Nikolai’s girl and the way Dax is doing it with this sub-training thing he has going.

Right until this point.

“I need you to make a file on a new girl,” I tell Dax once I’m in his office, sliding her driver’s license across his desk where he’s working on some leather project.

His new sub is at his side, kneeling with her eyes downcast and hands placed on her thighs.

If I didn’t find this new training regime of his ridiculous, I’d be impressed by the way she just sits there, not even twitching a finger or chancing a glance up at my arrival.

“Sure.” Dax grabs the license and flips his laptop open, and I watch his fingers tap away at the keys as he types in the information he has on her.

“What cell is she in?” he asks as he gets to the identification number, which indicates the year of arrival, how many girls came in before her said year, and her cell number.

“One,” I say.

“One what?”

“Cell number zero one,” I enunciate clearly as if he’s dim-witted.

“Oh shit, Dorin, have you already messed her up that bad?”

The girls who end up in cell one, two, and three—the padded ones—usually don’t go there before at least a few days, or, more likely, a few weeks.

Most girls don’t have the guts to try to end their own life, and insanity takes time.

Even so, a pair of manacles can usually do the job.

It’s only when they start banging their heads against the concrete or damaging themselves in ways that decrease their value that we put them in there.

Half the girls who go in there are beyond saving and end up in the incinerator room with my hands around their throats, writhing like beasts just before I snap their necks and throw them into the fire.

Ignoring his question, I say, “I need a paper bracelet instead of a chip.”

He frowns at me but doesn’t ask more questions.

This is one of the things I appreciate about Dax.

He knows when to stay out of things and doesn’t prod.

Dax types in more information and prints the bracelet.

“All done,” he says, handing it to me.

“Good. Tell everyone to keep their hands off her.”

“Why?”

“None of your business,” I clip and move to leave.

Just as I’m about to shut the door behind me, I get an idea and pop my head back in.

“Can I borrow your office tomorrow?”

“For what?”

“What do you think? For grooming my dog.”

Dax sighs.

“Just don’t mess it all up. I don’t want my walls covered in blood.”

“I’ll leave your office as clean as the queen’s ass. Tomorrow. What time?”

He looks at his schedule on his desk.

The man has a goddamn schedule as if he was some kind of actual doctor.

Ridiculous.

“The day after tomorrow. One o’clock.”

Perfect.

At one o’clock in two days, my little songbird will receive her first therapy session.

***

As I leave Dax’s office, I pass a whipping room with the door half ajar and a woman screaming bloody murder from the inside.

Nothing unusual about the screaming, but we have a custom about keeping the doors closed—to maintain control and make sure no girl sees anything we don’t want her to see—and something about the way she screams bugs me.

I pop my head in to check what’s going on.

Like my stomach told me, I was right to.

One of the new guards, Jan, has a girl suspended from the ceiling, so high only her toes are touching the floor, and ropes are cutting deep into her wrists.

He’s beating her with a heavy black cane, probably made of fiberglass.

Everywhere.

Even her ribs.

Judging from the way she’s breathing, I think he might have already cracked a few.

With four brisk steps, I cross the room and shove him aside.

“What the hell are you doing?” he barks.

“Stopping you from ruining the goods completely.” Grabbing the ropes, I examine her hands and wrists.

Her hands are blue to the point that it would be a miracle if she hasn’t attained any nerve damage, and blood trickles from her wrists where the ropes dig so deep into her skin that I’m sure it will leave a scar.

I take my switchblade from my pocket and cut her loose, letting her crumple to the floor.

Stepping over her, I unclip the baton on my belt.

The heavy stick feels amazing in my hand.

I loosen and tighten my fingers around the grip a few times, bouncing it lightly as I savor the sensation.

This instrument is a good friend of mine that has been with me all the way.

I got it from a cop that fucked over my former boss, before I came here.

I took care of the traitor.

He was my first kill on the job, and I’ve kept this lovely piece of reckoning as a souvenir.

I’ve tried canes and whips, but I’ve never cared much for them.

I like the weight of this stick in my hands too much.

I shove at Jan so hard he drops the cane.

He crashes back against the wall, and before he can recover, I slam the baton into his thighs.

“How the hell is she supposed to give a good hand job with nerve damage?”

He pushes out from the wall and gives a foul sneer.

“I’ll just train her to give good blow jobs instead.”

“That’s not for you to decide.” I swing the baton again, hard enough to send him back into the wall.

He growls and tries to snatch my baton, but a new blow to his thighs has his hands shooting down to protect the spot.

“It’s not like you haven’t done the fucking same,” he accuses, biting back the pain as he straightens to face me head-on.

Prideful idiot.

I shake my head.

“And you think that gives you the right to do it?”

I swing the baton again, this time hitting his right upper arm—not hard enough to make any long-term damage, but enough that it’s gonna hurt to swing the cane for a few days.

“And don’t strike their ribs. Fucking learn where to hit without damaging the goods.” I make two quick swings, striking his round belly that provides more than enough cushioning to use as a target.

“And learn some proper rope technique before tying up a girl again.”

I reattach the baton to my belt and turn to leave.

There’s a thud as he falls against the wall with a choked groan.

“Fucking scarred-up freak,” he calls out after me, his voice strained with the pain he tries to hide.

“I’m sure your father enjoyed fucking you in the ass as a kid. Yeah, I’ve heard the stories.”

It’s tempting to go back and beat him some more, but I don’t have the time today, so I leave without granting him another look or warning.

If this little beating didn’t teach him the lesson he needed to learn, I’ll gladly give him one that will.