The Flesh Cartel #1: Capture

discreet. At his nod, the two brutes guarding the door behind him stepped aside to let Nikolai through. An usher greeted him in the antechamber with one of the Tragedy masks Panebianco preferred. Nikolai put it on and followed the usher to his seat. Prime real estate for him, as always—he wasn’t a volume bidder, but his reputation for buying top-shelf merchandise had long since earned him a seat in the front row, just five feet from the low stage.
    He was early, which left time for relaxation and review. An usher brought him a glass of San Pellegrino with a straw; he always felt a bit silly drinking like that but it was the only way to manage it in the mask. After he’d taken a sip and nodded his approval, the usher handed him a bidding tablet, on which he scrolled through the four promising files again. He’d have preferred his own notes, but no outside electronics were permitted in-house, and he had everything committed to memory besides. He wouldn’t know the suitability of the lots for certain until he saw them in person, of course, but he’d been raised a cautiously hopeful man, and he chose to believe this trip wouldn’t be for nothing.
    Beside him, someone else took a seat: a woman wearing a black pantsuit and an intoxicating scent. Behind her mask, her eyes were a dark, glittering black, like the ocean under a full moon. He’d never seen her face or heard her name, but he knew her figure and her perfume, and by the way she tilted her head at him, she knew him, too.
    “For yourself, or a client?” she asked, making small talk as she took a glass of wine from an usher.
    “Just browsing,” Nikolai lied. He’d be a fool to give a potential rival any information she might be able to use against him. Just as foolish as she was to be drinking at an auction.
    “Me too,” she lied right back, and beneath her mask, he imagined her smiling. “It’s my birthday next week. To think, some single women my age buy themselves a day at the spa.”
    “This is much nicer,” Nikolai agreed pleasantly, though he wished she’d stop talking. One of many reasons he so disliked traveling: the whole world seemed to share the common delusion that they were interesting .
    Nikolai turned back to his tablet, and the woman seemed to take his hint. She did the same, scrolling through the offerings with as much interest as if they were appliances in a Sears catalogue, occasionally sipping her wine through its straw and somehow managing to make it look less silly than Nikolai felt . The seats around them slowly filled, ushers moving between the aisles with tablets and drinks until the house lights flashed three times and then dimmed.
    The murmurs of the crowd died into rapt silence. What was being led on stage right now —that was interesting.
    But only for what Nikolai could help it become.

The crowd roared for blood. They’d get it, too—Mat and that little bastard Rodriguez were so evenly matched he’d be lucky if they didn’t go to points. He raised a knee to block a kick, jabbed into the opening that left, and felt the shock of the chest strike reverberate right through his glove and up his arm. His opponent grunted, staggered once. Shook it off like it was nothing.
    This was going to be a long fucking match.
    . . . Or not. He stumbled back three steps from the force of a kick to the hip and barely stopped himself from hitting the mat. Rodriguez chased him down, landed a brutal one-two right on Mat’s chin and followed it with a knee to the stomach. Mat buckled, and Rodriguez took the opening and grappled him to the floor.
    Through a clearing haze of fog, Mat heard the roar of the crowd swell. Rodriguez was working him into an armbar, and Mat instinctively locked his fingers together, thrust his hands back, and trapped Rodriguez’s thigh under his head. He spun, ended up on top; Rodriguez went for another armbar, but then gave up and just punched him in the side of the head. Mat took it once, twice; Rodriguez’s leverage was shit and he was hitting like Mat’s little brother.
    Which, shit. Focus failed for half a fucking second and he’d lost control of Rodriguez’s hip. He saw the leg coming up just in time to duck out beneath it, but he’d lost his leverage. Rodriguez popped to his feet again.
    They kept it off the floor after that, which was just as well because Mat did better on his feet, and the crowd always seemed to prefer that anyway. Punches and kicks and flying blood were all so much more showy