The Flesh Cartel #3: Choices

Those outcomes are up to you.”
“I choose to go home,” Dougie said. And, feeling brave all of a sudden, added, “And to take Mat with me.”
Nikolai shook his head. “That is the one choice I’m afraid you cannot make. There is no going home, Douglas. There’s nothing to go home to . You and your brother, you’ve fled to Mexico to escape bad debts to dangerous men. The bank is foreclosing on your house. You’ve been expelled from your program. There’s nothing left of that life. It’s harsh, but necessary. You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be. That is your first and most critical lesson in this house. Do you understand?”
Understand? How could he understand that? “No.” Dougie’s hands balled into fists. He wanted so badly to stand, but he was afraid if he tried, he’d just fall again and ruin his last scrap of dignity.
“No, you don’t understand?”
“No. No. Just no. No to everything. No. Can I choose to say no, sir ?”
Nikolai’s nose crinkled ever so slightly at the tone of contempt in that “sir,” but he nodded. “You can.”
“Then no . No, I don’t believe you. No, I won’t listen to you. No, I’m not playing your sick fucking game so you might as well let me go.” Turned out he could stand after all, even if he did have to lean against the bed. “Now. Sir .”
Nikolai rose too, with a sigh. He was half a foot taller than Dougie, looked lean and wiry beneath his tailored suit, like Mat. But Mat had taught Dougie a thing or two; he wasn’t afraid, wouldn’t be intimidated by this man.
Wouldn’t be intimidated by anyone . Not anymore.
“For a moment there,” Nikolai said, the words like a mournful sigh, “I had such high hopes for you. I didn’t want you, you know. You came as baggage with your brother. But I thought I could give you my gifts nonetheless.”
Gifts? Oh Jesus, this man was insane. If this was a cult, he was guzzling the fucking Kool-Aid. Dougie tried to glance surreptitiously over Nikolai’s shoulder, toward the door, the windows. He had to get out of here. He’d fight his way out if he had to.
“Yet it seems you’re not ready to receive them. Perhaps you need some time to ponder. Some more time in quiet seclusion, perhaps?”
That dark room. No water. No food.
He’d drunk, but he hadn’t eaten, a fact that’d grown more and more urgent as his fluid-parched body came back into itself. How long did he have before he starved?
You idiot. He won’t starve you to death, not when he can get you halfway there and desperate enough to eat from his hand and drink his cum for dessert.
He’d read about this in grad school—going crazy in the endless, dark quiet of sensory deprivation. It could break a man in days. Sometimes just hours. Had definitely broken him, at least for a little while. Between that and what’d come before it, it was a fucking miracle of the human mind that he wasn’t destroyed already.
You snuggled in his lap and drank from him like a mewling kitten.
That’s where he recognized him from. The memory came back like a fucking freight train. Hunger. Thirst. This man. Water. His strong body. Protector. Savior. In that moment, he’d been all of that and more. Dougie—reduced to a desperate, broken animal—had loved him.
From here on in, he had to be smart. This was his mind he was gambling with, and he couldn’t throw it away for some meaningless stand. Better to play along now—no matter how humiliating and horrible it was, no matter what —and keep his senses (no more dark rooms, God, please no more) so he’d be ready when the time to escape eventually came. He was halfway to a Ph.D. in clinical psychology; if he couldn’t outsmart this guy, he had no one to blame but himself.
And he couldn’t afford to fail. Mat was here, somewhere. He had to protect Mat.
“Wait,” he said, and then, kicking himself for slipping already , dropped to his knees and added, “Sir. Please. Wait.”
Nikolai folded his arms across his chest and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. His posture screamed defensive, wary, amused, superior. But that was okay; Dougie could work with that.
“Please don’t lock me back up in the dark, sir. I’ll . . . I’m sorry, I won’t make trouble. I was just . . .” He shook his head, grimaced. He couldn’t overplay this or Nikolai wouldn’t buy it. “I was angry. Furious . I still . . . I still am. This is my life you’re stealing. That you’ve all so blithely claimed for your