The Flesh Cartel #5: Wins and Losses

hanging the heavy bag moved on to mounting a speed bag beside it. Beside that, a chin-up bar was already screwed into the wall—how had he slept through that?—with a series of resistance band attachments for strength training. No free weights, though— obviously Nikolai didn’t trust him not to bludgeon someone.
“What is this?” he asked, trying very hard not to sound as suspicious as he felt. He added belatedly, “Sir?”
The treadmill guys came back carrying hand wraps, gloves, weighted gloves, sports tape, Power Punch cables, a medicine ball, a padded folding gym mat, an assortment of jump ropes, and—ohgodthankyou—workout shorts, socks, and sneakers. Was Nikolai planning to make him fight in an underground cage? Was that why he’d really bought him? Not for sex at all?
“A gift,” Nikolai said, grinning that same expansive grin. It fell a little when Mat did nothing, said nothing, just stood there no doubt looking as suspicious as he felt. “For you,” Nikolai added pointedly.
Mat nodded, forced himself to say “Thank you” and not sound too grudging about it, though all he really wanted to do was tell Nikolai to go fuck himself and fuck his gifts and let them go home. But Nikolai wouldn’t let them go home, and if Mat gave him lip about it now, Nikolai might just take his “gifts” away again, and Mat’s hands were already itching to be wrapped, his feet itching to run. He pictured drawing Nikolai’s face on the speed bag, hitting it so hard it burst.
Let me at it.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I need you fighting fit. I broke you a little. Now do what you do best—make yourself strong again. Put yourself back together.”
Mat was halfway across the room before he realized he’d moved. The four Macy’s guys formed a wall in front of Nikolai, faces hard, and Mat froze. They didn’t seem like hired muscle—not big enough, not holding themselves like fighters. If they had been, maybe he would have had the brass fucking balls to take them all on, if not to escape then just on principle, but he didn’t want to fight these guys regardless of the odds. Something about them triggered sympathy inside him, and he didn’t want to send them all to the hospital with rearranged faces.
“You didn’t break me,” he growled to Nikolai, who was gently pushing two of the men aside to clear the path between himself and Mat. Mat stood his ground, squared his shoulders, lifted his chin. “Do I look broken to y—”
Nikolai’s thrust his hand out, auto-injector clutched in his palm, ready to strike. Every last drop of moisture fled Mat’s mouth and migrated north to his eyes. “Please,” he whispered. He was trembling. No more squared shoulders, no more proud chin. “I’m sorry.”
Nikolai put the auto-injector back in his pocket with another grin—less expansive, more I told you so.
“As I was saying,” Nikolai said, “you need to take care of yourself. Because nobody else will, not anymore. I’ll help you when I can, but it wouldn’t be fair to you to pamper you now. You’d only suffer for it later in your new master’s hands.”
There didn’t seem to be any call to respond to that, so Mat just swallowed, nodded. His gaze seemed stuck on Nikolai’s pocket, on what he knew was inside there. It felt like a reprieve of the highest order—like he’d barely avoided a terrible car crash or a firing squad—to see that needle put away. But his heart was still thrashing; he could still taste the adrenaline in the back of his throat.
“Please,” Nikolai said, gesturing him toward the little round table with its two chairs. “Sit. Let us talk.”
Oh God, not again. But he did as he was told. Of course. It fucking disgusted him to think that, but clearly, Nikolai was right—he had broken him.
“You told me once, not so very long ago, that I could never take your pride. In a way, I believed you. It’s why I bought you, you see. And yet, in another way—a way of long, personal experience—I know that all slaves, even ones as willful as you, must at the very least learn to put aside their pride, even if they never give in completely. I know you think your pride makes you a free man, but in this place, it makes you a dead man.”
After a couple rounds with that serum, Mat had no doubt that Nikolai’s threats—even ones as melodramatic as death— were not to be taken lightly. And if Mat did die, where would Dougie be, then?
Nikolai must have caught Mat’s train of thought, that