The Flesh Cartel #1: Capture

at, judging by your expression. So what do you think, shall I burn him like a filthy rag? Or will you crawl over there and prove you both deserve a place here?” She read his face again, waiting for something. “Not as smart as I thought, then, but oh well. Come clean him, hole. If he passes inspection, I’ll let you both through. If not . . .”
    Clean him .
    Clean him.
    Clean him.
    The words didn’t make sense. Ran together. Came out garbled, like they weren’t in English. He realized it was because he didn’t want to know what they meant. Because knowing what they meant would mean asking—
    “With what?”
    She smiled. “I think even you must know the answer to that.”
    The only thing he had, of course.
    Bile rose in his throat. “No.” Please no.
    “Mat, please . . .” Dougie’s voice was high and reedy.
    “No?” the woman asked him, quite politely, as if he’d refused her offer for a second helping of dessert. “All right, then. Gentlemen, dispose of them both.”
    “ Wait! ” Mat cried as one of the heavies said, “But—”
    “Did I ask for your fucking opinion?” the woman said to the heavy—ignoring Mat completely. “Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I’m richer than the queen. I can absorb the loss of these two. You can’t. Maybe it’ll teach you not to bring your dirty spunk-soaked trash to my door and tell me it’s valuable product. Do I make myself clear?”
    “Yes, Madame.”
    “No!”
    Dougie again. Oh God please stop talking please just stop let me think this through there must be some way—
    “No? No? Is that the only word in your sorry vocabularies?” Her heels clicked across the cement floor. She caught Dougie by the chin, turned his face to examine it.
    “He’ll do it, miss. You’ll see.” Dougie locked pleading eyes with Mat. “He will.”
    No longer the woman telling him. His brother, asking him. Begging him.
    They couldn’t escape from this if they were dead. It was the conclusion they’d both come to. They’d have to play by this woman’s rules. Degrade themselves to stay alive. Once they were free, it wouldn’t matter what they’d done to achieve it.
    That’s what Mat told himself when he nodded his acceptance.
    He took half a step, froze when the woman barked, “No.” He turned his eyes to her, afraid even to move his head lest he screw up again, displease her into killing them both. She raised one neat eyebrow and said, “Crawl.”
    No thought, no hesitation. His body dropped to its knees of its own accord. He was used to fighting on the floor. He’d learned how to submit halfway through his very first sparring lesson twenty-two years back. He could do this.
    He shuffled along on his knees, hands still bound behind his back. The distance to Dougie felt like a fucking chasm. His limbs still weren’t working quite the way they should, and moving hurt , but none of that mattered now. He let it all go, let everything go but him and Dougie, the goal, the prize .
    Win. Save our lives.
    One of the men at Dougie’s side turned him around, used a boot to bend him forward until his ass rose up, exposed. Rough hands yanked Dougie’s ass cheeks apart, showing off his swollen, bloodied hole.
    Maybe it would be better if they died.
    But no. Dougie had asked him. Dougie wanted to live. He wouldn’t condemn his brother to a death he didn’t want, and he wouldn’t leave him alone here, either.
    “That better not be blood,” the woman snarled. “Tell me right now that isn’t blood. Tell me you did not bring this boy to me with blood on his ass and think you were going to get away with it.”
    Mat hated her, hated her as fiercely as he hated them, but just for one single moment he was grateful, satisfied, felt vindicated at the sight of her exacting the vengeance he could not.
    “Fifty percent off your commissions. Next time, I’ll have your jobs, you understand? And you, hole. What are you waiting for, a formal invitation?”
    Mat lurched as if she’d kicked him, though she hadn’t, of course; he’d bet money she wouldn’t deign to smear his sweat on her thousand-dollar shoes. He crawled forward a length. Another. Until his jean-clad knees rested lightly against the soles of Dougie’s bare feet.
    Someone gripped the back of his neck and shoved his face into Dougie’s upraised ass.
    He cried out, struggled for half a second, but then stilled himself. Tried not to breathe. Just pretend it’s a different body, not Dougie at all. Pretend it’s