“It’s been five days, I’m coming back,” Marcus growled into the phone, much too loudly, and Anthony flipped another page in the cookbook.

“Your presence is not necessary.” Reaching for an egg, he cracked it against the edge of the bowl and let the insides spill out onto the mixture of seasonings he’d carefully measured.

“Are you kidding? You’ve been torturing her for almost a week and she hasn’t shown even the smallest hint of submitting.”

His brother’s tone held no hint of laughter, so Marcus already knew that he was not kidding. The eggshell went into the trash and he wiped his hands off on a towel before he took the fork from the counter and began to mix the coating according to the directions. Folding, not whisking.

“Anthony!”

“Yes?” He kept his tone steady as he worked the mixture to the right consistency.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Cooking. It’s almost time for dinner.” Setting the bowl down he picked up the chicken breast and dredged it through the mixture, laying it out on the pan where it instantly sizzled in the heated olive oil. Perfect. Exactly as the recipe described. He liked it when things worked as designed.

“Are you feeding her?”

“Of course.”

“How much?”

“Enough,” he answered, already bored with the conversation.

“Tonight?”

“She had a can of soup yesterday.”

“That’s not enough and you know it. You’re going to make her useless.” A sound followed the other man’s words that Anthony could only attribute to frustration, or disgust, or some other mercurial emotion that flitted through his little brother’s mind.

“I assure you, she is still quite usable.” Parting the oven door enough to glance in at the couscous and Abbaye de Belloc stuffed tomatoes, he shut it quickly so that too much heat did not disperse. “I fucked her just this morning.”

“Right.” Marcus laughed, a low chuckle that did not sound sincere. “And she didn’t come, did she?”

“Your obsession with—”

“Of course she didn’t. The customers want to know they’re capable of responding! You have to at least demonstrate it, and she’d fucking behave if she knew there were alternatives to your games.”

Another gruff sound came over the line as Anthony used a spatula to shift the chicken in the pan so it wouldn’t stick.

“I’m driving down tonight.”

“No. You have incessantly pestered me with your ideas on running two separate operations for the past few months, and now that you are finally setting up your house you are focusing on this slut. Would you care to explain why?” He was prodding his brother’s temper, one of his few entertainments in the world outside of food and breaking slaves, and at the next growl of rage from the phone he smiled.

It had worked. Of course.

Anthony flipped the chicken in the pan just as Marcus exploded on the other end of the line. “I’m focusing because you’re fucking this up! The house is on schedule, but I’ve been watching the feed, and you’ve made absolutely zero progress.” Another growl peppered the line. “Look, I have people installing the security measures on the doors right fucking now, and soon the house will be ready to go, but I need to be out of the way for them to finish replacing the floors and sealing over the windows. I’ll be there before midnight.”

“Her willpower will not last forever, Marcus. It’s already flagging. She never attempts to stand in my presence unless I order her to, she keeps her eyes down, she crawls. She is adjusting to her new state as they all do.” The timer on the microwave interrupted his update, and he pressed the little button to stop the incessant beeping.

“Yeah, adjusting. You’ve got her suspended in ropes again, how the fuck is she supposed to display submission when she’s not even touching the floor?”

Anthony glanced at the feed on the tablet he had leaned against the backsplash. Pretty, pale limbs wound in perfectly clean lines of dark rope. “She looks submissive to me.”

“She still hasn’t called you Master.”

With annoying precision, Marcus zeroed in on the issue that had actually managed to burrow its way into his thoughts. No matter what he’d done to the girl, she had yet to actually use the word as a title. He had forced her to say it in reference to the rules numerous times, but she refused to use it with him. Refused to acknowledge her position, even when that position was bound painfully off the floor.

It was a problem.

“I can get her to call me Master. I always do.” Pride tainted Marcus’ voice, and it was the one emotion that Anthony picked up on easily. His brother had always tried to best him, to exceed him in a variety of invented competitions — and he had consistently failed.

Yet… this was an avenue where he might actually succeed. The slaves always clung to him, to his pathetic urge to give them pleasure. It wasn’t subservience that he plucked from them, it was a need for companionship. The human need to connect, to want, to feel.

Anthony was only interested in the girl’s fear, her destruction — not her dedication or affection.

“Marcus, you just want to make her care for you like you have the others. That does not serve our purposes.” Plucking the tray of tomatoes from the oven, he rested them on the cool side of the stovetop. “And, again, I will remind you that your presence is not requested, or needed. She will break. It has only been a week.”

“A week of nothing but her fighting you,” Marcus retorted, defensive.

“It has been entertaining,” he acknowledged, monitoring the chicken for the right moment to pull it from the searing heat.

“I doubt our customers feel the same way.”

“Actually, I’ve received a flurry of emails asking me to punish her in various ways for her disobedience. They are ecstatically waiting for the moment I take her ass.” Plunging the spatula beneath the chicken, Anthony lifted it and transferred it to a plate, immediately draping it in foil that crinkled loudly in the silence of the house.

“Why have you waited for that? You could have—”

“It’s her last virginity, Marcus. Rushing it would only remove an opportunity to break her at the right moment.” Anthony turned off the stove and oven, waiting for his dinner to be ready to eat. “When I claim it she will have nothing left. Nothing hidden from me, or any of our customers. It will lay her bare, and force her to recognize her situation. Wasting an opportunity like that is foolish.”

“I could break her without fucking her ass.”

He almost laughed at his brother’s bravado, but he knew laughing would push him too far… so he held it back. Not exactly a challenge since his laughter was supposedly never right, even when he was sincerely entertained by Marcus’ ridiculous bluster.

There were other ways to leverage the particular proclivities that his only sibling possessed. Perhaps the girl would respond to him, but Anthony had watched her maintain her stubbornness through agony and he held no concerns that a series of forced orgasms would cripple her defenses.

“You think you can break her? Get her to call you Master?” He dangled the temptation before his brother’s ego, and smiled as Marcus took the bait.

“Of course! That’s what I’ve been telling you—”

“Then we will see when you arrive. Let’s make a wager of it.”

“Fuck off,” Marcus growled. “I don’t want—”

“If you don’t think you can make her submit, then you may as well stay up there and monitor your house.” Anthony glanced at the time on the microwave, calculating how long the chicken had been resting, and then he moved to the pantry to pluck another can of soup from the shelf.

Tomato. How fitting. He was having tomatoes this evening as well.

“What kind of wager?” Marcus asked, and he reveled in the moment where the hook caught and his brother became just another one of his toys. Almost thirty years together and the man still hadn’t learned.

“Oh, nothing much…” He poured the tomato soup into a pot, heating it atop the stove, occasionally stirring it as he outlined the details of the bet. Before he was even done, he knew Marcus would accept.

He always did.

His failure would be almost as entertaining as the girl’s desolation if she managed to orgasm. Another crack in her willpower, something new for him to leverage as he spoke with her — it would almost make things easier if Marcus managed to give her pleasure. A new level of torment, a new low for her.

But she would never use the title with him.

It would take so much more pain for the girl to say Master and mean it.

“You’re serious?” Marcus asked, his interest clear.

“Of course. Do you accept the terms?” Anthony poured the soup out of the pot, directly into a wide bowl. On a whim, he went to the pantry and returned with oyster crackers, adding a small handful of them to the tray where her meal cooled. A gift.

“Fine. Yes. I accept, and I’m about to leave. I’ll be there tonight.”

“Alright.” Smiling, Anthony lifted the foil on his chicken and sighed. He’d need to take her down from the ropes, and watch her eat, which would take time. Tucking the tray of stuffed tomatoes and the pan of chicken into the still warm oven, he turned the heat on low. “Where would you like her?”

“The bedroom.”

“Of course,” he acknowledged, expecting nothing less from him.

“Don’t do anything else to her before I get there.” Was that nervousness in Marcus’ tone? Anger? Either one was equally entertaining. He was already second-guessing his decision.

Too late.

“I will take her down from the ropes, feed her, and put her to bed. Then we will see what you can do with her.”

“Good. I’m on my way,” Marcus snapped. The sounds of him moving things on the other end of the line were loud, irritating.

“Then I shall see you soon.” Ending the call, Anthony glanced at the tray of food and decided that a sugar spike would make things all the more entertaining. Pouring juice into a glass, he arranged it and glanced at her twitching form in the ropes again.

The time she’d spent suspended in bondage would leave her sore, but not too damaged. She would be confused by his actions in taking her down without further punishment, even more thrown off by the food and drink. Settling her into the soft bed without fucking her was going to set the girl on edge.

She would be waiting for something violent, something terrible. A fresh torture.

And then Marcus would arrive to use her.

It was perfect.