"I see you already checked out the new girl," I heard from behind me as I watched a series of surveillance camera monitors that covered the grounds of the villa and the training rooms in the caverns below. "You know who that is, don't you?"

"Of course, I know who that is," I said with an edge to my voice. I had hoped my brother would stay away for a while, that maybe he had gone out of the country on another business trip. I really didn't feel like talking to him about Brooklyn, or anything for that matter.

"We're really gonna have some fun with her, aren't we," he said as he squeezed my shoulders from behind.

I whipped around and knocked his hands off of my shoulders as I stood up, looking him right in the eye. At 6'2" he was an inch shorter than me and I made sure he felt that inch.

"Keep your fucking hands off of her, Lucas. I'm not gonna say it again."

He took a step back and put his hands up like he didn't want any trouble, which I knew was total bullshit. He was always looking for trouble these days.

"Okay, okay, whatever you say, bro. Whatever you say," he said with a patronizing smile.

It made me sad to see how things had changed between us over recent years. We used to be really close when we were younger and when we started getting actively involved in the family business, we both took to it quickly. I could tell back then that he approached the job differently than I did but it felt like we were two parts of a team.

Where I found the honor of the family business a driving force, he seemed to get really excited about the killing and the retribution. He started out doing smaller jobs for my father. Whenever there was someone who couldn't pay back a loan, he would send Lucas out to complete the transaction, as my father always referred to them.

Lucas had no problem whatsoever removing a limb or breaking bones and it didn't take very long at all before he graduated to killing. And not long after that, he made an art form out of debt repayment and account settling. When our father finally put us in charge of the training aspect of transactions and account settlement Lucas really seemed to come into his own.

"I really don't see what the problem is, Adrian. She's here as a transaction, right? So we train her, right? What's the difference if you do it or I do it?" he asked has he challenged me with his cold stare.

"The difference is she's mine. You have other girls down there to train, so go mess with them. If you have any questions about this ask Dad, because he's the one that gave me the order."

"Since when did you start getting preferential treatment, I'm curious? I mean, she's really just another girl, right, Adrian? Or do you think Dad knows about your fixation on her?"

I glared at him but didn't say a word. It pissed me off that he knew. I had never said a word to him about Brooklyn, even when we were all together that summer.

"Don't you think I remember the two of you, all lovey dovey and staring into each other's eyes on the beach? It was really touching. And then once we got back how you would act around anything with long blonde hair and blue eyes?

As soon as we'd get a girl that looked anything like her you'd pull your gentle dom act and squirrel her away in your private dungeon, keeping her all to yourself.

You've always been so pathetically transparent, Adrian. I don't know about Dad but you've never fooled me, not for one second. You've been in love with her for, what has it been, seven, eight years now? And honestly, bro, I can't fucking wait to see how this all plays out. My bet is on you losing everything," he said with that creepy goddamned smile plastered on his face.

I fucking hated the way he was looking at me and I was so close to grabbing his head and slamming it against the wall but the phone in my pocket went off.

"Hey, Dad," I said as I glared at Lucas.

"Yeah, he's right here. I was just talking to him about the latest transaction. Sure, hold on."

I held the phone out to Lucas and smiled.

"He wants to talk to you."

Lucas grabbed the phone out of my hand and turned away from me.

"Yeah? Yeah, he told me. I won't ... Yeah, yeah, I told him I wouldn't touch her," he said as he turned back around looking like he wanted to kill me. "I told you, I won't. Okay, where? When do I need to be there? All right. All right."

He threw the phone back to me and laughed.

"Wow, you really got that guy wrapped around your finger, don't you? So, what are you gonna do with her then? Got any big plans for the dreamy dungeon?" he said as he rubbed his hands together.

I just had to ignore him. Letting him get to me wasn't going to stop his bullshit. If anything he got off on my reaction to him.

"Well, that's up to me now, isn't it? It doesn't have anything to do with you. She doesn't have anything to do with you, Lucas," I said as I turned away from him and back to the monitors.

"All right! Geez! I'm getting out of your hair! I'm headed to London. I've got one to pick up over there. I'll probably be there for a while so knock yourself out with your girlfriend while I'm gone."

"Well, have fun," I said as I gestured for him to get the hell out of the room. As I watched him leave, I couldn't believe how much things had changed between us. We used to be best friends, but now I could barely stand the sight of him.

"Hey, wait!" I yelled after Lucas. He popped his head back around the doorway.

"What do you want me to do about the transaction in the training room?"

"You can do whatever you want with her. I'm just going to leave her in her cage. Mario takes water and dog food down there every day and she knows where to shit. If you want to take her out and fuck her face now and again, I'm sure she'd appreciate it," he said with a chuckle. "And, hey, don't give me any more of this bullshit about not knowing what to do with the trainees. You know exactly what to do with both of those girls down there," he said with that fucking smile and a goddamned wink, then turned and left.

I turned around and sat back down in the chair in front of the monitors. I had a night vision camera on in the cell that Brooklyn was in so I could see what she was doing even in the dark. That was where we always put the new transactions, sort of a place for them to get adjusted to life in the caves.

The training grounds used to be the family wine cellar for the production of wine on our family vineyard. But instead of making and storing wine down in the caverns, the way it had been done for the last century, the grapes were now shipped off to a centralized location and were blended with grapes from most of the vineyards in this region.

The wine cellar caves have functioned as the transaction training area for decades because they were secure and soundproof and pretty much undetectable. The girls down there could scream their heads off and no one would hear them even if they were standing directly above the training rooms.

The caverns stretched on for quite a while and connected three of the buildings in the villa, my house, Lucas's house and the building where we had the business offices. It had been very convenient when one of us needed to access the trainees, but I was starting to wish I had a private place to put Brooklyn that Lucas had no access to whatsoever.

Brooklyn was still lying in bed. She had gotten up a couple times to drink some of the water that had been brought in on the tray but she hadn't used the Turkish toilet yet. I didn't blame her, those things were horrible. But it's all we offered the trainees. No modern conveniences or anything comfortable allowed.

This was usually as far as I went with the trainees, except to use them when I felt the urge. But I never went down into the training rooms when I knew Lucas was around anymore. I had no interest in seeing him with one of the trainees and I didn't think what I did with them was any of his business, anyway.

We would usually leave the new girl isolated in the cell until she was completely disoriented and desensitized to the outside world. She would spend the majority of her time in the dark with water that kept her sedated and no contact with anyone other than the guard, Mario, who would bring the trays of food and water in and make sure everything was secure.

Every time Brooklyn drank a little bit of the water she would get back in bed and sleep for another three or four hours. I don't know if she knew that the water was drugged or not or if she was just so thirsty that she didn't care. I still didn't know what to do with her, though, so keeping her drugged seemed like the best option at the moment.

Every once in a while Mario would take advantage of his position and fuck one of the girls in the induction cell and that was another reason I wanted to figure out how to get Brooklyn out of there as soon as possible. I figured I would just tell Mario to take care of the other trainee, use her however he wanted to, and I would make sure he didn't have a key to the induction cell.

* * *

The sound of my shoes clicking on the stone floor and echoing down the cavern walls filled the dark, empty space as I approached Brooklyn's cell in the dark. I could hear her breathing as well as an adorable little snore as I got closer to the bars. I stood there for a few moments just listening and imagining what was going to happen when she saw who was holding her captive. I wondered if she remembered me, if she remembered that summer we spent together at all.

I turned to leave but dropped the metal ring of keys out of my hand, and when they hit the stone floor the clatter magnified as it bounced off the walls. I heard Brooklyn gasp and sit up in the bed, then I heard her make some sad little noises like a wounded animal.

"Who's there?" she asked in a shaky voice. "Please, tell me where I am."

My heart sank as I thought about her in there in the dark, all alone and terrified. I had never thought about any of the other girls like that. Like Lucas said, there were girls that I had treated differently, given preferential treatment to. But I still only saw them as objects and their begging and pleading and crying usually just amused me or made me hard more than anything.

I was having a hard time seeing Brooklyn that way. In fact, it felt impossible to see her like the other girls. I wanted to take her out of that cell and walk right out the front door of my house with her and never look back. But that really was impossible.

As I picked up the keys and turned and walked back down the dark corridor, I wondered if my father would kill me if I tried to leave the business. And with every step I took I became more sure that I was never going to be free of this horrible place.

I walked up to the cage that held Lucas's trainee. There was always a dim light burning in the main training room where the girls were kept and I could see her curled up in a corner on a blanket. It didn't look like she had bathed in over a week so I wasn't too anxious to stick my dick in either of the holes between her legs. But suddenly I really just needed to get off and she was more than available.

I didn't even want to take the time to open up the cage and let her out. I just wanted to release the intensity that was building up inside me. So, I told her to get down on her knees and I stuck my cock in between the bars. She immediately started sucking and before I knew it the head of my cock was sliding down her throat. Lucas had really trained her well.

I grabbed the back of her head and thrust myself into her mouth and down her throat faster and faster until I finally exploded and pulled out. I couldn't even look at her after I was done I just zipped up and walked out. The intensity that had been building up inside me had lessened but it was immediately replaced by a feeling of disgust.

I was no better than Lucas. I didn't give a damn about that girl. When I thought about her in that cage I felt nothing. I was a monster and this cavern of prison cells was where I belonged.