Mistress’d trained me well. This was what I did. I killed. I fucked. I could make any bastard talk.

Gripping her hair tighter, her head snapping back, I placed my other hand on her hip and repeatedly pounded inside.

I wanted to hurt her, but the harder I tried, the more she got off on my savageness. Her pussy was dripping wet, the sounds of her juices in her channel slapping against my dick.

I grunted at the effort. Mistress’s cunt began to tighten around my shaft. I wanted this to last. I wanted to make her bleed, rip out her hair, and bite the flesh off her neck, but she’d only ordered me to fuck, so all I could do was fuck this evil bitch.

My thighs began to tingle, the pressure of my release racing up my back. Sensing I needed to come, Mistress ordered, “Do not come until I say so, Beast!” My jaw clenched at her command, but my body obeyed, my balls full and painful with the need to come. I thrust into her harder, Mistress’s breath coming faster and faster. Agony surged through groin and prick with the inability to find release, but I took it. This pain would fuel my revenge when the time came.

Because it would come.

Mistress began to moan, moan louder and louder until her cunt gripped my cock like a vise and she screamed a command. “194, come now!”

My head whipped back with the pain of my release—like razor blades were being ripped from my flesh.

Mistress loved this. She loved to torture me, to mess with my head. I roared with each new spurt of release. Roared until Mistress turned, ripping herself from my length, her back pressing against the wall.

My hands balled into fists, eager to wrap my fingers around her neck. But Mistress smirked that rage-inducing smirk and pushed her black skirt down to her knees. She fixed her hair with her hands, then, moving closer, aggressively slapped her hand across my face, before softly holding my cheeks in her hands.

“Next time, you give it to me harder. I made you into a savage.” She leaned in closer and whispered, “So damn well act like one.”

My lip curled with the warning growl leaving my throat. She walked round me without fear, my eyes tracking her every move, until she reached into her jacket and pulled out the rectangular device she always brought to me.

My heartbeat raced with a mixture of relief and dread, as the screen came to life. There was 152. She was asleep, curled up on the floor of her cage, her thin body draped in the white see-through gown they always made her wear.

I controlled my breathing as I watched her deep in slumber, her curly dark hair falling down her back. Then Mistress closed in the screen on 152’s bare legs and every part of me froze. Bruises. Handprint bruises all up her legs. Scratches and more black bruises on her hips.

“Can you see them, 194? Can you see what the latest male did to her?”

Who? I snapped inside my head, my eyes unmoving from the screen. But Mistress pulled the screen from my eyes and placed it back inside her jacket.

Several seconds went by in silence, until Mistress stood before me. “Your hit is a man that lives here in New York. The stupid prick messed with a very important associate of ours.” Mistress ran her fingers over my collar as she said those words. “He killed and murdered a man that was extremely important to us, to me. And I made him a promise. I made him a promise that if this man killed the one who was so important to me he would die, too. He would die slowly, painfully, and under the hands of my most prized, sadistic, and lethal Ubiytsa.” She smirked and her fingertips ran over my lips. “That, 194, is you. You will be the one to deliver his death.”

Mistress sighed and backed away. “It seems my brother has seen your 152. And I’m afraid to say, 194, that he is very much interested in calling her to him to have as his own. And we know that anything he demands he gets. He is the Master of our people after all.”

My eyes flared at the thought of 152 being ordered to the Master, being taken away from me, and I wanted to hit something, kill something quick. Mistress knew how I would feel, and crossing her arms, she said, “If you can kill the hit effectively, and … creatively, I will make sure your precious 152 will stay close by. I will make sure she is not sent away.”

I tracked Mistress, feeling my chest lighten with her promise. A promise she made with every hit. There was always a next time before 152 would be returned to me, but I couldn’t give up because next time could be the time—then I would strike.

Mistress moved to the cage door and reached out for something on the floor. She walked back toward me holding clothes in her hands, along with a notebook and a key. Placing them on the floor at my feet, she said, “You have ten minutes before a van will take you to the drop-off point. The address of the chamber you will use is in the notebook. As is the address for your hit.” Mistress moved until she was flush against my chest and lifted to her tiptoes. Her lips brushed against mine. “Kill him slowly, 194. You have weeks to make him pay, precious time, and you will need it. He is very well protected, protected by a powerful family that can never know of our existence. So use anything and anyone in his circle against him. Use and interrogate anyone you need to to get closer to him. Do you understand? You use any means possible.” She paused and smiled against my mouth. “Then kill them all. Make these assholes pay in blood.”

“Yes, Mistress,” I replied automatically. Mistress pressed her lips against mine, but I did not move mine back. With all the fucked-up things Mistress made me do to her, the feeling of her thin lips on mine was the worst. I never knew why. I just knew she, this close, was repulsive to me.

Mistress moved back with a laugh and sounded a buzzer to call a guard forward. When the guard reached the cage, she turned to him and said, “Fill his collar with new serum pellets I specially ordered, enough to last, and program it to dispense a dose twice a day. We need him to be at his most impressive.”

“Yes, Mistress,” the guard said obediently.

Mistress loitered by the cage door, then said, “I will miss our time together while you are gone, 194. Maybe I shall pay 152 a visit in your absence, see if she can be as effective in my pleasure as you. You share the same blood, after all.”

As I lost grip of my control, my head snapped in her direction, body braced to strike. Mistress frowned, and I forced myself to pretend that the serum still had me in its clutches. In truth it only ever lasted a little while on these pellets. I could eventually fight the fog they brought.

My eyes dropped to focus on the floor, and I heard Mistress finally walk off.

The guard held his picana—a form of cattle prod—in his hand and ordered, “Dress; we have to leave!”

Still picturing 152 on the floor, the bruises on her thighs, the broken position she was in, I dressed quickly, vowing to do my worst to this hit.

As I followed the guard down the hallway of my new prison, I opened the notebook and read out the name of the man who would soon be screaming in pain.

Zaal Kostava.

Brooklyn.

New York.

* * *

I’d never been to this place before. New York. Brooklyn. Brighton Beach. My days had been spent around the world, where the Master had his businesses and enemies. That was where I came in. Master always wanted his best man for the job—I was always it. But this was different. This was Mistress’s hit. A personal hit. Now personal to me, too, since it secured 152’s safety.

Master wanted her. I couldn’t let that happen.

152 was beautiful. It was the reason Mistress had taken us all those years ago. Even when 152 was a child Mistress could see the potential 152 had as a mona. And Mistress had used her for years. Abused her and made her life hell.

A hell I intended to stop.

Slinking into the shadows, I made my way toward one of the addresses I’d been given for the hit. When I approached the street, I noted that every fifteen minutes a car went by. It was slow in speed and had blacked-out windows. This hit was clearly important in this community. His house was well protected.

It would be a waiting game. A waiting game until one of his people made a mistake and I could take him, or someone close to him.

Leverage.

Standing in an alleyway opposite a brownstone house, I watched in silence as a car pulled up and a large male with fair hair got out of the backseat, holding his hand out to someone inside. I squinted my eyes to better focus on his features, but this male was too light in coloring to be my target. A female slipped out of the car next; she had long brown hair and blue eyes.