One Night Stand: The Flesh Cartel #4: Consequences by Rachel Haimowitz and Heidi Belleau
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| RIPTIDE |
The Flesh Cartel #4: Consequences by Rachel Haimowitz and Heidi Belleau
Erotica / Suspense
Riptide Publishing (February 4, 2013)
Rating: B+
Heat: N/A - Very dark subject matter.
Hero: Mat – Fighter, Brother
Hero: Douglas – Submissive, Brother
Setting: USA
*This is a serial series, part four of six installments. Part five releases in March!
Review:
The Flesh Cartel #4: Consequences nearly emotionally and mentally broke me. In this episode, Mat and Dougie are now under the ‘care’ of their trainer, Nikolai, where they are being trained to be perfect servants for their new masters. Nikolai must learn to train two very different slaves who require two very different things. Nikolai must find a way to break these men, but he is finding this job to be more challenging than any other slaves he’s trained in the past.
Nikolai’s job is to break Mat down into a submissive – a submissive who fights but never wins. He is to be broken but not so broken than he doesn’t show some resistance towards his master’s demands. But he is to never rebel against his master. While Dougie is supposed to be the pretty boy servant who serves his master in every way possible – love him, bow down to him, lick his boots, crave his master’s every sexual need, crave to serve.
This story starts out as a physical domination but now has turned into mental domination. Nikolai, master of manipulation, is trying to find holes in Mat and Dougie’s loyalty to one another. He is planting doubts in both Mat and Dougie’s heads about each other. Breaking their brotherly bond is the way to achieving his goal of creating the perfect slaves. What he never expected is for Mat to be as complicated to break. Mat’s loyalties lie within taking care of Dougie. He would do anything, anything for Dougie even if Dougie betrays him. He would give up his life for Dougie. Mat’s love, devotion, and loyalty for Dougie is infinitely stronger than any physical or mental pain Nikolai will put him through. And this is not something Nikolai has ever had to deal with in the past.
Mat’s deep felt words when was forced to confess his feelings moved me to the point that I felt like my heart had shattered. Mat is the one that I feel like is holding the cards in this game. I can’t see him giving up on Dougie. He still has a lot of fight and determination left in him that will keep his head above water and ahead in the game. Nikolai may have met his biggest challenge yet in Mat.
Dougie is a different story. He has doubts Mat will forgive and fears losing his brother’s love. And these doubts and fears all stem from Nikolai manipulating him, planting thoughts into Dougie’s head to make him more susceptible to submitting to Nikolai. Nikolai wants Dougie to crave his love and to crave servicing him. Dougie is a smart thinker. He is trying to stay one step of Nikolai, but I don’t think his intelligence is going to win in the battle against Nikolai. And Nikolai proves his point to Dougie just how much control he has over him in a scene that made me cry with anger. When it was over, I had to mentally shake myself out of my stupor. It was almost too much for me. Which is strange considering everything these two men have been through up until now.
This episode definitely shook me up. Along with Dougie, I started to have my own doubts. And Mat’s heartfelt confession absolutely crushed me. I cried on more than one occasion in the short amount of time I read this episode. Like I said, I felt mentally and emotionally broken this time around.
When I first started this series, all I could think about was Mat and Dougie getting their revenge against these people. And because I couldn’t stop thinking about these two men and what’s in store for them later down the road, I decided one of the questions I MUST ask Miz Hamiowitz and Miz Belleau in an interview I hosted with my co-blogger, Letitia. We asked them if these two get a happy ending. Do they get their well-deserved revenge?
They replied:
Heidi: I don’t want to promise anything specific, especially this early in the game, but I will say this: the story will end with Dougie and Mat as free men. Our intention is absolutely to give due care and attention to how they recover from this ordeal and repair their relationship with each other.
Rachel: I don’t know how much revenge there’s going to be, per se, but Heidi and I have talked a lot about where the boys will end up—free, as she said, and trying to repair themselves and their relationship—and I suspect that part of that process of growth and recovery will result in revenge not being such an important thing for them anymore.”
So, there could be hope for Mat and Dougie after all. I hope.
Thoughts While Reading:
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