The two of us entered another bright, color-bleached hallway with an elevator at the end. As we made our way down the corridor, we passed by an open office door. Inside was a balding middle-aged man with short-cut blonde hair, who was sitting in a push chair in front of a richly stained wooden desk.

His face was clay chiseled with a scalpel, every corner looking as if it were carved with purpose. His eyes cut anyone he looked at with the same sharpness. He blankly stared at another man dressed in a white suit whose back was bent and arms clasped pleadingly.

“Please, Kozakov, I’ve been bad, I’ve been bad!” whined the suited man.

The other man, Anna’s apparent boss, looked unimpressed. “That is Mr. Petrovich to you.”

“I need to be punished, Mr. Petrovich! Please!”

Mr. Petrovich let out a short exhale and looked the man in the eyes. “If you want to be punished, go bother Goldshanks.”

“Goldshanks?! But he doesn’t punish cheaters like you do, he’s no fun!”

“Go do what you did to get punished here, and I’ll see to it that you will be treated properly.”

“Oh thank you, thank you!” The man bowed his head before turning around and running out of the office and clipping my shoulder.

“Hey, watch it!” I shouted at him.

I looked back into the office, and saw Mr. Petrovich staring back at me. I saw memories of death in his eyes. I shivered.

“If you didn’t want to be hit, you shouldn’t have been eavesdropping,” snarked Anna.

“Y-yeah, sorry.” I nodded and kept walking towards the elevator.

We entered the lift and went down several stories into the basement. I kept silent the whole ride down, still intimidated by Anna’s boss. The automatic doors opened after what felt like several minutes to reveal another hallway stained in a bleak red light.

“Alright, so the basics,” said Anna, turning to face me. “Unlike other casinos, we handle punishing any cheaters ourselves so they’re less likely to do it again. We’ve got some of the lowest rates for repeat offenders!”

I nodded as I started putting the pieces together. Something wasn’t right, though. The harsh red lights, the almost secret basement hundreds of feet underground, the scary Russian boss… this was a torture chamber! The man was probably ex-KGB and literally tortured any cheaters in a secret underground facility. There were probably so few repeat offenders because none of them survived, or couldn’t even pick up their cards after they escaped!

Before I could ask, Anna began taking off her clothes. Her crop-top, shorts, and bunny ears hairband were thrown to the ground, and in their place she put on a dark leather mask. “At least changing into my actual work clothes is pretty easy!”

Anna grabbed my arm and led me through one of the metal doors that lined the wall. I was too stunned to fight back and soon found myself inside an enclosed room. Inside was a rack filled with all sorts of strange instruments, from whips to feather dusters. On the far wall were a pair of metal arm restraints built into the wall. They were currently holding two men, Jack Brown and Ronald Chen. They were blindfolded and had ball gags in their mouth.

“Alright, time for your interview!” exclaimed Anna. “Make them hurt, but not too much. It should be fun!”

“Oh my god,” I mumbled to myself. I could feel my shoulders sag. “This is a sex dungeon.”

“Yup! The police will just laugh at anyone who tells them what we’re doing here, because our kind of ‘torture’ is perfectly legal, so we can get away with it!”

“But they’re not consenting,” I protested, pointing to the two men bound to the wall. “Doesn’t that make it illegal?”

“Eh, we have them sign a waiver before we take off their pants. That part’s fully consensual, and they don’t always take us up on that offer.”

“Oh…”

“But most agree anyway because it’ll be over faster.”

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“That’s still coercion. It’s fucked up to do to someone!”

“They’re criminals!” pouted Anna. “Cheating in a casino is a crime, and this is their punishment.”

“Cruel and unusual punishment,” I shot back.

“Well, that’s the job.” The dominatrix crossed her arms with finality. “So either you get to punishing them or you’re not getting a job.”

I went silent. I glared at the woman and slowly trudged towards the rack of torture implements.

“See, now that wasn’t so hard, was it? What a good boy!” She let out a giggle.

The objects on the rack barely got my attention. My eyes were focused on the red button above them.

“Hey, what are you doing? Don’t press that-”

Before Anna could complete her sentence, I’d already slammed a fist onto the button labeled “release.”

The restraints on the two cheaters were released, and they immediately removed their blindfolds and gags before running out of the room.

Anna looked at me with frustration. “I don’t think you’re really fit for a job here.”

“Me neither,” I replied quietly.

The two of us exited the torture chamber and made our way to the elevator. We were stuck waiting for it to come back down, on account of the Jack and Ronald currently riding it up. Anna did make a call for security to intercept them on the way up, however, so my efforts were in vain.

As we stood in awkward silence, Anna sometimes meeting my eyes with a judgmental glare, I started to take in the scenery. There really wasn’t much. Dull tiles, red lights, and a heavy lever set into the wall.

It didn’t look like a fire alarm, and I saw another smaller red lever some distance back. My eyes widened as I realized what it was.

Anna looked at me with a look of sheer terror and leapt at me. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

Too late. I’d already ran up to the massive lever and pulled on it with all my might.

A blaring alarm rang out for a second, and a moment later, men and women ran out of each of the rooms. Seeing the two of us waiting for the elevator, they opted for the emergency stairwell.

“You asshole!” screamed Anna. “You just ruined a whole night of fun for me!”

I didn’t even respond to her. I just ran alongside the others. “Let’s cheese it!”

We made it up about a third of the way before we faced our first bit of resistance. A bouncer, relatively skinny and built like a sprinter, stood before us. The others hesitated, they were tired and scared. I simply walked past them on the wide stairwell and slammed my fist into his gut. He crumpled like a piece of paper.

I turned back towards the others, threw my still clenched fist into the air, and shouted. “Freedom or death!”

They just looked back at me awkwardly. “Uh, I really don’t want to die,” one of them mumbled.

“Ok, fine. Just freedom, then!”

The escapees cheered and we continued up the stairs.

When we reached the top, we were met with the rest of the security force. Ten bouncers, most of them as large as gorillas, and Mr. Petrovich standing tall behind them. The security guards all ran at me.

The rest of the cheaters ran around us and out the door onto the casino floor.

“Fucking traitors!” I shouted as two of the men grabbed at me. Fourteen Strength let me shove one of them off, and a quick shin-kick temporarily disabled the other.

Three more bouncers charged at me, and this time, were able to get me into a lock. I still delivered a debilitating punch to one of them, who collapsed to the ground clenching his eye. It was already beginning to bruise up.

I fought the other two, ready to perform the same move as I did last time, but the first pair had already gotten up and joined the dog pile.

Despite all my strength, I was pinned down underneath them. Only my head was exposed as the four each put their entire weight on one of my limbs.

Mr. Petrovich slowly walked over to me. His eyes were filled with contempt.

“I’m not sorry,” I said to him.

“I know you aren’t,” he slowly said back. “I would love to truly punish you, but I believe you will only cause me more trouble as long as you are here. You are hereby banned from my casino, and I will not hesitate to have you truly suffer if you set foot here again.”

He leaned over close to my ear and whispered. “They will not find a body.”

I gulped.

“Remove this trash.”

The four bouncers, each with iron grips on my limbs, carried me through the casino floor and out the front door. With a toss, I found myself flying through the air, and finally on the cold pavement.

The door loudly slammed shut.

I slowly rose to my feet and dusted off my face and clothes, before looking back at the Bear’s Den. I let out a sigh and turned back to the streets. That was the second bust tonight.

I remembered Sam’s words from earlier. All of them.

I slowly began to shuffle down the street with a tired look. But that soon changed as fear and disappointment turned into a slow-burning rage. Third time would be the charm.