Chapter 10 DOMINIC
DOMINIC
“Looks like it went well,” Alec drawled from the couch, eyes immediately catching the red handprint across my cheek. I stopped mid-step, slowly turning my head toward him. My expression was flat, and his smirk widened like the fucking idiot he was.
She. Fucking. Slapped. Me.
My jaw ticked. If she weren’t who she is, if she weren’t a girl… her blood would already be soaking the floor. I don’t tolerate disrespect.
But her? I didn’t touch her. I could’ve. God knows I wanted to grab her throat and squeeze until her words died on her tongue. I wanted to end her, yet I didn’t.
I grabbed the whiskey bottle off the table and poured a double, no ice. The first gulp scorched my throat, but the second helped dull the war waging in my chest.
“Get her ready,” I ordered Alec without looking up. “We’re leaving tonight.”
He hesitated. “Why not wait? Cops are everywhere. Media’s feral. It’s suicide to—”
I turned, slowly, my eyes cutting him cold. “Because. I. Said. So.”
Alec sighed and walked out. Smart, I wasn’t in the mood to explain shit I shouldn’t have to explain.
Not to him, not to anyone. I stayed there, one hand pressed to the edge of the table, my head bowed.
I could feel the tension in my skull, the pounding of blood behind my eyes. My pulse was loud and violent.
I should’ve ended her that night, but I didn’t. And worse? A part of me—a sick, twisted, fucked-up part of me didn’t want to.
I should hate her, and I do. She’s everything I despise - spoiled, protected, untouchable. A King. The daughter of the man who destroyed my world.
But there’s something else there. Something that crawls under my skin and settles in my bones every time she speaks, every time she looks at me like she’s not afraid.
She doesn’t break easily, that much is clear, but she will. I’ll make sure of it. Not because I need her to, but because I can’t afford to let her be anything but broken.
Still, that slap… it was more than defiance. A sharp reminder that Athena King isn’t just a pawn in my game—she’s a problem. And worse? She’s becoming my problem.
I was going to destroy her. I’d burn down everything Maddox King loves—starting with his golden girl. Break her, use her, turn her into a weapon that would ruin him from the inside out. Make him beg and watch the way I had to watch.
But now? Now I’m not sure if I want to destroy her, not yet. Because when she slapped me, her eyes flashed—not just with hate, but with heat. And mine? Mine fucking burned.
Athena.
The first real threat to my control in years. But that’s the thing about fire—if you don’t extinguish it fast, it spreads, and if I’m not careful, I might burn with her.
—
If there’s one truth I can swear by, one thing I feel in every inch of my skin, it’s that I fucking hate flying.
It doesn’t matter that it’s my private jet, soft leather seats, top-shelf liquor, and not a single soul on board who didn’t receive my personal approval.
There’s no screaming children or nosy strangers.
No one dares breathe the wrong way around me.
And still, every time I’m in the air, it feels like my insides are turning themselves inside out.
I thought maybe—eventually—I’d adjust. Thought the nausea and the constant pressure in my ears would dull with time, but at twenty-five, every flight feels just as revolting as the first. And then there’s her, Athena King.
The final nail in this goddamn coffin of discomfort.
In all my years, I’ve encountered countless women. Across countries, languages, cultures—beautiful, seductive, intelligent, timid. I’ve seen them all, and not a single one has come close to infuriating me the way she does. She’s untamed, reckless, and loud.
When my mother was alive, she tried to raise me into a gentleman.
She believed women were elegance personified.
Creatures of grace and softness, worthy of admiration and protection.
She painted the female soul with tenderness, swearing it was divine, but Athena King makes it impossible to hold onto that belief.
Forgive me, Mother, because when it comes to Athena, I want to be anything but gentle.
Maybe the gentleman in me died with her. Maybe I buried him the night I watched her skull explode across our dinner table, or maybe it was Garrett Stone who finally erased it from me. My father and the man I didn’t know existed until he forced himself into my life.
He claims he didn’t order my mother’s death, says he only wanted me.
That the bullets weren’t part of his plan.
He executed the men responsible, of course, but he didn’t let me pull the trigger.
To this day, I hate him for that. Not for taking me, but for stealing the revenge that was rightfully mine.
They begged and cried. I would’ve made it slow and painful.
It was a strange thing for a child—watching his world collapse, then being told the man he was raised to believe dead was not only alive but a goddamn mafia boss.
And somehow…my father. He took a DNA test to prove it, as if that was all it would take, and then he set about reshaping me in his image.
The boy my mother raised? Dead and buried.
Under Garrett Stone’s rule, weakness was a luxury I could no longer afford. By eleven, I was numb to blood. By fifteen, I took my first life.
A ‘‘loyal’’ servant who thought he could steal from The Stone’s and walk away unscathed. Garrett didn’t even flinch when he handed me the gun. He said it was justice.
I looked away when I pulled the trigger. A mistake. Later that night, his men made sure I never repeated it. Pain became my tutor. Brutality, my education. Emotion was stripped away, layer by layer, until only stone remained.
Garrett taught me the rules of power, dominance, and fear. I played the part because I had no choice, but there were still two lines I refused to cross:
Never kill an innocent.
Never kill a woman—unless she’s a threat to our bloodline.
Garrett knew those rules, and he tested them.
I was nineteen when he brought me the woman in chains.
She was young and terrified. Collared like an animal and left in the dirt.
Her face was smeared with blood and tears, but her eyes…
they reminded me of my mother’s. Garrett didn’t give me a reason, just an order, but I didn’t pull the trigger.
And I paid for it. The scar on my left eye is a reminder, etched in with a blade by one of Garrett’s men. First, they beat me. Then, they made sure the lesson stuck. His doctors saved the eye, but the mark remains. A permanent warning of what it costs to disobey him.
Garrett Stone is a bastard, and I don’t pretend to like him. But I won’t lie—without him, I’d probably be dead or starving in some alley. He gave me power, name. A kingdom.
Now I know the truth: the world belongs to men willing to take what they want. Money, blood, power, women. And women? They come willingly.
They chase the name, the wealth, the danger. They drop to their knees for the thought of fucking a Stone. I let them, I use them. They’re a release, a distraction. That’s all.
So, imagine my surprise when she didn’t beg.
Athena King, the red-haired chaos in heels, fought like hell until Alec had to drug her. She kicked, clawed, and bit like a feral cat. We had to carry her onto the plane, unconscious.
Now, she’s slumped in the leather seat across from me, tape across her mouth, wrists bound. Even asleep, she manages to look defiant. So fucking peaceful when her mouth is shut, almost like someone could mistake her for soft. She isn’t.
“She’s gonna lose it when she wakes,” Alec muttered, dropping into the seat across from me. “That tape won’t do shit once she starts screaming again.”
“Then keep her under until we land,” I said without glancing at him.
Alec groaned. “Why do you do this to me, man? She’s too much. I swear, she’s gonna rip my head off.”
“I’ll break her,” I replied, running a hand down my jaw, feeling the burn of my growing beard. “I just need more time.”
“Or she’ll break you.” Alec chuckled under his breath.
I heard him, I just didn’t bother answering. No woman can break me - especially not Athena King. She’s stubborn now, but that won’t last. They never last. Sooner or later, every flame burns out, and when she does, she’ll be on her knees, a loyal dog to the Stone name.
And Maddox King will be watching when it happens.
Everything in its time.