Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
DOMINO
M y Ninja H2R sliced through the rain-slicked streets, the roar of the engine reverberating off the towering buildings as I carved my way through the maze of Marlow Heights. The city blurred past me in streaks of neon and shadow, but my mind was locked onto one thing—him.
The guy from Denny’s. Those piercing blue eyes and that wild black hair with the unusual white patch at the front were burned into my memory, lingering every time I closed mine.
I couldn’t shake him. Couldn’t silence the way he had looked at me, unflinching and steady, even after watching me rip the life from a man with my bare hands. He hadn’t recoiled. Hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t even hesitated when he held my switchblade, dripping with fresh blood.
Instead, he had breathed it in. Enamored. Curious. Something more, darker, something I understood.
The streets were deserted at this hour, stripped of the mindless masses that usually filled them. I preferred it that way. People were either assets or annoyances, just playthings for leverage or power. I had no use for them.
But him?
He was different. He had sparked something inside me—unfamiliar and dangerous. It coiled in my chest, sharp and insatiable, a hunger I had only ever felt when I was watching the light fade from someone’s eyes.
I needed to know more.
The underground parking garage swallowed me whole, the sound of my bike amplified by the unyielding concrete as I pulled into my designated space. The rain clung to me, dripping from my hair, sliding down my cold skin.
My pulse thrummed as a plan took shape, twisting in my mind. One person could get me what I wanted. I pulled my phone from my pocket as I strode toward the elevator. It rang once before a low moan echoed through the receiver.
“Ghost,” I said, voice edged with impatience. “Meet me at my apartment in five. I don’t care what you’re doing—end it.”
After a long pause, he said a single word. “Boss.”
The line went dead. My hand clenched around my phone, the plastic creaking under the pressure as the steel doors slid open. I stepped inside, the mirrored walls reflecting my image, a darkness swirled in my eyes. Controlled. Dangerous.
My apartment spanned the entire top floor of Vesper Tower—a calculated move. The tallest building in the city, offering me unrestricted 360-degree views of Marlow Heights. From here, I could see everything. Control everything. And no one could touch me. It was a far cry from my father’s fortified compound on the outskirts of the city that he used as his base of operations. He hid behind his walls and armed guards, whereas I preferred to hide in plain sight.
The DeMarcos wore a legitimate face, a carefully constructed mask of wealth and enterprise. The casinos, the real estate empire, the exclusive clubs—money laundered clean while the real business thrived in the shadows.
Nothing happened in this city without my knowledge.
And yet, he had slipped through.
I stepped off the elevator, muscles wound tight, my blood still humming with that strange, restless edge. The city stretched out beyond the rain-streaked glass, a sea of flickering lights and endless night. But I wasn’t looking at the view. I was thinking about him.
His steady breath. His unwavering stare. The way his pulse had thrummed beneath my fingertips—not with fear, but something else entirely. I tore off my jacket and threw it onto the couch, an act very unlike me, rolling my shoulders to shake the tension. It didn’t help.
What was it about him? I didn’t get curious about people. They were tools. Obstacles. Corpses. He was none of those. And yet, he had twisted his way into my thoughts, insidious and lingering like smoke. I had walked away. I should have forgotten him the second I turned my back.
But I hadn’t.
The elevator doors slid open again. Ghost strode in like he owned the place, rolling his neck, irritation flickering in his eyes. I had interrupted something. I didn’t care; his life was mine, and he knew it.
“Find out who he is,” I ordered. Ghost didn’t blink. He never asked who—just waited, expectant. “The guy from Denny’s.”
The words tasted like an admission. Like something I didn’t want to acknowledge.
Ghost’s brow twitched, unreadable. A smirk slid across his lips, a slow nod. He was already pulling out his phone. “You got a name?”
“No.”
“A picture?”
My jaw tightened. That I didn’t have either irritated me. I’d been too captivated by his presence. I should have forced his name from his lips. Should have taken a photo. Should have done something other than walk away after nearly kissing him, just because I wanted a taste.
Ghost smirked like he knew exactly what was unraveling inside my head. He let out a low whistle, rubbing the back of his neck. “Didn’t take you for the type to get caught up over a pretty face.”
I didn’t take the bait. I just stared him down.
With a sigh, he sank onto the couch, thumbs already moving over his screen. “Give me something to work with.”
I ran a hand through my damp hair, irritation curling beneath my skin. I had nothing. No name. No connections. Just the ghost of a smirk and ice-blue eyes I couldn’t purge from my thoughts.
“He was at Denny’s the other day,” I said. “Followed me into the alley when I took care of the Gallo soldier, watching me from the shadows.”
Ghost arched a brow, interest piqued. “Watched you kill a guy and didn’t run?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. That was the problem. He had seen it—all of it—and still, he hadn’t moved.
Hadn’t feared me.
He had leaned in, drawn to the blood. To the violence.
To me.
“He’s young,” I continued. “Not a civilian, but not a soldier either. No crew colors. No weapon. Could be independent, but…” My voice dropped, something dark curling in my gut. “I need to know what he’s really doing in my city. He said he was here to finish his degree in Forensic Anthropology, but I’m not buying it.”
“Interesting,” Ghost hummed, still tapping away. “You get a nickname? Overhear someone else talk to him?”
“No.”
“You get anything?”
I had. The way his pulse had jumped beneath my fingertips. The way his breath had hitched when my thumb pressed against his throat—not with fear, but something deeper. Something that mirrored the hunger clawing inside me.
“Find him.” My voice was sharp, final.
Ghost smirked but didn’t push further. “I’ll call you when I have something.” He stood, stretching lazily. “You look like shit, boss. Get some sleep.”
“Fuck off!”
I wouldn’t be sleeping. I waited until Ghost was gone before I moved. My feet carried me to the bar, but I wasn’t interested in drinking. My reflection stared back at me in the mirrored backsplash, the shadows beneath my eyes darker than usual.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. People were useful—or they were dead. I had never wanted to unravel someone before. Never felt the need to pick them apart, to see what made them tick. Never ached to push further, to press closer—to see just how deep the darkness ran beneath their skin.
But him?
I dragged my tongue over my teeth.
The need to know how far he’d let me go before he broke was visceral. Would he shatter beautifully, or would he fight me every step of the way? Would I be able to pry him apart, layer by layer, taste the sweat-slicked heat of his skin, his blood? If he let me near him again, I wouldn’t stop. I would consume him. Make him mine.
Dead or alive, I’d own him.
Ghost had set up his base in one of my spare rooms. One wall was lined with monitors, flickering with live feeds from every street camera in the city. He had total control. A single keystroke could erase my men from existence—turning them into ghosts, unseen and untouchable by the city’s useless police force.
But hacking wasn’t his only skill. Ghost could find anyone. Anywhere. He sat at his desk, fingers moving lazily across the keyboard, rewinding through days of Denny’s footage. Hunting my little lamb.
I grabbed a coffee, pacing behind him, the scent bitter and sharp, grounding me against the electricity still humming in my veins.
“Either of these?”
Ghost’s voice was flat, detached—his focus on the screen, but mine? Mine was still back in that alley, in the heat of another body, in the slow burn of a stare that had ignited something deep in my gut. I leaned in, my gaze flicking over the grainy images. Even in black and white, his eyes cut through me—razor-sharp, slicing straight to the marrow.
I licked my lips. “On the left.”
Ghost let out a low whistle. “Now, he is pretty.”
A growl rumbled in my throat before I could stop it. My fingers curled into fists, itching to wrap around his throat. “Don’t.”
Ghost smirked, but he lifted his hands in surrender. “I’ll run facial recognition. Track his movements. Find out where he’s been.”
“I want everything.”
A pause. A flicker of something unreadable in his expression. “You sure about that?”
My head tilted, anger pressing against the edges of my control.
“I mean, I can get you whatever you want, but this is… next level. Even for you.”
“Watch it,” I snapped.
I turned, storming from the room. I had calls to make.
My father was hounding me about the Gallos, demanding answers about their next move like I was some fucking mind reader—I needed a mole in their operation, but I didn’t have anyone suitable. Shipments needed checking. Distribution lines had to be accounted for. I despised this—leading—even though it was my birthright. I didn’t want to manage operations, balance territories, sit through endless meetings with men I’d rather put a bullet in.
If it were up to me, I’d burn this city to the ground. But Federico had other plans. Expanding, growing our empire—he lived for it. That hunger had always been his driving force. His obsession.
Mine? My eyes fell closed, the grainy image of him burned into my mind as clear as day. I had a different kind of obsession.
Ghost
Left a folder on your desk. Everything you need to know—down to his social security number.
Domino
Good.
Ghost
Monitors are tracking his every move. Just in case you wanted to… y’know.
My phone burned hot in my hand as I stormed through my apartment, my skin too tight, itching for the feel of blood. Hours were wasted bending to my father’s whims, running the numbers for the latest shipment, making sure every dollar was accounted for before it could be cleaned. The gangs got their cut —a pittance to keep them in line—but one crew had been stupid enough to think they could get away with skimming off the top. I’d sent three soldiers to deal with them. Permanently. What would be done to them would send shockwaves through the ranks. A stark reminder of what would happen if you tried to cross me.
I snatched the folder off the desk and dropped into my chair. The monitors flickered to life, the city sprawling across a dozen screens, but I barely registered them. My focus locked onto the secrets sealed inside that folder.
My eyes devoured every detail. Every iota of information.
Remi Cain.
Son of Angelica Cain—currently wasting away in Hollow Pines Care Home after a severe stroke. Prognosis? Bleak. Months left if she was lucky. That explained why he was here.
But what didn’t add up?
Why wasn’t he staying at Hollow Pines with his family?
Brielle Cain had no shortage of space. The home was only at half capacity, and even if it weren’t, she had her own damn property on the estate. Staff quarters. Empty rooms. There was no reason—none—for him to be holed up in that godforsaken shelter on Clayburn Avenue.
Anger licked through my veins, slow and insidious, as I turned the page to his family’s financial records.
And there it was.
A sizable trust fund. Set up by his father before he died in the service. Untouched. Locked away until his graduation. It appeared Remi didn’t even know it existed.
An amendment had been made after his father’s death that explained so much. A new trustee? Brielle. I gritted my teeth as something dark and twisted coiled inside me, pressing tight against my ribs.
“Fuck.”
That scheming bitch was after his money—always taking the easy way out. She was keeping him weak. Dependent. Helpless. But she had no idea—none—that Remi was anything but helpless.
My fingers clenched around the desk, knuckles bleached bone-white. Brielle had been a thorn in my side for years, but now? Now, she was an obstacle. An obstacle that needed to be removed.
I wouldn’t come for her head-on. My father would never allow it, considering they were in bed together. She was one of his many playthings. They also had a racketeering ring together. So that made her a valuable asset in his eyes, but never mine.
No—what I had planned? She wouldn’t see it coming. None of them would. Not until it was too late.
Movement flickered on one of the screens, catching my attention. Remi. His name curled through my mind like smoke—intoxicating—I wanted to breathe in until I was drunk on it.
He was walking slow steps along the river, head bowed like the weight of the world was suffocating him. A ratty backpack slung over one shoulder, the sharp wind tugging at his clothes. He was heading toward the old cemetery on the edge of the city—miles away from anywhere he’d been before.
Why?
The question burned under my skin as I tracked him, my pulse syncing with his every movement. The way he moved—lithe, fluid—felt at odds with the darkness that wrapped around him like a second skin.
He slipped through a gap in the rusted boundary fence and vanished into the shadows. Gone. My jaw clenched. I needed to know why he was there. Why this place had called to him? The need to know every facet of him coiled inside me, sharp and insistent. It was no longer just curiosity. It was fixation. Obsession.
With my mind made up, I locked the folder away in my office, grabbed my jacket, and took the elevator down. My bike rumbled to life beneath me, the vibrations sinking into my muscles as I twisted the throttle and tore through the city. Cars blurred past, nothing but noise, background static.
All I could focus on was him.
Always him.
I killed the engine near one of the cemetery’s entrances, the silence that followed sharp and unnatural. Twilight stretched long shadows over the crumbling gravestones, casting everything in muted shades of gray. When Remi had slipped through the fence, I’d seen it—the way his tension melted and his shoulders eased like he was coming home.
The city wasn’t where he belonged.
This was.
Decay. Darkness. Forgotten things.
Just like the sketch he’d been drawing at Denny’s—morbid and stunning in a way most wouldn’t understand.
But I did.
His trail was easy to find. My footsteps were silent as I weaved through gravestones, cracked and worn by time. I kept my distance, watching as he traced his fingers over ancient names, reading stories no one remembered of people long forgotten. He marveled at the way nature has started to reclaim what had been taken, photographing the sprawling ivy and twisted brambles.
His soft voice reached me in the wind. I couldn’t make out the words, but it didn’t matter. The sound of him wrapped around me, seeped into my skin, and lodged deep in my bones.
He was different here. The sadness, the weight that clung to him in the city—it was gone. Here, he was… peaceful.
He stopped at a grave with a towering angel carved from a stone at its head, one wing cracked and broken, and hoisted himself onto the main body of the tomb. He settled against the angel like he was being held in its embrace and pulled out his sketchbook.
Remi was lost in his own world as his pencil glided over the bone-white page. From this distance, I couldn’t make out what he was drawing, but he filled the page with his creation. He started with long strokes before going back and adding in small details. Brows furrowed, lips pinched in concentration. The wind played with his hair, the messy black strands fell into that striking white streak.
Totally unaware I was watching him, circling him like a hunter. That I was drawing closer with every breath. Every step on silent feet. My heart rate picked up, heating the blood in my veins. I felt electrified. Alive.
I wanted to know what he saw.
I wanted to see the world through his eyes.
That one sketch I’d seen had been mesmerizing—death, stripped bare and reimagined into something raw, beautiful. I’d seen thousands of paintings and attended gallery shows under my family’s name, wearing that public mask, but nothing had ever looked like that.
Nothing had ever captured the beauty of death, a dark macabre piece that called to my soul, just like he did.
A branch snapped beneath my boot, brittle like aged bone. A deliberate move to notify him of my presence just to see how he’d react.
His pencil faltered, pausing for a split-second before moving again. Not a hint of fear. No outward reaction. His calm mask stayed perfectly still.
His control was intoxicating, he was captivating.
“How long have you been following me?”
The corner of my mouth curled at his question. My fingers twitched with the urge to touch him, to remind myself how soft his skin had felt beneath them. Instead, I shoved my hands into my pockets and waited.
“Long enough.”
His gaze lifted to me and dragged over my face, slow, lingering like a physical caress, almost as if he was committing me to memory.
He tilted his head, something flashing in his ice-blue eyes before the tip of his tongue darted out, wetting his lips. “Why?”
A simple question.
It should have had a simple answer.
But it didn’t.
This thing inside me—whatever it was—it didn’t have a name.
Need. Hunger. Possession. Every one etched into my bones.
I didn’t just want to know him. I wanted to own him. Every thought. Every breath. Every inch of him. Mine . I wanted to mark him, brand him. Stain his skin black and blue. Leaving it tender to the touch, so when he did, he’d get an echo of the pain and would never forget who he belonged to.
Instead of answering, I settled for a test.
“Where are you staying?”
His breath hitched. A flicker of tension, a flash of hesitation tightened his features before his gaze dropped back to his drawing.
I didn’t like that. It felt like a dismissal. My fists clenched in my pockets, frustration trickled down my spine.
“The shelter.”
My muscles uncoiled and I smirked. “There are many in the city,” I drawled. “Which one?”
The wind shifted, rustling the dead leaves at my feet, like a veil had been lifted as day morphed into night.
“The one on Clayburn.”
A fucking hellhole. It should’ve been condemned years ago—rats, mold, the stink of desperation clinging to its walls. But he didn’t seem to mind—curious.
He just kept drawing, the quiet scratch of pencil against paper filling the silence between us.
I moved closer, my steps measured, unhurried. Remi was so lost in his creation that he didn’t notice—or maybe he did. Maybe he wanted me closer. If he thought he could brush me off, my little lamb had another thing coming, he’d never be rid of me now. I inhaled slowly, filling my lungs with his scent—open air, moss, something earthy and dark.
“Not anymore.”
The pencil slipped from his fingers as he startled, head snapping toward me, those ice-blue eyes narrowing in question. This close, I could just make out the silver flecks in them. I wanted to count them. To know every scar and freckle that covered his skin.
His lips were so close I could feel his exhale as it ghosted over my skin. It would take nothing at all to lean in and seal my lips to his. To finally taste him.
I pulled the silver tin from my back pocket, flicked it open, and lit a cigarette. Smoke curled between my lips, twisting in the cold air. “Your things have been moved.”
His expression didn’t change—the perfect mask.
I exhaled, watching the smoke curl between us. “You start classes soon. You need somewhere safe that isn’t crawling with rats and junkies.”
Nothing. Not a single flicker of emotion. I’d have thought he was catatonic if I didn’t know he only hits a joint now and then.
I left him to process, strolling lazily to the next grave, lowering myself onto the stone. I pulled one knee up to my chest and rested my arm on it with the cigarette dangling between my fingers.
Seconds stretched into minutes as I waited for his reaction. I could feel it, the war raging inside him. He was fighting it in silence. Fighting me, but he wouldn’t win.
He was mine now. He just didn’t know it yet.
“You didn’t ask.”
His fingers tightened around his sketchbook, knuckles going bone-white as his eyes drilled into me. Wind tangled through his hair, the black and white strands whipping across his face, half-obscuring the sharp cut of his cheekbones.
I flicked the cigarette end across the grass. “I didn’t need to.”
Remi exhaled, his shoulders rising and falling with the weight of something unspoken. Then, without argument, he shut his sketchbook and slipped it into his bag.
No fight.
No resistance.
Just quiet, steady acceptance—the same way he had accepted my switchblade at his throat.
“Can I have one?”
I arched my brow. “What?”
“A cigarette.”
For a moment, I just watched him—searching for something in the ice-blue depths of his gaze but finding nothing. Wordlessly, I held the tin out from where I sat perched on a grave, forcing him to come to me.
A silent test.
He hesitated only for a breath before stepping closer, plucking a cigarette from the tin and placing it between his lips. He didn’t light it.
He waited for me. A test of his own?
A slow smirk curled at the edges of my mouth as I rolled my eyes and flicked open my lighter. The flame danced between us, catching in the glassy sheen of his gaze. I watched, fascinated, as he took a deep inhale. His lips parted, thick smoke curling from between them. His eyes watered slightly, but he never looked away.
A million silent questions passed between us, reflected in both our stares.
Why are we doing this?
What does it mean?
Why me?
I didn’t have answers. Not ones I could name. But my body knew, my fingers snagged his belt loops, yanking him closer, the heat of him bleeding into me through layers of fabric. My other hand reached for the strap of his bag, unhooking his fingers from it with slow precision, maneuvering him wordlessly until he held his hand out palm up.
Remi frowned, looking between my face and the object I placed in the center of his hand. A ring.
Gold, bloodied, torn from a dead man’s hand.
A trophy.
A claim.
A gift.
His fingers curled around it instinctively, possessively. “What’s this?”
I tilted my head. “A memento.”
Remi pinched the ring between his thumb and forefinger, inspecting it under the low light.
A reminder of that night. The start of an obsession forged in blood.
His grip tightened. He nodded once. He understood.
The night he watched me kill a man from the shadows. The night he should have run and fought for someone who could have been innocent.
The night he didn’t.
I could have made him do anything at that moment when I’d pinned him to that alley wall, my switchblade at his throat. He would have let me, willingly . He handed me total control, that power I craved almost as much as him.
Now, his silence called to me again, tempting me to demand his thoughts, to pry them from his skull and study them one by one. Instead, I pushed him back—just enough to remind him who had the power.
Then, I turned toward my bike. “Come. Let’s go home.”
I didn’t look back to see if he followed me. I didn’t need to. I felt him like we were already in sync. Like some invisible thread had woven itself between us, pulling him forward, tethering him to me.
And I knew, without a shadow of a doubt—he would follow.