Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
REMI
T he bone from my necklace rolled between my fingers, its jagged edges pressing deep into my skin. It was warm—still holding the ghost of my body heat. A gift from Domino. If you could call it that. Possession disguised as sentiment. A leash disguised as devotion. A promise, unspoken but understood.
I was his. That much was undeniable. But was he mine?
That thought sank its claws into me, gnawing at my ribs like a starving animal. He was carved into my bones, stitched into my very being. Without him, I couldn’t breathe. He’d unleashed me, set me free, but the fear that his infatuation was fleeting—that I was just a passing obsession—suffocated me. Life balanced on the edge of a knife, and I was terrified that one day, his blade would cut me loose.
I clenched my jaw, forcing my eyes back to the canvas stretched before me. Charcoal smeared against my fingertips as I traced the delicate lines of Brielle’s ruined body. She was on her hands and knees in the dirt, skin peeling away in ragged strips, revealing gleaming bone. The forest swallowed her whole, a black maw of shadow and silence. Fear dripped from every stroke, her wide, vacant eyes pleading with a god that wasn’t listening.
She didn’t know what was coming. That death was already coiling around her like a noose. She didn’t understand how fragile she was, how easy it would be to crush her. To peel her apart one strip of flesh at a time.
I had broken her mind. That was undeniable. But biding my time was becoming excruciating. My skin burned with the need to feel hot blood spilling over my hands, to breathe in the thick, coppery scent until it drowned me.
I hungered for it.
I ground my teeth, throat tightening as frustration curled through me like a storm.
“I don’t have time for this bullshit.” Domino’s words slashed through the quiet, sharp and raw with frustration.
I tilted my head, listening. Somewhere in the apartment, a door slammed shut, the sound vibrating through my ribs.
My blood pounded in my ears, drowning out everything but the memory clawing its way to the surface.
A memory soaked in venom.
“Get rid of the little freak and focus on your job.” Federico’s voice was a slow, slithering thing. It coiled tight around my ribs, soaked into my marrow, poisoning every inch of me.
I had heard it before. A dozen times. A hundred.
But this time, Domino hesitated. “What we need to do,” Domino bit out, voice hard, “is focus on the Gallos. They’re getting too bold. They’re testing us?—”
Federico exhaled sharply, like he was bored of the conversation before it even started. His dark eyes flicked over Domino, filled with quiet, coiled disdain.
“I’m well aware of what they’re doing,” he said, tone smooth—too smooth. “It’s your job to make sure they don’t step foot in our territory.”
His lip curled, and something in his face turned predatory.
“You’re failing,” he murmured, voice like oil, thick and seeping into every crack. “You’re weak. Distracted.”
A slow, heavy silence dragged between them.
Domino scoffed, but his face had hardened to stone. His breath came slow and rasping, controlled—calculated. He knew better than to let his father see the crack in his armor.
But it was already too late.
Before Domino could even part his lips, Federico moved. Fast. Like a viper striking the moment it smells weakness. His hand wrapped around Domino’s throat, and in a single, crushing motion, he slammed him against the wall. The impact rattled the paintings.
My pulse slammed in my throat.
Domino didn’t fight. Not yet. Not while his father’s grip dug in, his fingers pressing into the tendons in his neck, into the soft hollow where he could crush his windpipe like glass.
His father leaned in close, breath ghosting over his face, stealing his air like the devil demanding obedience. “If you can’t get rid of that little piece of shit,” Federico murmured, “I’ll take matters into my own hands.”
Something in the room shifted. The air turned razor-thin, sharp enough to slice. Domino didn’t agree. Not outright. But he didn’t shut it down, either.
He knew I was watching. I felt it the second his body went taut, the way his jaw flexed, the way his eyes flicked to the hallway—to where I stood, unseen but not unnoticed.
Still, he didn’t look at me.
Didn’t acknowledge me.
Instead, he carefully steered his father away, murmuring in low, even tones, the words too soft for me to hear.
Like I didn’t exist.
Like I wasn’t the one who had bled for him.
Killed for him.
Belonged to him.
And for the first time, his actions gave my thoughts credence. I wasn’t sure if he belonged to me. Maybe I’d been another fool to fall at his feet that would soon be buried six feet under.
His father’s guard had seen me. His thick brows furrowed, his sneer curling with disgust as he raked his eyes over me. A thing to be discarded. A problem to be solved.
My eyes fluttered closed. Shut it down. Breathe . I exhaled through my nose, rolling my neck, but the tension refused to break. The charcoal slipped from my fingers and shattered against the floor. So easily broken. I crushed it beneath my boot and spun on my heel.
The walls of the penthouse pressed in on me, tightening like a noose. Too close. Too bright. I couldn’t breathe. Domino’s world was suffocating me, binding me in chains I had willingly fastened around my own throat.
His voice echoed from down the hall, low and lethal, sharp edges coated in glass. Ghost’s answer was clipped. Italian words sliced the air in rapid succession—calculated, deadly.
I moved before I could think, slipping into the elevator, my heart slamming against my ribs as the doors slid shut. The weight of everything sat heavily on my shoulders, and I just needed?—
A moment.
A moment to pretend I wasn’t his prisoner.
A moment to escape the lingering doubt coiling in my gut.
A moment to ignore the knowledge that Catalina’s blood was still on my hands. Her truth festered inside my silence.
The streets were slick with rain when I stepped outside, cold air biting through my clothes. I inhaled, deep and slow, the chill burning in my lungs. The pressure in my chest eased. Slightly.
My feet moved on instinct. The cemetery wasn’t far, but it felt like a world away. And the dead? The dead didn’t ask questions. They offered a salvation the living didn’t.
Minutes bled together, and time became meaningless. Buildings merged into one continuous, looming presence, stalking me, and the streets all looked the same—even though I knew they had changed. Everything changed. The sky was a heavy, shifting blanket of blackness, rain slicing through the air like needles, pelting my skin, seeping into my bones. Trying to cleanse me.
Trying to save me.
I laughed under my breath. Too late for that.
The sensation of being watched hit me like a blade between the ribs—I wasn’t alone. In a city of thousands, that was impossible, but this was different.
A prickle of unease danced along the back of my neck, ice threading through my veins. I knew Domino’s presence, the way it curled around me like smoke, possessive and suffocating all at once. This wasn’t him.
This was something—someone else.
I paused at the corner of a building, scanning the murky streets. Nothing. No footsteps. No headlights. No one. But the weight of unseen eyes pressed against my skin, burrowing under it.
Shaking it off, I slipped through the broken chain-link fence that surrounded the cemetery. The pavement gave way to damp, leaf-littered earth. The taint of the city clung to the air, but the scent of rain-soaked mulch and decay slowly drowned it out as I picked my way through the trees.
The cemetery had been waiting for me. Its silent embrace welcomed me home. I belonged here amongst the lost and forgotten souls, among the dead that had stories to tell but no one to hear them.
Rain dripped from the skeletal branches, whispering against the marble headstones, soaking the earth until the graves bled mud. A perfect haunted silence. A place where time folded in on itself, where the dead weren’t forgotten.
My fingers traced over the cold headstones, names carved into history, their stories left behind in fading letters. I exhaled as the feeling of being watched wrapped around me like a noose.
A smooth, teasing voice whispered on the wind. “Didn’t think I’d find you here, piccolo agnello .”
I turned slowly, like ice cracking and reforming. The man stood a few feet away, lips curved into something almost friendly. But his eyes—dark, cold, calculating—told the truth. The haughty look on his face made it clear that he was the one who had been following me.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” he said, stepping closer. His gaze had raked over me, lingering just a second too long.
I didn’t move. But my fingers itched for the blade strapped to my arm. “Why is that? ” I asked, tipping my head, watching his smirk twitch.
“It’s not safe for anyone.”
The corners of my lips curled. “I’m not just anyone.”
He had chuckled, mistaking my words for a joke. They always did.
“He’s not here to protect you now, bel ragazzo.”
A slow smile stretched across my face. “I need… protecting?”
“Something as beautiful as you?—”
I rolled my eyes, disgust curling my lips. Predictable.
“Should be cherished. Treasured.”
He was barely a foot away from me. The inches between us disappeared in the blink of an eye. I scarcely swallowed the hysterical laugh clawing up my throat. “ See something you like?”
His smirk widened. So did mine as mania flowed freely through my veins. He hadn’t seen the knife, hadn’t even thought it could exist until I buried it in his side.
A strangled gasp had ripped from his throat, eyes widening as warmth spilled over my fingers.
“What the fuck—” he choked, stumbling back, clutching his side. “W-what did you do?”
I lifted the blade, blood glistening like rubies under the fractured moonlight. Twisting my hand, mesmerized as I watched the red drips slide over the metal. “It’s beautiful,” I whispered.
The man who was clearly a Gallo of some sort stiffened momentarily before he recovered, straightening to his full height and smirked. “You’re a wild one, aren’t you?” His voice was tight, forced. He had to have been hurting, but he was still standing. “I like the crazy ones.”
A thunderous roar tore through the air. Raw. Primal. Electric. Sparks licked across my skin and danced in my veins, but it wasn’t from the storm—it was him . His presence. His fury.
Domino didn’t move like a man. He moved like a beast. A force of nature barreling toward his kill. The air thickened with his rage, suffocating, all-consuming. His need to possess, consume, and own vibrated off him in waves as he collided with the Gallo like a battering ram.
The man barely had time to register the danger before Domino’s fist caved his smirk in. The crack of shattering bone sang through the night.
It was a beautiful song just for me. A brutal, chaotic symphony that vibrated through my bones, curling deep into my gut, twisting into something that felt holy.
The Gallo staggered, choking, teeth clattering onto the wet grass. He grunted, barely keeping himself upright, when Domino struck again. A vicious left hook snapped the man’s head to the side, blood arcing through the air before getting swallowed by the rain.
The Gallo gasped, spitting red as it dripped down his face, stumbling backward looking for purchase. He blinked through the downpour, shock flickering in his eyes as he swiped his sleeve across his busted mouth.
“You—” He panted. “You crazy fucking?—”
Domino was on him before he could finish. He drove his knee into the man’s ribs, a sickening crunch echoing through the cemetery. The Gallo wheezed, doubling over in agony, but Domino didn’t let him fall.
He hauled him up by the lapels of his soaked coat, slamming him against a headstone. The marble shuddered from the impact, and the soldier groaned, eyes rolling.
Domino’s voice was low. Smooth and dangerous. “You like running your mouth, huh?”
The Gallo coughed, blood bubbling past his lips. “Fuck… you.”
Domino tilted his head, his soaked hair falling over his eyes. “That all you got?”
The man’s hand shot toward his belt—going for the gun strapped to his waist but Domino was faster. He snatched the soldier’s wrist, twisted it sharply, and the gun fell uselessly onto the grass before Domino kicked it away.
A sound ripped from the man’s throat—a mix of pain and disbelief. Domino’s grin was slow, dark, and dripping with amusement. “You thought that was gonna work?”
He twisted harder, making the man scream. Shivers raced down my spine, my fingers flexed on the handle of my blade.
“That’s cute,” Domino murmured. Then, drove his elbow into the man’s temple. The Gallo collapsed onto his knees, body swaying as his fingers sank into the mud.
Domino exhaled, shaking his head and squatted in front of him, gripping the man’s chin, forcing him to look up. “You know who I am?” he asked, voice calm.
The man’s breath stuttered. Fear bled into his eyes. “Yeah…” he croaked. “I know exactly who the fuck you are.”
Domino’s grin sharpened. “Then you should’ve run the second you saw me.”
The soldier coughed out something that might’ve been a laugh. “N-not scared of you, fucker.”
Domino’s fist crashed into his face. Once. Twice. Three times. Blood splattered onto the headstone in front of him, bright and wet. The man slumped, body barely holding itself upright.
“You scared now?” Domino murmured.
The Gallo wheezed, a cruel smile splitting his ruined lips. “You think this ends with me? You think the Gallos won’t come for you?”
Domino laughed. Low. Amused. Dark. “Oh, I hope they do,” he whispered. Then, he grabbed the man by the hair and slammed his skull against the marble.
A sharp crack ricocheted through the air. By the time the sound died, the man was sagged against the headstone, dazed, blinking slowly.
Domino yanked him back up—only to drive his knee into his gut. The man made a choked, wet sound. His body buckled inward, his legs giving out underneath him, but Domino didn’t stop.
He yanked him up again. Slammed him back down. His fist crashed into ribs. Once. Twice. Crunch. The soldier let out a mangled cry, his body convulsing from the pain. His limbs twitched. Weak. Spasming.
I exhaled slowly. Hypnotized. This wasn’t a fight. This was an execution.
The Gallo slumped, body limp against the grave as it slowly slid down, smearing a thick swath of red on the pale stone. His breath came in wet, shuddering gasps. The night swallowed his whimper as the rain mixed with the blood staining the earth.
The body at Domino’s feet was still twitching, lungs filling with water instead of air. The rain blurred everything, smearing the lines between life and death, but I could still feel it—the way violence coiled off him like heat.
Domino stood over the corpse, his chest rising and falling in deep, controlled breaths. The blood on his hands washed away under the relentless downpour, but it didn’t matter. I still saw it.
He lifted his head, feral gaze locked on me. His eyes pinned me in place, dark with possession, a hunger that had nothing to do with violence and everything to do with me. My pulse pounded, but not from fear. It was a force greater than gravity.
A shiver skated down my spine, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. There was something magnetic about him, something that could shift tides and tear through cities.
Domino moved too quickly for my eyes to follow. His arm snapped out and wrapped around my waist, my chest slammed against his, the soaked fabric of my shirt clinging between us.
His nose traced along my throat, slow, savoring. I felt the sharp inhale as he breathed me in, like he was trying to fill every inch of himself with my scent. His chest expanded, a low groan rumbling from the depths of him. The sound reverberated through me, igniting something violent and all-consuming. It was the only warning I got before his teeth sank into my neck.
Pain and pleasure crackled through me like a live wire, chaos searing my skin. My breath hitched, my fingers digging into his arms as he sucked hard, as if he wanted to taste the very marrow of me.
“No one gets to look at you that way and live.”
His voice was a rough growl, vibrating against my throat. I barely registered the dead man at his feet—the Gallo who had let his gaze linger on me too long, who had spoken to me like I was something to be had.
I blinked heavy-lidded eyes up at him, my breath uneven. Domino’s gaze devoured me, swallowing every piece of me whole. In his eyes, I saw the same sickness that ran through my veins.
“You don’t leave the apartment without telling me,” he murmured, his grip tightening.
His bloodied fingers tangled in my hair, yanking my head back. My lips parted on instinct, but he didn’t wait for an answer. His mouth crashed onto mine, brutal and demanding. His tongue forced its way between my lips, claiming me. Owning me.
Teeth sank into my bottom lip, tearing my flesh. The taste of copper flooded my tongue, and instead of pulling away, I moaned, deepening the kiss. My blood mixed between us, shared, swallowed. I clung to him, needing more, needing everything.
The world blurred, and everything around us fell away, ceasing to exist, but I felt him. Through every layer of fabric, through skin and bone, through the very fabric of my being.
“Who do you belong to?” His voice was a brand, searing into me, leaving no room for doubt.
I swallowed the words he forced into my lungs, my tongue tangling with his. “You,” I gasped.
My arm wrapped around his neck, needing him closer. I wanted to fuse us at an atomic level. To carve away his flesh and bury myself inside his ribs. To leave a mark that would never fade.
I opened my eyes, rain dripping from my lashes, and that’s when I saw it—a shadow moving fast, a gun raised at Domino’s back. He tensed, already sensing the danger. Time folded in on itself. My body reacted before my mind had fully caught up. My arm snapped forward, and the blade left my hand, slicing through the rain-slick air, sinking into the man’s shoulder.
The unknown man staggered, cursing, trying to lift his gun and remove the blade embedded in his shoulder.
Domino spun, pushing me behind him. His muscles tensed, coiling like a beast about to tear flesh from bone.
The man tried to recover, his fingers spasming around the trigger, his eyes darting in my direction like he might still try for me—wrong fucking move.
Domino pounced. The crack of their bodies colliding was swallowed by the storm as thunder rolled above our heads. They hit the ground hard, a wet thud against the waterlogged grass. Domino was on top of him before the bastard had a chance to lift his gun again.
I watched, breath caught in my throat, as Domino lost himself. His fists struck bone with a wet crunch. The guy, who I assumed was another Gallo, fought back, barely managing to swing before Domino shattered his wrist. A strangled cry broke through his blood stained lips
Domino grinned. That look would have sent any sane person running, but not me. Instead of fear, I found life in his controlled savagery.
His hand closed around the man’s throat, his knee pressing down on his chest, pinning him. Blood spilled from his nose, bubbling past his lips, but the look in Domino’s eyes—that was what made the man go still.
A predator staring down his prey.
Domino leaned in. I couldn’t hear what he whispered, but the soldier’s eyes widened in raw horror before they flicked to me for a fleeting moment. With terrifying ease, he snapped his neck.
The light faded from his eyes as his body slumped to the ground. The image of Domino with two corpses at his feet was burned into my retinas.
The air was thick, heavy. The rain poured around us, but I couldn’t feel it anymore. Only him. Always , only him.
Domino turned to me, watching. Head tilting. Studying. Like I was something rare. Precious.
“You’re shaking.” His voice was soft now, coaxing, laced with something dark.
“I’m not,” I lied, my breath still uneven.
But my mind was racing. The whispers. The proof.
I had heard the rumors from the men stationed around the apartment building. Whispers that Federico had lied about what happened to Domino’s mother. Fuck! I’d seen it. In the falsified documents, the blackmail payments, the cover-ups—everything tying back to Brielle.
Something wasn’t right. I knew I needed to tell him, but I didn’t know how.
Domino lifted my hand—still stained with blood—and pressed his lips to the inside of my wrist. The way a priest would bless a sinner. A man worshipping his ruin.
Why worship a prince when you could love a villain?
The moment stretched, coiling tight. His fingers dragged down my throat, lingering against my erratic pulse.
“You get it now, don’t you?”
Domino’s voice barely rose above a whisper, yet it twisted around me like a noose, tightening with every syllable. His breath was warm against my damp skin, the words sinking deep, embedding themselves in my bones.
“You’re mine.” His fingers flexed. “You’ve been mine since the first time you let me pull you into the dark.”
Since that night in the alley. Since I watched him kill for the first time. Since every moment after that, drenched in blood and devotion.
Transfixed I didn’t move. Didn’t fight. My breath came in ragged pants, but my resolve didn’t waver. Instead, I tilted my head back, baring my throat. “Then prove it,” I whispered. “And listen to me.”
Domino sucked in a sharp breath. His grip around my throat tightened—just a fraction. “Talk to me, piccolo agnello.”
I licked my lips, tasting the metallic tang of his blood mixed with mine. The storm raged above us, but it was nothing compared to the chaos crackling through me.
I hesitated.
Not because I didn’t trust him—but because I knew this would break him.
“I found out something that will change everything,” I said, voice unsteady. “It will make you doubt who you can trust?—”
“I don’t trust anyone.” His response was instant. Absolute. “You know that, Remi.”
I swallowed hard, but fear lodged itself in my throat and refused to move.
“What’s this about?” His dark green eyes sliced into me, sharp and unrelenting, like he could see the shadows slithering through my mind. He read me like scripture, like a story he’d memorized—but this time, he didn’t like what he found.
I forced myself to speak, even as my ribs squeezed tight around my lungs. “The Gallos…” I exhaled shakily. “T-they didn’t kill your mother.”
His fingers flexed. Before I could prepare myself, Domino’s grip tightened. Hard. Stars exploded in my vision. I gasped, but no air came. My lungs screamed, panic clawing up my spine. Every pulse of blood in my veins thundered in my ears, each heartbeat a dying drum.
Seconds stretched.
Turned into eternity.
The rain blurred the edges of my sight, but Domino’s face remained crystal clear. Confusion flickered first. Then anger. And beneath it—something far worse.
Fear.
“Who told you that?” he snarled, his voice a feral growl. Spittle hit my cheek, but I barely felt it over the burn in my throat. “Who put you up to this?”
I clawed weakly at his wrist, nails digging into his skin. “N-no one,” I rasped. “I-I found…”
The cold kiss of a blade met my skin. Sharp. Unyielding. I knew what that meant. Domino wasn’t just trying to scare me.
He was one wrong answer away from killing me.
“Who are you working for?” His voice was jagged, more a snarl than words.
“I—I’m not… I…” Black spots exploded across my vision. My body spasmed from lack of oxygen.
“You found what?”
His face blurred. Distorted. My pulse slowed—each thump heavier, duller. “O-on the… PC… when… B-Brielle…”
Then, like the snap of a leash?—
“Fuck!” Domino roared, ripping his hands from my throat.
I collapsed. Air flooded my lungs like fire. I coughed, my body wracked with tremors, my throat searing as I gasped for breath. Every inhale felt like swallowing glass. I barely had time to process what was happening before Domino’s fingers tangled into my drenched hair and wrenched my head back.
His face—wild, ruined, monstrous—hovered inches from mine. His teeth were bared, his breath ragged. “Are you telling me the truth?” His voice sliced through me, cutting down to the quick.
I met his gaze, forcing myself to stay steady despite the tremors running through me. “I would never lie to you,” I rasped. “I know what she means to you.”
A crack. A fracture. It was barely there, but I saw it. His resolve wavered. The cracks deepened, spider-webbing across his face, breaking apart the mask he wore like armor.
Emotion bled into his eyes—agony and rage swirling together, battling for dominance. And if I wasn’t this close, I wouldn’t have noticed the tears. They built along his lashes, lost to the rain before they ever had the chance to fall.
“Kill me,” I whispered. “If that’s what you have to do.”
His face shuttered. Wiped clean. Every trace of emotion buried. But the tears still fell.
And watching that? Watching the god I worshipped fall from the sky? It was irrevocable. Haunting.
“In the drawer where I keep my supplies,” I whispered, barely audible over the rain. “There’s a folder with her name on it. Everything is in there.”
“You’re lying.” His voice was brittle, a broken child-like thing.
“Lies are for people who think they have nothing to lose and everything to gain,” I exhaled.
My breath hitched when the blade pressed deeper into my skin. Warmth trickled down my throat.
“I have nothing to gain,” I choked out. “And everything to lose.” A tear slipped past my lashes, cutting a cold path down my cheek.
I’d never feared death before. Never had anything worth living for.
But now?
Now I knew the weight of his devotion. Knew the depths of his sickening obsession. At that moment, I realized a terrifying, undeniable truth.
“I love you.”
Domino stilled. A muscle ticked in his jaw. His lips curled back, a snarl carving his face into something vicious. “I thought you didn’t lie?”
“I’m not.”
His fingers twitched. The blade dug in further. Blood pooled at my collarbone, warm despite the cold rain.
“If you kill me now,” I whispered, vision blurring, darkening, collapsing inward. “My only sin… will be that I never set you free… like you have me.”
The darkness swallowed me whole. The last thing I heard was the sound of Domino’s roar. It shattered through the night. A primal, agonized sound.
Then—nothing.
Just silence.
And the burn of his name on my lips as I let go.