Chapter 18
CHAPTER 18
DOMINO
C ontrol had never been an issue for me. Not once. Not ever. I had learned early—compartmentalization was survival. Feelings were a liability. Doubt was a death sentence. A weak mind bled before the body ever did.
And I had never bled.
Until now.
Now, the carefully constructed world I had locked myself inside was crumbling. The walls were splitting at the seams, cracks widening, the flood of questions and doubts seeping through like rot. It started after that confrontation with my father. That was when the first fracture formed.
The Gallos were crawling through Marlow Heights like a plague, leeching into every corner of our business, fucking up deals, fucking up my focus.
But none of that mattered. None of it compared to what truly fucked me up. Remi left. It was inconceivable. Unthinkable.
He was mine. I never wanted him out of my sight. I had thought—no, I had known—that what we had was singular. Something irrevocable. A bond so deep it blurred the lines of self, tangled and fused, one entity instead of two.
I didn’t claim to understand people or emotions. They were background noise. I understood the dichotomy of life and death. I understood power.
The insufferable need to amass it, hoard it, wield it. The way it could be used to collar and control small-minded idiots, the ones who wouldn’t know which way was up without someone like me to dictate it to them.
But Remi threw everything out of sync.
Because he didn’t just leave. He told me he loved me. And he did it right after shattering my fucking world.
Right after ripping the ground out from under me.
Right before his breath stuttered into nothing.
Right before he went limp in my arms.
And in that moment—as the last breath left his lips, as his body sagged against me, as the color drained from his face—I realized love was an illusion.
What I felt for him was something far more powerful. Far greater. It was primal. It was deadly. It was not love.
It was obsession .
When his pulse gave one last, weak flicker before fading into silence—the world fucking shattered. It was like the last star had been plucked from the sky. The final light was snuffed out. I had never felt darker, colder.
A scream tore from my throat. Raw. Splintered. The sound felt like it had been ripped from the center of my goddamn soul.
The world had changed at a molecular level. But at the same time, nothing had changed at all.
I moved through the streets, through my apartment, through my father’s compound with a single thought gnawing its way through my skull: Who the fuck could I trust?
I watched my men—the soldiers, the runners, the dealers in their dens. I watched their eyes, their hands, their movements. And for the first time, I saw the masks I’d been too blind to notice.
Nothing was real.
Nothing was solid.
The world as I knew it was gone.
Once I’d told Remi that I didn’t trust anyone. But maybe that had been a lie. Maybe—before he broke the one thing I thought was unbreakable—Maybe I had trusted him.
Maybe I had trusted him more than I had ever trusted anyone.
And that was my greatest mistake.
“Boss. They’re here.”
I shook my head, snapping back to the present. Back to blood, to violence, to control. “Good. Have them bring him to the wet room. I’m going to get answers.”
Angelo snorted. “Let’s hope this one lives long enough to give you what you want.”
The glare I leveled at him was glacial when I spun around to face him, enough to make the six-foot brute shrink and shiver like a child waking from a nightmare.
“You are paid to do. Not to talk. Not to joke.”
His throat bobbed. “Sorry, boss.”
I exhaled sharply, pinching the bridge of my nose as we walked through the warehouse. The pulse of my anger was constant now, coiled and waiting for release.
Men and women stood at long steel tables, cutting, weighing, and packaging the vast quantities of drugs moving through our pipelines. Their quiet murmurs silenced as we passed. This was one of our biggest processing centers, but like all our properties, it served multiple purposes. How much you knew depended entirely on where you stood in the hierarchy.
Angelo, as one of our enforcers, knew more than most—but less than he wanted. He had ambitions, whispered in my father’s ear like a serpent, pushing for us to take the Gallos’ territory. He had tried to manipulate me. Thought he could use me for his own ends because I was younger than him.
He had learned how futile that was.
I had taken his fingers for every transgression. One by one. Now, he teetered on the edge of life and death every time he stepped into my presence, but he had been leashed just enough to fall in line. I had no doubt he saw his death in my eyes.
The way he shrank when I looked at him was proof enough. But nothing could quench my thirst for blood at the moment. With Remi’s revelation festering in my skull, infecting every second, every breath—I was a ticking bomb, waiting to detonate.
“Tell me what he did to warrant being brought to me.”
Angelo held the unmarked door open, the dark stairwell illuminated only by bare overhead bulbs. We descended into the soundproofed wet room, another one of my playgrounds.
A single metal chair sat in the center, the base roughly cut out above the drain. My eyes raked over the white tiles, stained with age and blood. The air was thick with the stench of sweat, desperation, and death. I inhaled it like the breath of life.
My fingers itched to peel flesh from bone. The monster inside me snarled against its cage, tasting death. We both hungered for it. To take life, feel it slip away and drown in the power.
“He came into Nocturne intoxicated, but Palo let him in?—”
My gaze snapped to him, I stopped dead and the flinch that wracked his body was satisfying—but not enough. “Why would he do that?” My voice was a low, guttural snarl. “We have rules.”
Angelo raised his hands. “Palo said the guy had been in before, never caused an issue.”
My patience thinned. I stalked toward the back wall, my fingers grazing the array of implements neatly fixed in place. Blades. Hammers. Clamps. Chains. Each one had a purpose. Each one could tell a thousand stories.
“Why was he willingly allowing known Gallo associates inside?”
“T-that I can answer.”
He stepped back as I plucked a serrated blade and a hammer from the wall. Then I reached for the box of wood splinters and laid them out carefully on the metal table.
Angelo cleared his throat, voice wavering. “The guy—Stephan—tried to push MDMA. Unsuccessfully. But before we could get to him, he started screaming that the Gallos were coming. That the DeMarcos were going to fall.”
My fingers tightened around the handle of the serrated blade. I had heard enough. In the blink of an eye, I had Angelo pinned against the wall. The teeth of the blade bit into his skin, pressing just enough for pinpricks of red to bloom.
“What. Else?”
Angelo swallowed hard, forcing the blade deeper into his throat. “He—he attacked one of the girls.”
Not unusual. Customers paid for the privilege. Nocturne had its own cleaning crew for this reason. They doubled as bouncers until the situation required something messier.
“And?”
My patience was hanging by a thread. My control was slipping. He trembled in my grip, unable to meet my eyes.
“When we dragged him free… he smiled. Like a fucking maniac.” Angelo’s breath shuddered. “Said he had a message for the DeMarcos. For you...”
The implication hung in the air like a viper coiled, ready to strike. I wasn’t afraid of the Gallos. God knew I had put enough of them into the ground. Especially recently. They were a rat-infested plague infecting my city. I had to put an end to it.
“Is that all?”
The blade’s tip traced over his carotid artery. I could see it now. A little more pressure—just a twitch of my wrist—and fountains of blood would paint the walls.
I licked my lips, tasting the copper tang, but there was only one person’s blood I wanted on my tongue. The image clawed through my mind, dark and consuming, but I shoved it down. Refused to let my mental walls break completely and shook it off.
Angelo collapsed to the ground the moment I released him, gasping. Hand wrapped around his throat as I stepped back.
The back door slammed open as two of my men threw a body across the floor. The message arrived wrapped in blood and agony. Stephan—bound, beaten, barely breathing—had been dragged through the warehouse and dumped at my feet.
His head cracked against the tiled floor with a sickening thud. He let out a strangled noise, somewhere between a whimper and a curse.
I took my time stepping forward. The sound of my boots echoed through the vast space.
He was a soldier. A low-level one. No scars of war. No hardened exterior. Just a kid. Another desperate idiot trying to claw his way up the Gallo family ranks.
Wrong fucking ladder.
Crouched beside him, I tilted my head as I examined the damage. Busted lip. His right eye was swollen shut. Knuckles raw—like he had fought back. Like he had thought he had a chance. I gripped his jaw, forcing his battered face toward the light. Blood dripped from his nose, thick and dark, staining the floor in slow, deliberate drops.
I would carve the truth from him.
One scream at a time.
“I want the name of the person who sent you.” My voice was even. Calm. Controlled. Steel wrapped in velvet. A tempting lure that could prize blood from stone.
He glared at me through his one good eye, lips pressing together. Stupid move. A wicked smile curved my lips. I loved when they made it difficult.
Reaching behind me, I pulled the serrated blade from the back of my jeans, swinging it in front of him with a smooth, practiced motion. The metal sang through the air, slicing the silence like a guillotine.
He tensed, but he didn’t break, his fear ratcheting higher. It wouldn’t be long till he broke. They all did—eventually—before they took their last breath.
But I wouldn’t kill him. Not yet.
I’d drag him to the very edge of death before I sent him back to his masters. Let them watch him rot from the inside out. Using the husk of his body to deliver my message in return.
“You’re going to tell me what I want to know,” I murmured, pressing the tip of the blade just beneath his eye, where the skin was thinnest. “You’ll beg to give it to me. The only choice you have is how much of you is left when you do.”
Silence. His split lips trembled, and a single tear slipped from his one good eye. I pressed down slowly, increasing the pressure. His body seized as the blade broke skin. A thin rivulet of blood rolled down his cheek, bright against the grime and sweat.
“Fuck. You.”
I hummed, amused. “That’s the best you’ve got? I expected more.”
The blade trailed downward—slow, deliberate. I took my time dragging it along his cheek, down the column of his throat. He swallowed hard. I felt it beneath the tip of my knife.
He thought I was bluffing. He was about to learn I never bluffed. A barely audible sigh left him when the knife left his throat. My teeth sank into my lip as I swallowed down a hollow laugh. The stupid fool thought it was over.
Power radiated through my veins. I pressed the knife against his cheek and drove it in. He screamed. A raw, ragged sound that choked off when I twisted the blade, shredding flesh from bone.
“You feel that?” I whispered, my mouth close to his ear. “That’s reality sinking in. I own you now. And the longer you hold out, the worse this gets.”
His body shook in my grip. His blood seeped down the planes of his face, dripping off his chin onto his shirt. Slowly, deliberately, I pulled the blade free—watching his face.
I lived for this moment. The scent of fear saturated the air.
The power.
The control.
That flicker—when defiance melted into unholy terror and the light dimmed in his eyes.
He knew, then. He wouldn’t live to see another sunrise. The monster in me roared. It wanted more.
“Y-you’re dead,” he spluttered. “You a-and everyone who works for you. W-when they hear about this?—”
I drove my fist into his temple, knocking him out cold. A hysterical laugh tore from my lungs as he collapsed at my feet.
“Strip him and bind him to the chair. Hands tied to the arms—fingertips hanging over the edge.”
Angelo and the two men who had dragged him in jumped to work. My fingers twitched, itching to do more. Death hummed in my veins. My chest expanded as power flooded me.
One drop of blood at a time.
Pulling a cigarette from the tin in my back pocket, I lit it and watched them while they worked. Inhaling deeply, the cherry glowed in the muted light. The smoke spilled from my lips, coiling in the air like a serpent. Toxic. Deadly.
Just like me.
Once he was in position, Angelo dumped a bucket of lemon juice and ice water over his body. The acid burned into the cuts and grazes littering his skin.
The scream that tore from him was animalistic. His body jerked, convulsing against the restraints that were shocking him back to consciousness. What little color he had drained from his face. His blood stood out even more against his ashen skin, dripping in slow, thick rivulets.
I exhaled another drag of smoke, watching him. Letting him feel it. “My men tell me you came into my club, causing havoc. Said you had a message for me?”
His one swollen eye blinked slowly, unfocused. Trying to remember. His brain rattled inside his skull, struggling to put the pieces back together. A slow nod of acknowledgement. He grimaced as he tested the restraints.
“Yes.”
I tilted my head, considering what path to take next. Gooseflesh prickled across his exposed skin. The room was cold, like an industrial freezer. It kept my toys awake longer. Made them bleed slower.
“Who sent you?”
Something flickered across his face, but his trembling lips stayed sealed shut.
“Like that, is it?”
I spun the blade between my fingers. His eye tracked every movement. He winced every time the sharp edge of the blade flashed before his face.
His fear was potent. I savored it.
“You said you had a message for me?” I leaned in close, his acrid breath feathering over my face. “But now that you’re here, you’ve lost your voice?” I snorted. “Mmm. Not so cocky now, are you big guy?”
He shuddered when I stubbed my cigarette out on his thigh. The sizzle of burning flesh was like a shot of adrenaline. The pained whimper in his throat thrilled me.
I licked my lips and drank in his fear like the finest liquor. “There isn’t a man alive I can’t break. Are you sure you want to suffer?”
His entire body trembled. The chair rattled against where it was chained to the tiled floor.
“Tell me who sent you.” My voice was razor-sharp. He flinched like I’d slashed him.
“Y-y-you…”
“Well, if you insist.” I turned to the metal table, reaching for what I needed. The hammer and splinters of wood. “This will only hurt a little bit.”
Then, positioned a splinter just beneath his nail by the nail bed and pressed slowly. It sank into the soft tissue with a whisper.
“Who sent you?”
Silence. His breath was shallow. The tendons in his hand strained as he tried—futilely—to pull away.
I smirked. “No answer?” A low chuckle rumbled in my throat.
Oh, this was going to be fun. I pulled the hammer from my back pocket and twirled it between my fingers. His eye went wide. The implication of my actions dawned on him.
Stephan’s chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths. He knew what was coming. But like a car crash, he knew what was going to happen. He couldn’t take his eye off my every movement.
When the first strike fell?—
When the splinter drove deeper into raw flesh?—
The scream that tore from him was music to my ears. But that is not enough. It was never enough. I needed more. Unsatisfied, I gave myself over to the bloodlust inside me. One after another, I drove the splinters of wood into his nail beds.
The cacophony of agony filled the room—screams of anguish and pain crackling over my skin like electricity.
Each scream hardened my resolve. No one fucked with the DeMarcos without paying the price.
And this fool?
He would pay in blood.
In flesh ripped from bone.
I’d peel it back layer by layer until he sang like a canary. Then I’d send him back to his masters on the edge of death, with my message carved into his flesh and bone.
Shattered breaths slithered past his lips, coated in the stench of bile, but still—no answer.
Blood dripped from the end of each finger, pooling beneath his hands. Cold sweat slicked his skin. Tendons and muscles strained against the thin membrane that covered his body. His fingers were twisted in ruined agony. Black and blue flowed under his skin like a beautiful watercolor.
“Are you ready to talk?”
A limp nod was all he had left. He was slipping, his consciousness fleeting. I knew many effective ways to bring him back. Cold worked, but so did a sharp shock of burning pain.
I turned to Angelo. A single look was all it took, malice gleamed in his eyes. He disappeared, returning seconds later, two halves of a lemon in his hand. Without a word, he held them over Stephan’s shredded fingers—and squeezed.
The acid hit the open wounds like fire that licked through his veins. Pure, unadulterated torture. A guttural, soul-rending scream tore from his throat. His one good eye bulged from its socket. Tears streamed down his face, mingling with the rivulets of blood that seeped down his body.
The taste of his suffering on my tongue was exquisite.
Beautiful.
“Try again.”
Stephan’s breath hitched, shallow and ragged. Pained. His body slumped forward, strength leaving him in waves.
“Please,” he rasped. “I—I don’t know...”
I grabbed a fistful of his hair, jerking his head back. “Lying pisses me off.” My voice turned glacial. “You don’t want to see what I’m like when I’m pissed off.”
His one good eye squeezed shut. His entire mangled body trembled. He was breaking perfectly. So close.
This was the best kind of foreplay.
I slid my blade up his leg, pressing just enough to make him flinch. “Let’s try again. Who sent you?”
Silence.
My grip tightened in his hair; strands ripped free. “You have five seconds,” I whispered against his ear. The smell of urine burned my nostrils. I stepped back, looking at him in disgust.
“Five.”
The blade traced the blue veins in his wrist, dragging slowly along his arm, up to his throat.
“Four.”
His breath stuttered. Blood and saliva dripped from his ruined lips.
“Three.”
I circled his good eye with the bloodied tip of the blade, pressing harder—tracing the socket, peeling the skin away, exposing raw, pulsing flesh inch by inch.
“Two—”
Before I finished, he cried out, his voice like nails on a chalkboard.
“Salvatore Gallo!” The words ripped from his lungs. “It was Salvatore Gallo!”
I stilled. Watching the fresh blood drip off his lashes and inhaling, savoring the flavor of his suffering. As I exhaled, the storm inside me went deathly quiet. Remi’s words slithered through my mind. A whisper in the darkness.
What if he was telling the truth?
What if..?
“H-he has…in-information for…for you.” He gulped, blood coating his lips with every word. “I-it’ll change…everything.”
I clenched my jaw and ground my molars together, shutting those thoughts down. Now wasn’t the time to look closer. Now was the time to make someone pay. My blade continued its fluid movement around Stephan’s eye socket so he would keep talking. I let him spill his guts through a haze of pain and delirium. I needed to glean as much information as I possibly could from him.
But none of it mattered. Not really. I already knew where to look next. Once the floodgates opened, his words became background noise. Drowned out by the slow, methodical drag of my blade carving his confession into his skin.
By the time he stopped screaming, his voice was nothing more than brittle whimpers; he was barely human. Just muscle, bone, and blood pooling in the spaces between my cuts.
Stephan was clinging to life, but not for long. Angelo and Ghost would deliver my message to the gates of the Gallo compound.
And by the time he died, Salvatore Gallo would know—The DeMarcos were coming.
And I wasn’t going to leave anyone breathing.