Chapter 19
CHAPTER 19
REMI
A scream—guttural and low—ripped me from unconsciousness, carving me open from the inside. My heavy-lidded eyes blinked slowly. A full-body shudder rolled through me, from the tips of my toes to the base of my skull. Goosebumps prickled my skin in its wake, jolting me upright in bed.
The sheets smelled like smoke and steel, like him, but the bed was empty. My body ached—deep, lingering bruises thrumming beneath my skin. But nothing compared to the raw, searing burn around my throat.
The scream still echoed in my ears as I dragged my fingers over the imprint Domino left behind . A brutal necklace of bruises. The cemetery. His hands. The bloodied and broken corpses at his feet. The moment he’d snapped, the moment I’d told him his father had a hand in his mother’s death. It all rushed back like a black-and-white film flickering in my mind.
I had never seen him lose control like that. Not with me. I’d thought he might kill me. I was certain some part of me wanted him to. That should have terrified me. Maybe it did. But deep down, I knew—The only way to prove myself to him was to offer my mortal body as a sacrifice.
I’d be his sacrificial lamb whenever he needed. That thought settled inside me with an eerie calm. There was nothing I wouldn’t do for him.
Even if it cost me my life.
Because I was his.
In every way possible.
The silk sheets tangled around my legs as I swung them off the bed, stumbling on weak, shaking limbs toward the bathroom. Every muscle ached. Lactic acid burned in my veins, and my body was starved of oxygen. He had turned my world into an endless night. It was only when I was on the brink of death…That was when I let go.
That was when I surrendered.
I had told him he’d already freed me. But that was the moment I relinquished everything. I gave myself over. Completely. Now, I knew I couldn’t survive without him. There wasn’t a molecule inside me that wanted to. I was his in this life, the next, and any that might follow if reincarnation was real.
And if it wasn’t?
Then I would die knowing I loved him until our bodies became part of the universe once more.
My hollow reflection stared back at me from the mirror. My skin was whiter than bleached bone, a stark contrast to the dark bruises that circled my neck—his mark, his claim. I traced the inkblot stains of his fingers with my own. A full-body shudder rolled through me at the echo of pain that radiated from them. Electricity zapped across my skin, heating the cool blood pooling at the base of my dick.
My eyes shuttered closed, and I wrapped my hand around my shaft, squeezing, trying to mimic Domino’s vice-like grip. His touch set me on fire. My hand? It was nothing but a pale imitation.
It didn’t make my blood sing. It didn’t make my soul dance with the devil.
It left me feeling empty.
Bereft.
Like I had lost a piece of myself to him that I would never reclaim—not until he came back. My heart thudded against my ribs hard enough to shatter the bones.
What if he didn’t come back?
Last night, I had broken the only part of him Federico couldn’t touch. A child’s love for a parent.
Domino’s love for his mother had been a dark treasure hidden from the world. I had only glimpsed it in stolen moments between us in the darkness. When he was trapped in that semi-lucid haze, lost between wakefulness and sleep. When his brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, I caught glimpses of the vulnerable child beaten out of him.
Last night, I killed that child who had once looked up to his father, searching for approval that would never come.
Hot water scalded my skin, but I stayed under the spray, revelling in the pain. I stroked myself for nothing but comfort. To feel alive. I anchored myself as my mind circled the memories of the last twenty-four hours. My hardness faded as I washed myself, but the ache carved into me only deepened.
Once washed, I stepped out and dried off before getting dressed in his clothes. Submerging myself in his scent. Keeping our tenuous connection alive while I was haunted by the ghost of him. I could text him or call him. My heart begged me to, but my mind knew he wouldn’t answer.
His love was a test, and I would weather any storm that he threw my way.
The penthouse was silent. Too silent. Too large. I wanted to hide under the covers, sleep the day away, and wait for him to come home, but my skin itched. The need to draw burned through me. Rain fell in thick sheets beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, obscuring the city skyline. The sky’s muted shades of churning gray clouds provided the perfect lighting, mimicking my somber mood.
The only person here was Ghost, moving like a shadow through the space, always watching but never speaking. I knew I couldn’t leave, but there wasn’t a single part of me that wanted to.
After grabbing a coffee, I collapsed on the couch. Indistinct charcoal lines covered the page of my open sketchbook on the table. The longer I stared, the clearer the image became in my mind’s eye.
Intense eyes formed from the darkness. Fathomless green depths that knew me better than I knew myself. Demons danced in the shadows, whispering truths I couldn’t hear. But his eyes knew. They told me what I wasn’t ready to understand—but my subconscious did.
The TV murmured in the background, but I wasn’t listening. My fingers moved with a life of their own, charcoal smudging across the page. Heavy strokes. Jagged lines. Breathing life into the image that wouldn’t leave me. That haunted me. Because no matter where I looked, no matter what I did—it was always him.
Domino.
Domino was covered in blood, his hands stained red and eyes hollow. Domino mid-fight, muscles strained, the moment before he shattered a man’s ribs with a single, brutal kick.
Domino stood over a broken body, chest rising and falling, something feral curling in his gaze.
Domino held down a slight body littered with bruises, their back arched in rapturous pleasure, his hips thrusting. Teeth bared as he fucked into the one he pinned down. Fire burned in his fixated eyes.
It wasn’t enough.
I turned the page and started again.
The elevator dinged announcing someone’s arrival, I didn’t need to look up to know who had entered. The air pressure changed, became charged, and the temperature dropped. My hand continued to move as I lifted my gaze to meet his. Domino walked in, dragging hell in behind him.
His clothes were soaked in blood but there wasn’t a mark on him. I could smell it—copper and sweat, the thick, cloying scent of someone else’s suffering. His hands were coated in it, staining the creases of his knuckles, the ridges beneath his nails.
His eyes were wrong. Wide and wild, pupils blown, his chest was heaving like he’d run the whole way here. Like he was still running from something. I rose to my feet, taking him in, watching how his fingers twitched at his sides.
“You’re shaking,” I said.
Domino flinched. Just for a second. Then his face twisted into something sharp and dangerous. “I don’t shake,” he snarled.
I didn’t move, didn’t break eye contact as he pulled out a cigarette and flicked his lighter open. But when he tried to ignite the flame, his grip slipped. The lighter clattered to the floor. A beat of silence passed between us and stretched, the world was frozen still.
His jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth might crack. That’s when I saw them—the demons tearing through him, whispering in his ear, sinking claws into his spine as he bowed under their relentless torment.
Without a word,Domino turned on his heel and stormed down the hall, muscles wound too tight, hands still bloodstained.
I followed. My feet moved without conscious thought. “Domino?—”
“Go to bed, Remi.” His voice was raw, uneven.
I kept following, refusing to let him walk away from me. “You think you can just come home like this and not?—”
He spun to face me faster than I could blink, his hand latched around my throat, digging into the bruises that stained my skin. Pain pulsed beneath his cool fingers, zapping like lightning through my body. The world blurred as his grip tightened, and he threw me onto the bed.
My body crashed onto the bed with a vicious bounce. He followed swiftly behind me like a beast. His humanity was splitting at the seams, revealing the snarling monster beneath. He stalked up the bed, crawling on his hands and knees, body caging me in, pressing me down.
His hands shook where they pinned me. Fingers digging into my skin and leaving fresh marks that made me come alive in his presence. Drawn to him by an invisible magnetic force, the wilder he became, the more I craved him.
“This is your fault,” he rasped. Not cold. Not detached. Furious. Fractured. “You did this to me.”
I swallowed hard, staring up at him. His chest heaved, blood smeared across his skin. He was unraveling. The mask was gone. The control was gone. I had torn him apart, and I didn’t regret it.
My hand cupped his face, fingers tracing along the sharp line of his jaw, his stubble biting into my skin. He tensed beneath my touch, eyes darting between mine like he was searching for something—waiting for me to push him away.
I didn’t. I never would. Because he was mine, and I was his. We were interwoven into one another to where I couldn’t tell where he ended and I began.
“Your pain is mine too,” I whispered, cupping his face and placing a feather-light kiss on his forehead.
He swallowed audibly.
I placed my other hand on his chest, over his racing heart, feeling it pound against my palm. A frantic, erratic rhythm. A war drum. A warning.
“I can bear it with you,” I whispered. My voice was steady, but inside, I was burning.
Domino’s breathing hitched, his chest rising sharply beneath my hand.
“Use me,” I said. My fingers curled into his shirt, clenching in the fabric like an anchor. The blood of his victims stained my skin, and I smiled.
“Take it out on me.”
His jaw locked, eyes dark and storming, but he didn’t move. He just watched me, gaze flickering between my mouth, my throat, the bruises he’d put there. His mark.
“Break me,” I murmured.
His fingers flexed where they still pinned me down.
“Make me into what you need.” I let my thumb brush over his lips as he released a shuddering exhale. He was wrecked. “I love you.”
A pained whimper slipped past his lips, and his eyes shuttered closed as if the words were a blade carving through him. And when they reopened, their beautiful dark green depths had been swallowed by obsidian hunger. His pupils were blown so wide they consumed the color entirely.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. His hands tightened, thick veins protruding against the skin. Something inside him snapped. The moment was palpable, like a bomb detonating, obliterating everything in its path.
His lips crashed down on mine with a force that stole the air from my lungs. A brutal, claiming kiss that wasn’t soft, wasn’t kind—it was a declaration of war.
Teeth. Nails. Bruising kisses that drew blood and shattered me apart, only to piece me back together under him. He was my master. My dark god. The altar I’d worship.
His hands weren’t just gripping me—they were staking a claim. Tearing pieces of me away. Owning. They trailed fire down my skin, branding me with every ragged breath, every growl vibrating through his chest.
I felt his need in every single visceral touch. The way he dug his nails into my waist, into my hips, yanking me closer like the distance between us was unbearable.
The way he bit into my throat, sucking deep enough to leave another mark as my blood coated his lips, another reminder that I was his.
I moaned into his mouth, and he swallowed it whole, his tongue licking into me, dominating, demanding.
His name was carved into my body now, left in bruises and bite marks, in the ache of my muscles, in the sting of my lips.
Domino didn’t remove our clothes—he ripped them away. The fabric shredded under his hands, torn apart like nothing more than an inconvenience. A low growl rumbled from his chest as he bared me to him, heat rolling off his skin as it sealed against mine.
His body was a furnace, scorching away the cold that had settled in my bones. The sudden contact stole the air from my lungs, forcing a gasp from my lips that he swallowed with his mouth.
We didn’t need whispered words.
There was no need for declarations or sweet reassurances. We understood each other without them.
The way his hands bruised into my skin—demanding, urgent. The way I arched into him, meeting his force with my own. The way his forehead pressed against mine, breaths mingling, shared between us. This was our language.
His large hands hooked under my knees, lifting me, spreading me wider until I was open, exposed, helpless beneath him. His legs caged me in, a predator pinning his prey.
And I wanted to be caught.
The slick, swollen head of his cock notched at my entrance, pressing, teasing—but it wasn’t gentle. Nothing about Domino ever was. His dark gaze burned into mine, eyes feral, full of something savage and unrelenting.
Then he drove forward. One brutal thrust punched into me as he forced my body to submit to him.
I choked on a cry as he breached me, filled me, stretched me to the edge of breaking. A sharp burn flared through my spine, pleasure and pain tangled so tightly together I couldn’t separate them. My body resisted, then yielded, sucked him deeper until he was buried to the hilt, fully seated inside me.
Domino shuddered, a breathless curse spilling from his lips as he gripped my hips like he was trying to fuse us together.
My nails dragged down his back, leaving marks of my own, staking my claim on him the same way he was branding me. His flesh embedded under my nails, his blood slipping down his back, staining my hands.
His head dipped, teeth sinking into my throat, sucking hard enough to leave a mark that would last for days. A reminder. A warning.
Domino’s hips snapped forward, setting a brutal, punishing rhythm. No hesitation. No mercy. Each powerful thrust tore the breath from my lungs, each drag and stretch of his cock against my raw, hypersensitive nerves sent violent tremors through me.
Pleasure and pain collided and fused into something monstrous. A devastating, all-consuming force that left me at his mercy. And I wanted it. Begged for it.
He fucked me like he was breaking me apart just to put me back together. Like he needed to destroy every inch of me before claiming what was left. And I let him.
The thick head of his cock pummeled my prostate with ruthless precision, ripping desperate, wrecked sounds from my throat. My body convulsed beneath him, muscles straining, vision tunneling as the pressure inside me coiled impossibly tight.
“Domino—” His name was a prayer, a plea, a surrender.
I was on the edge of oblivion, teetering between pain and rapture, between madness and salvation.
With one final savage thrust, he shattered me.
The heat of his release seared into my core, marking me, branding me from the inside out. My spine arched off the bed, my head snapping back as my orgasm detonated, white-hot and annihilating.
Thick ropes of cum splattered across my chest, my entire body seizing, locked tight in an inescapable pleasure-ridden agony.
Domino didn’t stop.
He fucked me through it, into it, past it— tearing every last aftershock from my wrecked body until the pleasure was too much, too sharp, too consuming.
Darkness rushed in at the edges of my vision, the world spinning away as my body finally gave out.
The last thing I felt was Domino’s hands gripping me, holding me down, refusing to let me go.
And I let him; I always would because this was ours.
Because Domino DeMarco would kill for me, and I would die for him, knowing he’d never love anyone else.
Because without him, nothing else mattered.
Ghost’s voice cut through my orgasmic haze like a knife through my ribs. “There’s a problem with the books.”
I pushed myself up from the mattress, limbs heavy, sore, ruined. Domino’s arm was still slung over me, his breathing even now, the demons inside him temporarily tamed.
Ghost stood in the doorway, expression unreadable, arms folded across his chest. “Brock’s been skimming. A lot .”
“Brock?” I croaked in confusion.
“Yes.” Ghost rolled his eyes. “Your cousin wasn’t happy being under your aunt’s thumb, so he begged Federico to let him play with the big boys?—”
The sound of a blade whistled through the air before embedding itself in the door frame right next to Ghost’s head.
“Fucking hell.” He froze, eyes going wide as the color drained from his face.
“Get the fuck out of here,” Domino growled from behind me. “You ever look in his direction again… I’ll pluck your eyeballs from your head and give them to him as a gift.”
Domino’s voice was like ice crystallizing on my skin. His heated breath against my nape made me shiver as he wrapped a possessive arm around my waist and pulled my body back against his. His possessiveness had a smile flickering at the corner of my lips.
Ghost snorted and rolled his eyes. “Fuck, alright man. Just get out here… soon.” The door slammed shut behind him.
“Stupid fucking prick,” Domino growled. He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning my head to his, and sealed our lips together in a scorching kiss.
Panting for breath, I pulled back and licked the heady taste of him from my lips. “So tell me about my cousin?”
Apparently, Brock thought he was untouchable. He thought being Brielle’s son and her little situationship with Federico meant he could fuck around with the big guns and never find out while pulling one over on his mother. To him, it was a win-win kind of setup, but reality had a way of teaching lessons.
We were about to prove him wrong. The bigger they were, the harder they fell, and I was going to enjoy every second of it.
We found him holed up in a house Brielle didn’t even know existed—a little hidden escape where he played king in the shadows. A place that smelled of expensive whiskey and entitlement.
He thought he was safe there. Untouchable. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
It hadn’t been hard to get the location from his on-again, off-again squeeze—especially after he fucked her best friend while she was passed out in the bed next to them. Only to wake up and find them lost in the moment.
When Brock opened the door, Domino’s boot slammed into his chest, shattering that illusion.
Brock barely had time to breathe before Domino unleashed his fury. Fists of iron slammed into his face over and over until the smug superiority bled from his eyes, leaving behind only fear.
I stood back and let it happen, wondering if I should have brought popcorn. Some lessons had to be taught with blood. Not that I thought even that would get through Brock’s thick skull.
Some people were beyond learning.
By the time Domino had him tied up and stuffed in the trunk of his SUV, Brock was barely conscious. Blood dribbled down his chin and pooled in his lap.
But Domino wasn’t finished. Not yet. The drive to Hollow Pines was silent aside from Brock’s muffled groans.
Domino didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. His rage crackled in the air—controlled, lethal, sharpened to a blade’s edge.
My shitty excuse for a cousin had thought no one would miss the ten grand he skimmed off his sales this past month. He was wrong. So very wrong, and he was about to pay the ultimate price. His life.
Soon, Brielle would be getting a gift, too. An appetizer before she came home to the main course. Ghost was tracking her movements. The courier was standing by, and if everything went smoothly, we’d be able to watch her reaction live streamed to my phone.
I couldn’t wait.
By the time we reached the care home, Brock was barely able to stand as Domino yanked him from the trunk; his knees buckled as he hit the ground.
“Where… where are we?” he slurred.
His face was swollen, blood drying in streaks down his neck. Domino didn’t answer. He simply hauled Brock to his feet like he was dragging out the trash.
Together, we dragged his ass across the manicured lawns, past Hollow Pines, to the home he shared with his mother.
I bypassed the security system in seconds. Once we were inside, we kicked him down the basement stairs. He landed with a crack, a heap at the bottom.
Brock barely had the strength to struggle when we strapped him into the chair. The dim light overhead cast deep, grotesque shadows over his ruined face. He coughed weakly, blood splattering onto the concrete.
Domino didn’t care. His ruthless brutality bled through him. He only had eyes for me as his hands moved with expert precision. The first scream echoed through the room as the blade sliced through bone.
A single finger hit the floor with a dull thud.
Brock howled. His body jerked violently against the restraints, eyes wide, blood spilling down his wrist in thick, scarlet rivers.
Domino took his time with the second one. Then the third. By the fourth, Brock could barely make a sound. His body shook violently, pale and clammy from blood loss, sweat slicking his skin. Tears streaked down his battered face.
Domino studied the severed fingers, head tilted, almost curious. He dropped them into the small, elegant wooden box beside him and closed the lid with a quiet snap.
“That’s for your mother,” Domino murmured, wiping his knife clean with an eerie elegance.
Brock whimpered, snot and tears covering his face. Domino turned to me, handing over the box. I quickly ran upstairs just as the courier arrived.
A delivery for Brielle. She was currently having lunch with the mayor. The stir this would cause would be all over the papers tomorrow; she would be excommunicated by her ‘friends’, outcast from society.
Ghost had the cameras set up so we’d get to watch her reaction as she received our gift while her son took his last breaths.
By the time I rejoined Domino, he had smelling salts under Brock’s nose. Waiting for him to wake up, dragging him back because he wasn’t done yet.
Brock gasped awake, his wide eyes ping-ponging around the room. I watched the exact second he realized that he was tied up in his own basement.
A smile tugged at my lips. Domino pushed his sleeves up, slow and methodical. He paced behind Brock, rolling his bloodied knife between his fingers.
Calm. Detached. Back in control. “You fucked up, Brock,” he murmured. Voice like silk—sharp as glass.
Brock’s breath shuddered. His body trembled. “I—Dom, please , man, I—I didn’t mean to?—”
The knife plunged into his thigh, just missing the femoral artery. Brock’s scream was a siren’s song. Domino leaned in, twisting the blade until bone scraped against steel.
“That’s Mr. DeMarco to you,” he said softly.
Brock sobbed. Sniveled. Begged. “S-sorry. I-I’m so sorry Mr. DeMarco…”
I pulled my camera from my bag. Framed the shot and captured the moment. The lighting was shit, but it would be clear enough to haunt Brielle before we came for her.
Domino let Brock bleed. Let the fear set in. Let him feel it—the inevitability of what was coming. I didn’t look away. Couldn’t. Watching Domino work was like watching poetry in motion.
I watched as Domino broke him.
Piece by piece.
And when Brock finally stopped begging and started blaming—when the last shred of dignity burned away in rage and terror?—
Domino turned to me.
“How does this end, Remi?”
A gift.
One only he knew I’d love.
I stepped forward, slow and deliberate. My fingers curled around the hilt of the knife still lodged in Brock’s thigh. His breath hitched. His glassy eyes locked onto mine, lips moving, but no sound left them.
“I told you once,” I murmured, leaning in. “Touch what’s mine, and I’ll make sure you never touch anything again. This is for Mom.” I ripped the blade free and drove it higher, right into his armpit, deep enough to sever the axillary artery. Blood bubbled around the knife lodged in his side.
Scream after scream tore from Brock’s throat. He knew this was it. Blood vessels burst in his eyes, but his gaze never left mine.
I leaned in close. “See you in hell,” I whispered. I yanked the blade from his body. Nothing could have prepared me for the deluge of blood that spilled from him.
Domino smiled as I settled on his lap, straddling him, bloodstained hands cupping his cheeks.
“Thank you,” I breathed against his lips.
He traced his fingers through the blood on my skin. “To see you free like this,” he murmured. “Is a thing of beauty.”
A shudder ripped through me as his lips sealed to mine. Lost in each other’s embrace, time ceased to exist.
Hours passed.
Brock took his last, rattling breaths.
Eventually, when the sky had turned black, Brielle came home. Her broken whimpers sent a thrill up my spine as she called Brock’s name.
Only silence answered her.
“Brock?” Her voice cracked. “Stop fucking around and c-come h-here…”
She trailed off as I knocked over a tin of paint from the shelf behind me. Like the fool she was, Brielle followed the sound.
“Brock, honey, you down here?”
I smothered a laugh as she stumbled off the last step, catching herself on a pile of boxes opposite the staircase. Her hand blindly reached for the light switch. The light flickered before it flooded the room, unleashing the horror show we had created for her.
The scream that tore from her throat was almost as satisfying as the look she gave me when she realized I was waiting for her.
Her eyes locked onto mine, wide with horror. “You let this happen,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
I tilted my head and let a slow smile stretch across my lips. Not an ounce of remorse in my veins. “No,” I murmured. “I made it happen.”