Chapter 23
CHAPTER 23
DOMINO
“ Y ou have some explaining to do.”
My voice was low, venomous, curling through the dim space like cigarette smoke. Ghost’s reflection in the window flinched before his body followed suit. The city outside stretched in murky streaks of neon and filth, a fitting backdrop to the stench of betrayal thickening the air between us.
He sauntered into my apartment, cocky as ever, but the moment the elevator doors shut behind him, his steps faltered. Good. He should be afraid.
His eyes snapped to mine, pupils flaring like a wounded animal catching the scent of blood. “What do you mean?”
He already knew. The fear creeping up his spine betrayed him before his words ever could.
I wanted to tell him the interesting things Remi shared with me last night as we washed Gallo blood from our skin. As I pressed my lips to his throat and tasted the iron of our shared violence. As I memorized every inch of him and knew—deep in my bones—that he was the only thing in this world I would never fucking share.
Instead, I exhaled slowly, pinching the bridge of my nose like I could smother the burning need to tear him apart with my bare hands. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” I murmured, turning to face him fully.
Ghost swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing as his mouth opened and closed.
Then, a whisper of movement. A flash of silver. His breath stuttered. Remi’s blade kissed the base of his throat.
“Where the fuck did you come from?” Ghost rasped, his skin grating against the edge of the knife. It wasn’t a question of where. It was a question of how much he could get away with before we gutted him. “You left.”
Remi snorted, tilting his head, letting the light catch the predatory glint in his ice-blue eyes. “You taught me a lot, Ghost… but I’ve learned more than you ever showed me.” With a flick of his wrist, the blade bit deeper, just enough to draw a thin trickle of crimson. Not enough to kill. Not yet. “You’ve gotten sloppy if you didn’t realize I looped your system. Tut tut.”
Ghost’s nostrils flared, his body tensing in barely restrained panic. “Fucking, fuck! You’re a creepy little shit when you want to be.”
I arched a brow, stepping in until the heat of his fear crawled over my skin. It smelled delicious. “Want to say that again?”
His complexion paled further, sweat blooming at his temples.
“Now, answer my question.” My voice was quiet, controlled. Dangerous. “With the truth this time.” A slow smirk curved my lips. “Because if you don’t, I’ll know.”
Ghost’s breath came faster, his fingers twitching at his sides. He knew. He fucking knew.
Remi dragged the blade across his throat, slow and deliberate. A promise, not a warning. Blood welled, thin rivulets tracing the curve of his neck. Still not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to scar—if I let him live that long.
The early morning light bled through the grimy window, painting the scene sickly gold and mirroring the storm unraveling in my chest. I wanted to peel him apart. Disassemble him piece by piece until nothing is left but regret and ruin.
I replaced Remi’s blade with my hand, fingers pressing into the fresh cut, smearing the blood like ink across a page. “Now is not the time for silence, Ghost.” I tightened my grip, pulling him closer until the tips of our shoes touched. Until I could hear the sharp hitch in his breath, the way his pulse jackhammered against my palm.
His voice broke. “I—I know, Domino. I know.”
Resignation. Weak. Bitter. Hollow. It tasted like fucking victory.
Ghost’s gaze flicked past me to where Remi stood against the wall, lazily flipping the bloodied knife between his fingers. The weight of his stare settled over me, a balm to the fire roaring in my veins.
Ghost wasn’t stupid enough to play games with me. He knew the stakes.
I was judge, jury, and executioner. And Remi?
Remi was the executioner’s blade, gleaming and hungry.
“Fine.” My voice was a blade of its own. “Sit.” I gestured to the couch with a flick of my wrist. “Tell me everything. Start at the beginning. If you leave anything out—” I leaned down, my lips ghosting over the shell of his ear. “I’ll know.”
Ghost collapsed onto the couch, his legs barely holding him up. He was sweating. Good. He rubbed his palms over his jeans like it would erase the tremor in his fingers.
“I know you will.”
“It’ll be a race between me and Remi to get to you first,” I added, smirking.
Ghost inhaled sharply, running a hand through his damp hair before finally speaking. “I didn’t lie when I said I was born into this world.”
“Go on,” I said, remaining standing, letting the weight of my presence suffocate him further.
He swallowed hard. “My parents were druggies. Mom was strung out my whole life. She tried, I think. But trying doesn’t mean shit when the fridge is empty and the floor is covered in needles.”
His voice grew quieter, words tumbling out like loose teeth. “When I was five, she threw a party. The trailer was packed—people I’d never seen before, fucking on every available surface, powder covering the counters. My dad had overdosed that morning, but instead of mourning, she celebrated.”
Ghost shifted, gaze dropping to the floor. Shame. Pride’s worst enemy.
“Where was your dad?”
“Still in the hospital. They found him with a needle in his arm. Mom cried until her dealer showed up, then she forgot all about it.” His fingers twitched, an old habit of a man with too much history in his hands. “That night, her dealer beat the shit out of me for existing. She locked me in a closet for three days after that.”
Remi muttered a curse under his breath, dragging a hand down his face.
I lit a cigarette, inhaling deep, letting the poison settle in my lungs. I had a feeling we weren’t even at the worst of it. “Want one?”
Ghost nodded. I tossed him the pack, and he fumbled, lighting his own before exhaling a slow stream of smoke.
“Thanks,” he muttered. “It didn’t stop. The beatings. But eventually, I became useful. In other ways. Mom let it happen. He gave her more drugs, and that was enough for her.”
A sick kind of silence settled over the room. The kind that festered. I took another drag, rolling my cigarette between my fingers.
“When I was ten, I ran away,” Ghost murmured, like the words themselves were too heavy to hold. “You can imagine what happened after that. What I had to do to survive.”
Remi took the cigarette from my fingers, bringing it to his lips. My eyes locked onto him, dragged to him like a planet caught in his orbit. Because when Remi was this close—when he was this fucking lethal— I could do nothing but wait for the moment we collided.
“Exactly. That’s where Salvatore found me…”
A weighted silence swallowed the room whole, thick and suffocating, pressing against our ribs like a loaded gun. Our attention pinned Ghost to his spot, a specimen under a microscope, twitching beneath the scrutiny.
Then, he huffed a nervous laugh.
“He found me stuck in a dumpster. My legs were hanging out the top.” He rolled his eyes, the memory crawling up his throat like bile—bittersweet, embarrassing, and pathetic. “He pulled me out, asked me what the fuck I was doing. And like any self-respecting street rat, I asked him how much.”
Remi snorted, flipping his knife between his fingers. “Bet that didn’t go down well.”
Ghost shook his head. “Not really.” His lips twisted, half amusement, half something darker. “He clipped me around the back of the head, then announced he was taking me to breakfast.” He shrugged like it wasn’t a pivotal fucking moment. “That was that. Took me home. Had one of his guys train me. When I was good enough, he planted me right where I am.”
A pause. A deep one.
“Impossible,” I snapped, barely holding back the snarl curling in my chest. The pieces didn’t fit. “Federico might be a cunt, but he’s not stupid.”
Ghost scoffed. “I was recommended by someone he trusted.” His gaze—watery, desperate, waiting—begged me to connect the dots.
The realization was a blade to the ribs. Slow, twisting, brutal. “That fucking piece of shit.”
Remi’s eyes flicked to me, confusion tightening his features, but I was already on my feet. Pacing. Burning. Shaking. The flames in the fireplace crackled, casting shadows over the room, over the rage threatening to consume me from the inside out.
“Angelo is a Gallo, too?”
“Yup.”
That single syllable carried a death sentence.
“That explains why he’s such a fucking snake,” I seethed, hands curling into fists. White-hot fury licked up my spine, a drug I never planned to quit. “That piece of shit is going to die very fucking slowly.”
Remi smiled.
And fuck, it was beautiful.
His straight white teeth gleamed, his lips curved just enough to send a shiver down Ghost’s spine. Then, those cold, cutting eyes slanted toward him, hunting, calculating, starving.
“Do I get to play with him?” Remi purred, tossing his knife into the air and catching it by the handle, his other hand rubbing together like he could already feel Angelo’s blood staining his skin.
Ghost swallowed thickly, attempting a facsimile of a smile. It failed. Miserably.
“There was a reason I came here…” His voice cracked on the edges.
I stared. Silent. Waiting for him to spit it out before I carved it out of him instead.
“Someone wants to speak to y?—”
“Who?” I snapped. The smoke curling from my lips was more fire than ash.
Remi’s head bounced between us as our words volleyed, the tension coiling tighter, tighter, tighter.
“You know exactly w?—”
“What the fuck does he want?” My voice was a snarl. The walls felt too close.
Ghost exhaled sharply. “Just to talk, Domi?—”
“They never want to just talk,” I interrupted, stepping closer, letting the weight of my presence crush him. “There’s always a reason.”
Ghost’s head dipped, shoulders curling inward, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped together in front of him.
I didn’t like it.
Didn’t like the way he folded in on himself, like he was hiding something deep in his fucking marrow.
“You’re right,” he admitted, voice tight. “There’s more to it. But it needs to come from him.”
He lifted his head. Pleading. Weak. Desperate.
“Please. Hear him out.”
Disgust coiled in my stomach.
“Fuck.” The curse was sharp, slicing the tension. “This is against my better judgment.”
I turned to Remi.
He didn’t hesitate. Just nodded once, slow and deliberate, then lifted his hoodie, revealing the grips of two guns tucked into his black skinny jeans. Ready. Always ready. Always mine.
“He can come,” I muttered, jaw tight. “But only him.”
Ghost nodded quickly, scrambling for a phone I’d never seen before. His fingers flew over the screen.
I leaned closer, voice dipping to something darker, something that sank teeth into the base of his spine. “If Remi sees anyone else on the feed enter the building, I will kill him on sight without listening to a single fucking word he has to say.”
Ghost froze, fingers hovering over the screen.
He understood.
“He won’t do anything,” he said. Tried to sound confident but failed. “I promise.”
I laughed. Quiet, sharp, a knife’s edge. “Your word is worth shit to me right now, Ghost.”
Then, I yanked his head back, baring my teeth at him like the animal he should have never tried to cage.
Ghost trembled.
His pulse throbbed under my grip, fast, frantic, like a trapped thing desperate to escape. He was afraid.
Twenty minutes later, a sharp ding cut through the charged silence. The elevator doors slid open.
Salvatore stepped out.
His usual presence—calculated, immovable, impenetrable—was cracked. It was subtle, just a hairline fracture, but I saw it. Felt it in the way his shoulders weren’t squared like usual, the way his normally steely gaze darted, unfocused, his breath just slightly too shallow.
I leaned back against the arm of the couch, arms crossing over my chest, boredom plastered over my face like war paint.
“Salvatore,” I drawled, exhaling a lungful of smoke. “What a surprise.”
Remi remained where he was, leaning against the back of the couch, flipping his knife between his fingers, his lips curling slightly at the edges like he could already taste blood in the air.
Salvatore ignored the bait. Didn’t even look at Remi. His eyes locked onto mine like I was his sole focus. “Elio is gone.”
The words landed with a thud, heavy but hollow.
I blinked. Let the silence stretch, coiling around us like barbed wire. “So?”
Ghost shifted uncomfortably, like he could feel how fucking unnatural my reaction was. He didn’t want to be here to witness this but knew it wasn’t worth risking his life to leave. He had a lot to prove… this was just the beginning.
Salvatore clenched his jaw. “He was taken.”
“And?” I raised a brow, unmoved. Uninterested.
Salvatore exhaled sharply through his nose. “We can’t find him.”
I tilted my head, watching him with detached amusement.
We. Not I. His choice of words confounded me.
“Let me guess,” I murmured, pressing the cigarette to my lips, taking a slow drag before exhaling. Smoke curled between us, thick and suffocating. “You came here because I’m the only one who can.”
Salvatore’s throat bobbed.
I grinned, sharp and humorless. “Why the fuck should I care?”
A single tear slipped down his face.
It stopped me. Not enough to show it, but enough to notice.
Salvatore Gallo didn’t cry. Not when he killed. Not when he bled. Not when he lost. But now for a son—a brother—I didn’t know, he cried. I’d never seen a father show any hint of emotion for their children.
My grin soured into something sharp, something venomous.
“Because I know who took him.” His voice was gritted between his teeth, cracking under the weight of something unbearable.
I stared.
He inhaled shakily. “It was Federico.”
Remi stilled.
Ghost tensed.
And I… felt nothing.
Not anger. Not rage. Not fear. Just cold, unyielding clarity. “Well.” I took another drag. “That’s unfortunate for you.”
Salvatore took a step closer. “I need your help.”
Something ugly curled in my chest, something dark and hollow and hungry. I tilted my head, flicking the ashes from my cigarette onto the floor.
“And why the fuck,” I murmured, voice dipping lower, silkier, deadlier, “would I ever help you?”
Salvatore broke. Not all at once, but in increments. His shoulders sagged a fraction. His lips parted. His face was haunted, haggard, desperate. “You’re the only one who can find him.”
I let the silence stretch.
Then, I laughed. Low. Hollow. Cruel.
“Interesting,” I mused, tapping a finger to my chin. “You never seemed to care when it was me.”
A flicker of something passed over his face. Shame. Guilt. Or maybe I was giving him too much credit.
“I’ll find him.” My voice was cold. Absolute. Laced with the bite of a deal with the devil.
Salvatore’s breath wooshed in relief—but it was premature. I stepped forward, crowding into his space, my voice dropping to a murmur.
“But you’re going to tell me the whole fucking truth.”
Salvatore’s brows furrowed. “What?”
I smiled. It wasn’t kind.
“If you want me to find your son, then you’re going to tell me everything.” My fingers ghosted over his collar, fisting the fabric tight. “About my mother.”
Salvatore froze. And for the first time, I saw it.
Fear.
Not of me. Not of what I could do. But of what I might uncover.
My blood sang.
I pressed closer, so close he could feel my breath against his cheek. “Do we have a deal?”
Salvatore’s jaw locked.
One second. Two. Three.
Then, slowly—with the weight of a man making a deal with the fucking abyss?—
He nodded.
Hollow Pines National Park surrounded the city on three sides. It was as beautiful as it was deadly. And had claimed its fair share of victims over the years, not that anyone really knew the number of skeletons buried in shallow graves that were hidden in its depths.
The cottage at the edge of Brielle’s land was the perfect place for Federico to use. Only a handful of people knew of its existence; even fewer had ever seen it or knew where it was.
The intel we’d pried out of Federico’s one remaining confidant—before Remi carved him into pieces—had led us here. The cottage just beyond the grounds of the care home wasn’t on any blueprints, tucked away behind gnarled trees and overgrown brush like it had been swallowed whole by time.
We slipped through the rusted gates at the forest side entrance, the wind howling through the skeletal branches. The exterior of the old cottage had deteriorated since the last time we were there. Its windows shattered, its walls sagging. A mausoleum to forgotten souls.
Remi moved beside me, silent as a shadow, his grip tight on the knife he never went without. The blade still bore Ghost’s blood.
A shame it wasn’t more.
Federico wasn’t sloppy. He wouldn’t have left Elio unguarded.
The first man never saw me coming. I wrapped my arm around his throat, yanking him back into the darkness. The crack of his snapping spine was lost to the wind.
Remi handled the next one, slipping through the night like a wraith. One second the guard was standing there, gun raised, the next his throat blossomed open like a second mouth.
The third saw what was happening and tried to run.
Remi tackled him to the ground. I crouched beside him, pressing a boot to his throat, watching with mild amusement as he choked on his breath.
“Where’s the boy?” I asked, voice eerily soft.
The man gargled something unintelligible. His answer didn’t matter. I pressed harder. Bones cracked. His body twitched, then stilled.
Remi wiped his blade clean on the dead man’s shirt and grinned. “Shall we?”
The door to the house groaned on its hinges, the inside suffocating with the stench of mildew and something darker.
Blood. We followed it like the hounds of hell. Past the crumbling wallpaper, past the rooms filled with broken furniture and discarded remnants of lives long forgotten.
Until we reached the entrance to the bunker. The door was padlocked. Remi pulled his bag off his shoulders and handed me some bolt cutters. They sliced through the metal like it was butter, and within seconds, it clattered on the ground.
I ripped it clean off the hinges. The stench hit us first.
Rot. Sweat. Terror.
A single dim bulb swung from the ceiling, casting jagged shadows across the room as a moth fluttered around it. The only sound was the slow drip of water seeping from the cracked, tiled walls.
Elio hung motionless from the rafters, a lifeless marionette strung up by men who had no business playing god. The bag over his head sagged slightly, his body shivering against the damp.
Not dead.
But not far from it.
Remi stepped forward first, blade already in his grip, flicking the edge of the bag up with the tip. The moment the air hit Elio’s face, he flinched.
“He’s alive,” Remi muttered, though there was something almost like disappointment in his tone. He grinned at me over his shoulder. “For now.”
Elio made a noise—half-strangled, half-panicked. He couldn’t see us, not yet, but he could feel us. The shift in the air, the cold presence of something worse than whatever had left him strung up like a slab of meat.
I grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him up, cutting the rope with a flick of my knife. His body crashed to the floor in a heap, limbs twitching as blood rushed back into them.
He coughed, a wet, painful sound, and gasped for breath. Then he stilled. Listening. He still didn’t know who we were.
Remi crouched beside him, grabbed the edge of the bag, and yanked it off.
Elio blinked rapidly, his pupils blown wide, confusion painted across his pale, sweat-slick face.
Then he saw me. His breath hitched. “Who…?” His voice was hoarse, barely more than a whisper.
I tilted my head. “You know who I am.”
Recognition flashed behind the exhaustion in his eyes. “Domino.”
“Good. Saves me an introduction.”
His gaze darted to Remi, who was watching him like a wolf watches an injured rabbit.
Elio swallowed hard. “Did my father send you?”
“He did,” I confirmed. “Don’t make me regret agreeing to this.”
Remi cut the ropes binding his wrists, and Elio hissed as the blood flooded back into them. He was weak. Starving. Broken. Federico had made sure of that.
Pathetic.
But not my problem.
“Can you walk?” I asked, already tired of this conversation.
Elio exhaled sharply through his nose and forced himself to his feet. His legs wobbled, but he stayed standing. Barely.
Remi clapped him on the back—too hard. Elio stumbled, and Remi snickered.
“Let’s go,” I said, already turning away. “We’re on borrowed time.”
The drive to the meeting point was silent.
Elio sat in the back, his eyes never leaving me. I felt them like needles against my skull, sharp and prying, filled with questions I wouldn’t answer.
Remi sprawled in the passenger seat, boots kicked up on the dash, flipping his knife between his fingers with practiced ease. Every so often, he’d glance back at Elio and smirk like he knew something Elio didn’t.
By the time we pulled up, the sky was a deep shade of bruised violet. The outskirts of Marlow Heights were deserted at this hour—nothing but empty roads, flickering street lights, and a gas station that hadn’t seen business in years.
Salvatore was waiting. He stood beside his car, face cast in shadow, shoulders rigid.
The moment he saw Elio, something in him cracked. He took a step forward, then another, his breath sharp and ragged. A tear slipped down his face, lost to the night.
Elio hesitated, unsure if this was real. Salvatore opened his arms, and after a beat, Elio collapsed into them.
For a long moment, they just stood there. Father and son.
I watched, detached, taking in the raw display of emotion with a kind of clinical curiosity. The concept of family was foreign to me.
Salvatore had fought for his son.
I couldn’t decide if that made him weak or terrifying. Eventually, he lifted his head, locking his gaze onto mine.
“You have my gratitude.” His voice was hoarse and thick with something that made my stomach twist. “I owe you.”
I stepped closer, my lips curling into a cold, thin smile. “You owe me more than gratitude, Salvatore.”
His breath hitched.
“You know what I want.”
A pause. A flicker of hesitation. Then—acceptance.
“You’ll get the truth,” he murmured, his fingers tightening around Elio’s shoulder. “Everything about your mother.”
Remi grinned, a demented, bloodthirsty thing.
I smirked back. “Good.”