Epilogue 2 Zver
STILL TWO MONTHS LATER
“D ante’s death was inevitable,” I explain to Roman.
Stone faced and sweating, he doesn’t budge.
“Meh.” I shrug. “A little anti-climactic if you ask me. Everyone’s deaths are inevitable. Right?”
I slap him in the shoulder where I just twisted the last screw into bone. He wails against the ball gag.
It took nearly the super pack of them from Lowe’s to find out exactly what I wanted to know. Plus I had to make him vanish and make it look like some bullshit fallout from Andre D’Angelo.
Pay attention. Genius in progress.
A knock sounds at the door. Which is fine. I’m out of screws and after a week of this sweatbox, I could use a break. “Enter.”
Dominic eyes the scene, then me. He’s carrying a tray with water and cookies. Which I will shove into my mouth like marshmallows.
After I wash off the blood, of course.
He frowns, eying me. “You’re still in the mask?”
I shrug. “Big reveal and all.”
With understanding, he nods. “Want me to take over?” he asks, cautious like I might snap.
Can’t say as I blame him.
Between keeping Zapretnaya far enough away to not detonate the whole goddamn operation, keeping her safe , and keeping a muzzle on my cock while she struts around flipping off every camera I own—half the time naked ?—
Yeah. I’m barely fucking hanging on.
But with Roman handled and the next phase in full swing, I’ll make good on my promise.
To break her.
So. Fucking. Slow.
“No, thanks,” I answer, cracking my knuckles. “I’m good.”
Then I backhand Roman with the force of an executioner’s swing. He jolts awake.
Chokes on a sob—guttural, gagged, and so fucking pathetic it’s music to my ears.
A muffled please tears from his chest like it’s been hiding there for far too long.
Dominic hands me the water.
I take a slow sip. Cold. Measured.
“You almost had me fooled, Roman,” I say, voice low. “I actually thought I could trust you.”
Something feral claws from his throat. A noise. A protest. It sounds vaguely like you can trust me.
I attach a small lead to one of the screws, tightening it with care.
“Trust you to fuck me over, you mean?”
I twist on another lead.
This one? To the screw in his dick.
“Yup. Got the message. Loud and clear.”
My leather-gloved hand grabs his face, fingers digging into the screw embedded in his cheek.
He flinches hard—blood seeping, breath stuttering.
“I’m only going to ask you once, Roman.”
I quiet my voice to a deadly calm.
“Is that everything you know?”
His eyes flutter, convulsing into desperate nods.
“Y-yes!” he screams. Or something close enough.
“Good.”
I take another sip, slow and deliberate. Then, I remove my mask and pour the rest of the water over Roman’s head, ensuring mine is the last face he sees.
He gasps like it’s baptism. It’s not.
And because I’m a magnanimous son of a bitch, I gesture toward Dominic.
“Care to do the honors?”
Considering Roman threatened everyone in his bloodline—including his sweet little babushka —I throw the bastard a bone.
With a satisfied smirk, he flips the switch, and Roman lights up like a human fucking candle. Because if you think revenge is best served cold, try irony .
It’s not the charred skin. Not the fire shooting out of his fucking chest.
It’s the smell that gets you.
After a minute, it settles in. Thick. Acidic. A full-blown literal barbecue of burnt betrayal.
I flip on the exhaust and shake my head.
Hours of blood-soaked cleanup, and no Mateo to sweep in behind me.
Or Dillon.
Or Smoke.
And Enzo? His hand-dirtying ends at torture.
Sadness claws at my chest for the thousandth time today.
A scab I rip off daily just to feel it bleed.
Because that’s the thing. This isn’t something I get to come back from. No phone-a-brother for a lifeline. No mid-torture pep talk.
That ship didn’t just set sail. It fucking sank. Titanic -style.
Carefully crafted plan, meet fuck-you-in-the-ass consequences.
To the world, I really did die.
Maybe not in body, but in all the irreversible, soul-fucking ways that counts.
My family and friends… they mourned me.
Buried me.
Live each and every day with the memory of me.
Never knowing I’m still here.
Still… with them.
But goddammit, I had no choice.
My uncle’s tentacles reached farther than any of us ever fucking imagined.
Every time I peeled back a layer of hell trying to find our father, more appeared. A colossal clusterfuck of a Russian doll.
Open one?
Another chamber of secrets. Another locked door.
There was only one way in—and one way out.
The lie that I can never return from.
I. Am. Zver.
The beast.
A name I will carry for the rest of my life.
Passed down from my grandfather—the real fucking crazy one.
His torture blueprints?
Epic.
Mine will be too.
The Keenans. The cartels. Even fucking Andre.
They all trust Zver.
Because Zver killed Dante. And we made sure everyone knew.
Dominic moves fast—killing the power, yanking leads with practiced hands. “They have a meeting tonight,” he mutters, efficient as he works. “Andre D’Angelo and…”
“Emilio,” I say, breathing fire as I speak. I grit my teeth. Time for another bad apple to fall. Shit, which reminds me. “I need something from the?—”
“Bunker?” He nods. “New tattoos?”
Dominic reads my mind, already knowing a new set has been delivered.
My tattoo artist sends fresh sets every week. An exclusive product from the best in the world. Ghost ink. No trace. No questions.
Just clean sheets of temporary tattoos, each one made to last a month, though they never fucking do. Hence the stockpile.
With Dante, lethal serpents. For Zver, rose-covered skulls. An homage to my girl. Pretty on the outside. Fucking lethal underneath.
None of it’s permanent.
It can’t be. Not yet.
“I’ll be taking Ms. Mullvain on her usual errands. I can drop by the church.”
Father Marc. My trusted agent. The man is a fucking vault.
And my stand-in when Zver and Dante needed to be seen in the same room.
And the only man who can get within five feet of the secret bunker without raising suspicion—considering it sits smack between St. Michael’s and the bank.
Which, by design, shielded us from the blast.
Well. Almost.
Dominic’s hand reminds me every fucking day: Stick to the plan.
When Trinity called out, I almost answered. Almost gave in.
Dominic yanked me through the doorway just as the fire kissed my back—and scorched his hand.
But after over two months, the scars have all but healed.
On the surface, at least.
I nod. “Bring cash.”
The three women holed up down there—fresh rescues from that fucking auction.
Twenty-two down. Nine to go.
The loss of three will be taken out on Emilio’s ears, eyelids, and balls. In that order.
“The cemetery again?” I ask, peeling off my gloves and scrubbing my hands in the utility sink.
He nods. “Every day.”
I know.
Two cameras hidden inside.
She lays on my tombstone and sobs.
So fucking weird?—
And somehow, watching the only woman to hate me wish I was alive?
It’s sick.
It’s fucked.
And it turns me on so hard I can’t stop watching.
Which is why of everything I’ve had to lose—my brothers, my sister, my goddamn life— she was the one thing I couldn’t let go of.
I won’t let go of.
My sweet forbidden fruit.
The ultimate taboo.
My greatest weakness.
And the one person whose life depends on her never knowing Dante D’Angelo is alive. No matter how close I keep her.
“She’s also going to the pharmacy.”
“Again?” I shove a cookie in my mouth, chewing slowly. “Wasn’t she just there yesterday?” I swallow and shrug. “How many tampons does one woman need? Nevermind. I really don’t want to know.”
He offers another cookie.
I take it. Think .
She better not be trying to run again.
Because I am fresh out of mercy.
Just ask Roman. He’d tell you if he still had a tongue.
Dominic drops his eyes to his shoes. “I’m pretty sure that’s not it.”
I roll my eyes.
Twenty fucking questions? Now?
After the torture fest I just ran?
Jesus. How many times to I have to say it? It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
“Spit. It. Out.”
He hesitates. “She threw something away. I saw it in the trash.”
My smile lifts, easy. Crooked.
“I know. My note.”
That’s me, ever the charmer.
“No… something else was in there. A box. A, uh…”
By this point, I’m ready to rip the words from his lungs. So instead, I check my phone, and examine the feed.
Holy fuck. “Is that a…”
“Pregnancy test,” he says softly.
And just like that, the air shifts.
The room spins.
Takes about three seconds to get my bearings.
Absently, I eat another cookie without thinking, because apparently my nervous system runs on adrenaline and sugar. After two more, I snap my head on straight.
First things first:
I, lord of eternal darkness and damnation,
am going to be a father .
What the fuck hits me like a cattle prod to the heart.
And I’m too covered in blood and knee-deep in Torture Guy cleanup to fully process that now, but believe you me, I fucking will.
Second:
For trying to keep this from me, Zapretnaya will take the full weight of my wrath.
All of it.
To the hilt.
Damn well starting tonight.
Riley.
My forbidden fruit.
My Pom.
* * *
Thank you for diving into SINS: The Contract !
I hope you loved getting swept into Dante SINS: The Beast