Chapter 21 #2
Each strike landed with the same force. The attacker curled inward on the floor, coughing, trying to protect his ribs with bound hands that couldn’t move properly.
Behind him, Cassian watched with open delight. “God,” he said with a laugh. “This is going to be fun.”
Dominic grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt and dragged him upright.
He sagged in Dominic’s grip, legs barely holding him.
Cassian pushed off the wall and stepped behind the attacker, seizing the ties binding his wrists.
Before the man could understand what was happening, Cassian hauled his arms upward and back, forcing him toward the wall where a thick hook was bolted into the concrete.
He lifted the bound wrists over it. The man’s feet barely touched the floor now, toes scraping helplessly as his shoulders strained under his own weight.
Cassian stepped back and admired the arrangement. “There we go,” he said with satisfaction.
Dominic watched the man struggle for a moment. Helpless.
He stepped closer and the attacker tried to shrink away, but the hook held him exactly where he was. Dominic grabbed his jaw and forced his head up. “Who sent you?”
The man shook his head violently. “I—I don’t—”
Cassian reached into his jacket pocket. “Almost forgot,” he said. When his hand came back out, the knife was in it. The same blade the man had brought into the club. Cassian turned it slowly between his fingers, inspecting the edge like a man appraising a tool. “You dropped this,” he added.
The attacker’s breathing turned shallow.
Cassian’s smile widened. “Seems only fair we return it.” He offered it to Dominic, handle first. Dominic took it without looking away from the man. The blade was still stained where it had caught his arm earlier. He held it for a moment, testing the weight, saying nothing.
“Please—” The attacker’s voice cracked.
Dominic stepped closer until he was standing directly in front of him.
The man’s back pressed harder into the wall as if he could somehow sink into it.
“You tried to kill me,” Dominic said quietly.
Then he drove the knife into the man’s thigh, careful to avoid the major arteries that would have ended this too soon.
He wanted him in agony, not dying. Not yet.
There were still answers he needed first.
The scream tore loose instantly. The blade slid deep through muscle before he yanked it back out. Blood welled up fast, streaking down the man’s leg and dripping onto the floor.
Dominic stepped back half a pace and watched the man fight for breath as the pain hit him in waves. “Who sent you?”
The attacker gasped, shaking his head, trying to force words through the pain. “I don’t—I swear I don’t—”
Dominic stepped forward again. This time the knife punched into the other thigh. The scream that followed was louder, broken by a choking sob as the blade tore free. The man sagged against the wall, legs trembling, blood running down both legs now, soaking into his shoes.
“Isn’t he going to bleed out before he talks?” came Knox’s voice from behind him, sounding hesitant.
Cassian let out a short laugh. “Relax, kid. He knows exactly where not to stick a knife if he wants someone alive. Man’s basically a surgeon when he wants to be.”
Dominic didn’t bother replying to either of them.
He turned to look at Knox instead. He was still standing in the doorway where he’d been since they entered, but he wasn’t the same as when they’d walked in.
A faint flush had risen along his neck and cheekbones.
His lips had parted slightly. The focus in his eyes was sharp and unwavering as his gaze moved over the man hanging against the wall.
Then his eyes snapped back to Dominic, locking onto him with an intensity that was almost palpable.
And there was nothing reluctant in it.
Not fear. Not disgust.
Something else entirely.
If anything, Knox looked more alive than Dominic had ever seen him. He held his stare for a moment, trying to place the expression, and arrived at a realization that should not have surprised him as much as it did.
Knox wasn’t enduring this.
He was enjoying it.
Cassian must have noticed the same thing, because he let out a delighted bark of laughter. “Oh, now that is not the reaction I was expecting.”
With only the three of them as witnesses, Knox didn’t look embarrassed at being caught.
Here, he had nothing to apologize for and he knew it.
But there was a flicker of awareness in his eyes, an acknowledgment that outside these walls, in the normal world, this kind of fascination would be met with a very different reaction.
Dominic watched him for another second, then turned back to the man on the hook. “Who sent you?”
The attacker’s breathing had turned frantic, each inhale hitching as the pain in his legs pulsed through him. His head hung forward before he forced it up. “I don’t—”
Dominic moved before the excuse could finish. The blade slid into his side, careful to avoid any organs. He left it there for a moment, feeling him jerk helplessly before pulling the knife free.
The man sagged forward as much as the hook allowed, gasping.
Dominic waited.
The man opened his mouth, a choked sound emerging instead of words. He sucked in a desperate breath, his chest heaving with the effort. “Please,” he managed.
Dominic stepped closer, the knife a cool threat against the sweat-slick skin. “Who sent you?” The blade pressed a fraction harder, underlining the question.
A pause.
“Last chance.”
The composure finally cracked. “Mercer!” The word burst out of him, forced loose under pressure. “Mercer sent me—”
Dominic went still.
Beside him, Cassian let out a short laugh. “Well. That tracks.”
“Victor Mercer,” Dominic said. Not a question.
The attacker nodded frantically, sweat running down his face. “He… he said it was payback. Said you killed some of his men a couple weeks ago. Said you had it coming.”
Dominic wiped the blade against the man’s blood-soaked shirt. “If Mercer wants revenge, he should have come himself.” He stepped back. “Tell me everything he told you. Don’t leave anything out.”
The man hung there for a long moment. When he finally spoke, the words came out in broken bursts, each sentence dragged out through pain and exhaustion. Dominic listened without interrupting.
Apparently, Mercer had been watching Dominic’s operations for months.
Growing increasingly angry about how much territory Dominic controlled and how far his influence stretched.
Mercer had started talking about it openly to his men: how one man shouldn’t hold that much power.
Parts of it should belong to someone else.
To him. He’d been looking for a way to start cutting pieces out for himself.
And then several of his men had turned up dead a few weeks ago, turning that anger into something more urgent.
The instructions had been simple: watch the club every night until Dominic showed up. When he did, get close, and make sure he didn’t walk back out.
Dominic absorbed the information. Mercer had always been a coward. He sent others, men who received messages through disposable phones that disappeared as quickly as they arrived. Even the people on his payroll rarely knew where he actually was.
“Well,” Cassian said. “That answers that.”
Dominic didn’t reply. He stepped forward. The attacker saw the movement and panic flashed across his face before Dominic drove the knife between his ribs—clean and precise, directly into the heart. The body jerked once against the hook before going still.
The only sound in the cell was the slow drip of blood onto concrete.
Dominic pulled the knife free and set it on the nearby workbench without bothering to clean it. Only then did he turn.
Knox had moved. He was no longer in the doorway. At some point in those final moments he had stepped inside the cell. Now, he stood a few feet from the body, staring at the man slumped against the wall with an expression that was still entirely untroubled.
Cassian stepped closer. “You alright there, kid?”
Knox’s gaze lingered. “Yeah.” A slight pause. “He had it coming.”
Cassian huffed out a laugh, clearly pleased with the answer.
Dominic said nothing. His eyes stayed on Knox a moment longer before he turned toward the sink in the corner to wash the blood off his hands.
Two things had become crystal clear.
Mercer had just started a full-out war.
And Knox was considerably more dangerous than Dominic had given him credit for.