Epilogue
Knox
Six months later
Knox stood alone in the bathroom, facing the mirror in nothing but black boxers. Nine months ago his skin had looked like a crime scene. Torn apart. A body that shouldn’t have been able to piece itself back together.
Tonight, it just looked… lived-in. White seams and raised ridges crisscrossed his body, mapping every place where he’d been broken and every place that had refused to stay that way.
His thumb traced a long scar beneath his ribs. There had been a time when he couldn’t look at himself without feeling like something had been taken from him.
That time was over.
The scars weren’t damage. They were evidence that he’d been pushed as far as a person could go—and held.
His hand rose to the clover at his neck.
The skin had healed, but the mark was permanent.
It had been meant to reduce him to something powerless.
But Dominic had taken the same shape and carved it into his own skin.
In doing that, he rewrote the meaning. It was no longer something done to Knox.
It was something they shared. Something that said more than words ever could.
The door behind him opened. Knox’s gaze lifted, catching Dominic in the mirror as he stepped into view. He was dressed in a dark suit, fitted to perfection. It was almost unfair how naturally power sat on him, how effortlessly he wore it.
Knox looked at him in the reflection. Dominic’s attention moved over Knox slowly—every mark, every line, every inch of bare skin—with the unhurried focus of a man looking at what he considered his.
He stepped closer. The space between them disappeared, his hands settling low on Knox’s hips. Knox leaned back into him without hesitation, their eyes still locked in the mirror.
Dominic’s hand moved, thumb brushing up along Knox’s throat until it settled over the clover. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
Knox let his head drop back against Dominic’s shoulder.
There were still traces of the old insecurities that surfaced now and then—instincts, fears that didn’t vanish just because his life had changed.
They came less often now. When they did, they carried less weight.
Easier to recognize for what they were: leftovers from a version of himself that no longer existed.
Because this was real.
Dominic had made that much clear in every possible way.
“Get dressed,” Dominic said. “Meeting’s in fifteen minutes.”
Knox nodded. “Has everyone arrived?”
“All of them.”
Tonight had been set in motion long before this moment. Once a year, the most important men in Dominic’s operation gathered in the same room—part meeting, part tradition, part reminder of who they answered to.
Tonight, Dominic was going to walk into that room and change something fundamental.
“They won’t like it,” Knox said.
Dominic’s gaze met his in the mirror. “They don’t have to.”
He wasn’t bringing Knox into that room to stand in the background. He was going to put him in front of every man who mattered and make it clear exactly where Knox stood.
At his side. As his.
Men like the ones waiting downstairs lived and died by one thing—power.
Who had it, who could take it, and who could hold it without anyone else daring to try.
Being straight wasn’t simply assumed; it was woven into the very idea of what a man was supposed to be.
Anything else was a flaw, a weakness, a mark against a man’s worth.
Tonight, Dominic was about to stand in front of them and make it clear that none of that bullshit was accepted here. That was the thing about Dominic. He didn’t reshape himself to fit the world around him. The world reshaped itself around him, or it broke trying.
* * *
Nearly fifty men filled the warehouse conference room.
Every eye was on them as they stood at the head of a giant mahogany table.
“Last thing,” Dominic said as he reached down, took Knox’s hand, and laced their fingers together.
“From tonight forward, Knox Wolfe speaks with my authority. His word carries the same weight as mine in every room. You don’t question it.
You don’t test it. You treat him the way you treat me. ”
The room erupted in murmurs. Some men nodded in assent, while others exchanged glances that carried considerably less agreement. Knox felt the scrutiny crawl over his skin, but he kept his spine straight and his face calm. One man near the front scoffed. Loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Is there a problem?” Dominic asked.
The man hesitated; he knew better. They all did. He pushed anyway. “Just trying to understand,” he said, his gaze sliding over Knox with open dismissal. “You’re putting him on equal ground with us.”
Dominic’s head tilted. “No.”
Relief flickered across the man’s face.
“I’m placing him above you.”
The shift wasn’t subtle this time—voices broke through at once, chairs scraping, tempers showing through the cracks.
Dominic let it happen.
One of the older men leaned forward. “You’re serious about this?”
“Deadly,” Dominic said.
A laugh cut through the noise. Knox’s eyes found the source, a man halfway down the table, posture loose, seemingly untouched by the tension choking the room. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You expect us to show respect to some cock-hungry little faggot you decided to keep in your bed?”
The room held its breath.
Dominic moved. One second, his hands were empty. The next, his gun was up and the man’s head snapped back. His body slumped in the chair, slid sideways, and hit the floor with a sound that echoed louder than the gunshot.
Nobody moved.
Dominic looked at the body for exactly one second before looking back at the room. “Hendrix forgot where he stood. Let me be clear. I do not tolerate disloyalty. And I will never tolerate disrespect aimed at the man I claim. If you cannot abide by that, you will join Hendrix on the floor.”
Nobody breathed.
Dominic placed the gun on the table. “If this makes you uncomfortable, this is your one chance to leave. I won’t stop you.”
He let the silence expand until it felt painful. One by one, eyes lowered. Not a single man stood.
Dominic’s lips curved. He raised his voice for the room. “Tonight’s business is finished. Celebrate, pay your respects to the dead if you must, and remember who you answer to.”
He nodded once to Cassian. The side door opened and the mood of the room flipped like a coin.
Music surged from speakers, models in sequined lingerie filed in carrying trays of top-shelf whiskey, tequila, and champagne.
Another server wheeled in a cart stacked with Cuban cigars.
Applause broke out as the men moved toward the women and the liquor, relief loosening shoulders that had been locked rigid thirty seconds ago.
Dominic steered Knox toward the private exit that led to an empty office. Nobody blocked their path. Some stepped aside as though even brushing Dominic’s sleeve might be fatal.
He ushered Knox through the door, kicked it shut, and had him against the brick before the latch caught. His hand cupped Knox’s jaw as he kissed him, one hard, searing press of his mouth that ended before Knox could chase it. “Speak,” Dominic said. “Whatever’s in your head, give it to me.”
Knox drew a breath. “You executed a man because he insulted me.”
Dominic shrugged off his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair. “What did he think was going to happen? He knew the stakes. He chose wrong.”
Knox faced him fully. “They’ll only listen to me because they fear you.”
Dominic crossed the space in three strides and wrapped his hand around the back of Knox’s neck. “Fear is a decent place to start,” he said. “Respect follows when you prove you deserve it. When they see you make the right calls.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Then I’m behind you. You stumble, I steady you.”
Knox huffed a dry laugh. “I spent years thinking leaning on someone was a liability.”
Dominic’s smile turned dangerous. “Only if you tie yourself to the wrong monster.” He tapped the clover below his ear. “I made my choice.”
Knox reached up, curled a hand in Dominic’s shirt, and pulled him close. “I fucking love you.”
Every man in that room would remember the night Dominic Rivera crowned the boy he found in an alley as his prince—and spilled blood to seal the oath.
The End