Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
REMI
T he elite never ceased to amaze me. With battle lines drawn across the city and whispers of an impending curfew, they paid it no mind. They clung to their gilded delusions, celebrating art and wealth as though the ground beneath them wasn’t shifting. As though judgment day wasn’t coming.
But it was. And when Marlow Heights was burnt to the ground and rivers of blood flowed through the streets, their world of excess and ignorance would crumble.
Yet, here we were, in tailored tuxedos, slipping into a world that would soon be unrecognizable. The invitation to The Elysian Chamber had arrived like a taunt, a reminder that some still believed themselves untouchable. It meant nothing to me, nothing more than a momentary distraction, a lure that we hoped would draw Federico from whatever sewer he’d buried himself in. We had dismantled his empire piece by piece, but he refused to rise to the bait. Tonight, that changed.
The moment the SUV rolled up to the entrance, the red carpet unfurled before us like a sacrificial altar. Flashing lights exploded from every angle, a frenzy of journalists desperate for a glimpse of the elusive Demarco heir. The press lined the velvet ropes like a swarm of hungry piranhas, each hoping to rip a soundbite from Domino’s lips, to capture a photo that would make their career. But they were nothing more than noise.
Inside the car, the air was thick with the scent of bloodlust. Ghost glanced in the rearview mirror as he shifted the vehicle into park. His expression was sharp, a predator coiled and ready to strike. “I’ve got cameras everywhere. If he shows, we’ll see him.”
Domino exhaled a quiet laugh, the sound dark and knowing. “He’d be a fool to show.” His rings caught the dim glow of the streetlights as he scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “It’ll be a massacre. He’ll lose whatever traction he’s deluded himself into thinking he’s gained.”
I slid my fingers through his, tightening my grip. “We’re not here only for him, though.”
His lips curled into a wicked smirk, eyes gleaming with something raw and consuming. “I know we’re not, piccolo agnello.”
“Good.”
“Tonight is just reconnaissance, though.”
I barely held back an eye roll, sinking my teeth into my bottom lip to suppress the hunger clawing at my insides. They wanted patience. Restraint. But my mind was already painting the scene of his suffering in vivid, visceral detail.
Casius Moreau. A name that dripped from the lips of the elite like he was something to be revered. They celebrated him—but I saw the rot beneath the mask. The monster was draped in silk and civility, hiding behind wealth and power.
I was going to strip him bare.
Tear away the facade, expose the filth beneath, and make him choke on the same cruelty he had inflicted on others. Reconnaissance could wait. His reckoning was coming.
“Remi,” Domino growled. A warning. A promise.
His hands were on me in an instant, curling around the back of my neck and hauling me into him. His mouth claimed mine with ruthless possession, his tongue sweeping between my lips, stealing the words before they could escape. The heat of him ignited something in me, something untamed and insatiable. It wasn’t just lust—it was power, it was blood, it was the promise of devastation wrapped in a lover’s embrace.
“Ahem.” Ghost cleared his throat, amusement lacing his voice. “You can suck face later.” He chuckled as he slipped out of the car, moving to open Domino’s door.
With a lingering smirk, Domino pulled back, his thumb dragging over my lower lip as if savoring the taste of control. Then, he stepped out into the waiting chaos.
The Elysian Chamber was an opulent beast, built to house the egos of those who considered themselves gods. Marble columns loomed over the entrance, the gold-gilded doors yawning open like the mouth of some insatiable entity. Inside, chandeliers dripped with crystal and refracted the light into a kaleidoscope of wealth. The scent of aged wine and expensive perfume clashed with the ever-present tension in the air.
Every movement was calculated, every glance a silent power struggle. Men in suits and women draped in diamonds hovered around overpriced artwork, sipping champagne as though the world wasn’t teetering on the edge of war. They had no idea that tonight, the blood they spilled their fortunes to avoid would finally stain their polished floors.
Domino walked through it like he owned the place, and in many ways, he did. Every eye followed him, some filled with curiosity, others with fear.
They should be afraid. Not just of him. Of me. They didn’t realize his shadow was just as sadistic, as ruthless. Just as hungry.
Women flocked to Domino as we prowled through the crowd, their bodies pressing against him like he was their salvation or damnation—they didn’t care which, as long as he would give them the time of day. Their fingers curled around his arms, their lips brushing against his ear, their bodies arching, offering, begging.
Pathetic. All of them. The women who threw themselves at him and the men who eyed him like he was their meal ticket to greatness. All too willing to deal with the devil for their own gains.
I knew his history. Knew how easily he took what was offered—men, women, enbies alike. He wasn’t picky. If he wanted, he took. A hole to fill. A body to use.
But I’d changed that.
I’d awakened something in him that had lay dormant, something feral and obsessive. A need that coiled around his ribs and sank its claws into his gut.
And he’d done the same to me.
He had set me free, shown me who I really was. I was never going back into the box society had forced me into, not now. I understood what it took to make myself whole.
A girl in a black sequined dress, with blond hair piled on top of her head, stepped toward him, dismissing me entirely. That was her first mistake. Her fingers, delicate and manicured, smoothed over his chest, her lips grazing the sharp edge of his jaw.
That was her second mistake.
I felt it before I saw it—the way Domino’s body went rigid, the way his amusement soured into something cold and merciless. She didn’t matter.
“Domino,” she purred, saccharine and hopeful. “It’s been a while.”
His lip curled in disgust. Peeling her fingers away like they were diseased.
“Has it?” His voice was cruel, detached, designed to cut deep and open a festering wound. “Can’t say I remember you.”
Her face burned scarlet. “W-what?” she stammered, utterly lost.
“Do I know you?” he taunted, voice a lazy drawl, eyes flicking toward mine. A claim. A warning. A promise.
“We… we met at the?—”
“Have you met my Remi?” he cut her off smoothly, his arm curling around my waist, yanking me against him. The smirk on his lips was razor-sharp when her eyes widened.
“Say hello to him.”
Her sweat-slicked palm met my cold skin, and my stomach coiled with revulsion. I let her touch me. Let her think for a fraction of a second she was safe.
Domino’s entire body darkened. The air around him vibrated like a deadly current.
“Hands off what’s not yours, whore.”
She flinched, eyes going wide as he stepped into her space.
“S-sorry,” she whimpered, and then ran, disappearing into the crowd.
I chuckled, low and quiet. “Possessive much?”
Instead of answering, Domino crushed me against him. Caging. Consuming. His hands framed my face, thumbs stroking over my cheekbones, his presence suffocating in the best way.
His gaze drilled into mine, blackened with obsession.
“You are the only thing I see.”
His lips crashed into mine, a brutal claim, his tongue tangled with mine like he was branding me from the inside out. People were watching, their stares raising the hairs on the back of my neck—some envious, some horrified.
I didn’t care. Neither did he. When he finally pulled away, my mind spun, my body aching from the loss. And then I saw him.
Casius Moreau.
A devil wrapped in fine tailoring, his laughter a blade disguised as silk. He stood in the center of the gallery, holding court, a predator among sheep, his voice rich with charm—but his eyes…
His eyes betrayed him.
They flicked to the girl at his side, a delicate, trembling thing, her head bowed, arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to disappear. His gaze crawled over her like she was something to be devoured.
Something inside me snarled. He was the kind of monster that needed to be exterminated. He thrived on suffering, bathed in the misery of the weak, and called it art.
Soon, he would become my greatest masterpiece.
His breaths were numbered. I would be his judge, jury, and executioner.
“Welcome.” Casius’s smile was a well-rehearsed lie, straight white teeth gleaming as he held out his hand, the confidence of a man who thought himself untouchable.
He wasn’t.
Domino loomed beside me, his monster pacing behind his eyes.
“Casius.” His tone was clipped. He didn’t take the offered hand.
The rejection left Moreau floundering, his smile faltering before he masked it with forced charm.
While his attention was focused on Domino, I wondered how his blood would look painting these walls.
How best to display his corpse for maximum effect… when they eventually found him.
Would they be horrified? Or amazed? Would they see the beauty in my creation?
Casius cleared his throat, his mask settling back into place. “Thank you for coming to the opening of my gallery, showcasing my latest exhibition.”
Domino arched a brow. “It’s not your gallery, though, is it?”
Casius flinched. “Well, I mean…”
The air thickened, and tension crawled across my skin like ants. The crowd around us thinned, sensing danger but too self-absorbed to truly acknowledge it.
“It’s all thanks to the Mayor, isn’t it?” Domino continued, voice laced with something sharp. A trap closing.
Casius swallowed. “No one in this industry gets anywhere without investors. Artists don’t earn big right away?—”
“But it’s not money that drives you, is it?” I cut in smoothly.
His steel-gray eyes flicked to the girl beside him before landing on mine. He knew.
He knew I saw him.
His mask cracked. Just for a second. Just enough.
“It’s a combination of multiple elements that inspire my work,” he murmured. His hand clenched into a fist at his side. The girl at his side jumped as if she expected a blow.
My jaw tightened, rage coiling hot beneath my skin. My tongue ran across my teeth at the sour taste he filled my lungs with. We played the game of pleasantries—masks and hidden knives—but my mind was already spinning through the steps of his destruction. Tightening and refining, distilling it into perfection.
Domino, beside me, looked detached, but I felt the way he stiffened under Moreau’s scrutiny.
Sizing him up.
Marking him for death.
“We’re done here.”
Domino spun on his heel, phone in hand, knuckles white as his grip tightened.
My pulse spiked. “What is it?”
He moved fast, cutting through the crowd, his entire body coiled like a spring.
“Something tripped the silent alarm at Nocturne.” His voice was low, edged in violence. “All the cameras are out.”
My breath hitched. “Federico?”
“I assume so.” His jaw was clenched. “I’ve sent Ghost to clear the club.”
I exhaled sharply, my fingers flexing at my sides. The blade strapped to my arm burned white hot. “This is what we wanted.”
“Yes. This ends tonight.”
Domino agreed, the finality of his words wrapping me in blood-coated shadows that whispered of retribution and death like the sweetest poison.
His pace never faltered as we strode through the darkened streets of Marlow Heights.
The city was quiet. Too quiet. Its silent eyes tracking our every movement. Streetlights flickered uselessly, failing to cut through the suffocating blackness that loomed over us like an omen. Something slithered through my chest, a whisper of foreboding.
The taste of death that coated my tongue ignited a fire in my veins that would burn until I was coated in blood.
The world blurred as we moved—shadows folding around us, shielding us, devouring us whole. We crisscrossed through alleyways, slipping between buildings, taking routes even rats would hesitate to crawl. If someone followed us, they would be dealt with. Silenced before they even knew we’d spotted them.
Tonight, we were the hunters.
“Salvatore,” Domino murmured into his phone, voice a blade against the dark. “Gather everyone and prepare for war.”
The trap had been sprung.
The hairs on my nape prickled as the darkness inside me stirred, stretching, uncoiling, ready to be unleashed.
A pause. A breath.
“Yes,” Domino murmured, voice dropping lower. “Valentin, too.”
A shiver ran through me. The kill team. No loose ends. No survivors. This would be the end of the DeMarco line.
Domino dragged a hand through his hair, tension laced in every movement. As we rounded the alley that faced Nocturne, the world seemed to slow.
The faint rumble of idling taxi engines.
Drunken laughter spilled into the streets.
Shattered conversations carried on the mist-thickened air.
Domino lit a cigarette, the flame briefly illuminating the sharp angles of his face, the hunger in his eyes. Then he passed it to me, his attention already shifting back to Salvatore as he continued speaking.
I inhaled deeply, the burn grounding me as I toyed with the small tracker Ghost had given me. Federico’s last rites were already written.
Across the street, we watched the last of Nocturne’s patrons slip into their waiting cars. Watched as Ghost eased into Domino’s SUV, disappearing into the night to wait for the signal.
We weren’t deluded. We knew this was a trap. That Federico wanted us to come, to play into his hands.
But sometimes, you had to dance with the devil in his own kind of madness.
And Domino?
Domino had never been afraid of fire. Neither of us were afraid of getting burned.
The cherry of the cigarette sizzled out in a puddle at my feet.
A funeral pyre for what came next.
We moved, silent as death itself, crossing the street and slipping into the club through the rear staff entrance. The new locks were intact—but the busted security camera above the door told us everything we needed to know.
Federico had been here.
The air inside was thick with betrayal, with the cloying stench of sweat, sex, and old sins. We ascended the stairs two at a time. My pulse beat against my ribs like a war drum.
The office door was ajar. A sliver of light leaked into the dim corridor, accompanied by the soft rustle of papers, the muttered curses of a man searching for something he would never find.
Domino lifted a hand. A signal to wait.
Gun drawn, he stepped closer. His dark gaze flicked back to mine, pinning me in place, voice a whispered command that wrapped around my spine.
“Stay with me.”
I felt his obsession like a noose around my throat.
“Always.”
His lips parted, just slightly. Satisfaction. Possession. Then he nodded, raised his gun, and nudged the door open.
The silence settled like a coffin lid snapping shut.
I followed him in, blade slipping from its sheath, my free hand still toying with the tracker, rolling it between my fingers.
There he was. Federico.
Bent over Domino’s desk, frantically rifling through drawers, his desperation a tangible thing in the stale air.
He froze.
Then, slowly, he straightened. His ill-fitting suit wrinkled around him, his once-polished appearance now tarnished by exhaustion and failure. The lines on his face had deepened. The bags beneath his eyes were carved trenches of anxiety.
But the hatred?
It burned brightly.
He scoffed, smoothing his hands down his lapels like he was still a man worth fearing. “Domino.” His voice was tight. Controlled and biting. “Took your time.”
Domino took a slow step forward, gun never wavering. “I knew you wouldn’t find anything. So why rush?”
Federico’s lips twitched. “Did I interrupt an important evening?” His gaze flicked over Domino’s suit, the dark silk still pristine despite the night’s bloodstained promises.
“No.”
Just one word. It hit like a gunshot.
Federico flinched.
I pressed a hand to my lips, hiding a grin.
His eyes flicked to me, and the way his gaze curdled made my skin prickle with pleasure.
“You’re still alive, then?” Disgust dripped from his voice.
I smiled. Sharp. Hungry. “Surprise.”
His jaw flexed.
I tilted my head. “Bet you’re dying to know why.”
A flicker of unease. The barest hesitation flowed through his features.
“Like I give a fuck about Domino’s little fucktoys,” he spat.
My grin widened. “Mmm. Shame you’ll never know the real reason he kept me around… until it’s too late.”
Federico bristled, but I saw the doubt—the fear—that flared before he buried it beneath his ego.
“You could never hurt someone like me.”
I almost laughed. It was adorable that he thought this version of himself—this frail, aging husk of a man—could ever compare to the ghost of who he once was.
Domino stepped closer to me. His breath was slow, measured. His finger flexed on the trigger but didn’t pull.
Not yet.
We knew how this game worked. Federico wasn’t going to beg. Not right away. He’d try to spin his web and weave the illusion that he was still the one holding the leash.
But tonight?
Tonight, we would give him just enough rope to hang himself.
And when the sun rose?
The only ones left standing in the smoldering wreckage of the DeMarco empire would be those who had bled for our cause.
Federico leaned against the desk, crossing one leg over the other at the ankle, his hands braced behind him in a desperate attempt to appear at ease.
He was drowning.
The sweat at his temples, the slight tremor in his fingers as he forced himself to remain still. Tells even a blind man could see. The old bastard could play the role of the dominant for only so long, but we saw him for what he was.
A man barely keeping his head above water. A man being pushed towards the edge of a cliff, too weak to decide to jump, but he’d fall so beautifully with a knife lodged in his spine.
“They don’t really want you, you know,” he drawled, his voice coated in false bravado as he gestured loosely toward Domino. “The Gallos. They just want Marlow Heights. The power that comes with it.”
Domino’s lips barely twitched, more scoff than smirk, his dark gaze sliding to me before returning to Federico. Unbothered. Unmoved. “I already have everything I want.”
Everything.
The weight of those words wrapped around me, thick as chains.
Federico laughed, a sharp, ugly sound, his head tilting back as he let it spill into the stale air. It wasn’t amusement. Not really. It was madness—the fractured edges of a man who had already lost but refused to accept it.
His smirk cut through the dim light like a blade. Sharp. Cruel. Poisoned.
“Didn’t you learn from your whore of a mother?” he sneered, voice dripping with venom. “Love only leads to death. It’s a worthless emotion that makes you weak.”
The air shifted. Domino stepped closer, slow and deliberate, his presence expanding, darkening, consuming every bit of air.
“No, old man.” His voice was razor-edged, laced with something lethal that coiled through the room like smoke before a wildfire. “Love makes me unstoppable.”
Federico’s smirk faltered. It was barely a flicker. A fleeting hesitation. But I saw it. It was the moment he heard them—the drums of war.
He knew.
He knew this was the beginning of his end.
His expression twisted, masking his unease with another sneer. One last act of defiance.
“You prepared to die for him?” he spat.
Domino tilted his head, gaze still fixed, still unreadable.
He didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.
His next words were deathly quiet.
“I’ve killed for him.” A pregnant pause. “I’d die for him in a heartbeat.” Another step. “And I’d never regret it.”
Federico went still. Something passed over his face, a flicker of something ugly. Something like… fear.
His lips curled in disgust, but I saw the color drain from his skin. I saw the moment he realized that Domino wasn’t the same boy he had once controlled.
“I see this was a mistake,” he finally bit out, voice cracking just enough to be noticed.
He spat at Domino, his rage unraveling in real-time, flecks of saliva catching the dim light as his chest heaved.
“You’re weaker than I ever let myself believe,” he hissed, voice fraying at the edges. “I refuse to waste my time with you.”
He moved. Closed the distance between them faster than I’d thought possible. Their feet brushed. Their noses almost touched.
“You’ll die by my hand… son.”
Domino didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t so much as twitch. I saw the muscle in his jaw tighten, his fingers twitch at his side. His breath was steady. Controlled. Leashed.
But his eyes…
His eyes promised blood.
Federico was too caught up in his theatrics to notice me shift, the ghost of a movement as I slipped the tracker beneath the collar of his peacoat.
A soft press of metal against fabric. Then I was gone. Back at my post by the door before he even realized I’d moved.
Domino’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it owned the room. “Your last breath is mine.”
A promise.
A vow.
One that would never be broken.
Federico hesitated—just a fraction of a second—then turned on his heel and disappeared down the corridor.
We watched as he moved, his steps quickening, his shoulders rising with each inhale, his presence growing smaller.
He knew.
He could feel it—the weight of fate snapping into place.
By the time he reached the stairs, he was running. Like the hounds of hell were at his back.
Domino exhaled, dragging a hand through his hair before turning to me. “You get him, piccolo agnello? ”
My fingers curled around the screen of my iPad, the blinking red dot illuminating my palm like the ember of a dying star. “Of course.”
He grinned. Sharp. Wicked.
Pouring us both a glass of scotch, Domino leaned against the desk, his gaze locked on the blinking tracker, the slow march of death creeping toward its inevitable conclusion.
Beyond these walls, unseen, unknown, our men and the Gallos moved like phantoms of the underworld.
An army of death.
Waiting.
Ready.
Prepared to strike.
The red light pulsed on the screen as Federico finally stopped moving.
Domino exhaled through his nose, lifting his glass to his lips, his gaze never leaving the tablet in my hands. A slow, sinister smirk lifted the corners of his mouth.
“Got him.”