Chapter 28
CHAPTER 28
DOMINO
F ederico hadn’t moved for nearly an hour.
I knew because Ghost was watching him. He was our eyes on the ground surveilling the mansion, like a predator circling its wounded prey that he’d holed up in like a rat desperate to burrow deeper into filth.
Through the comms his voice was clipped and efficient as he fed us numbers. Positions. Mercenaries stationed along the route. Snipers in the windows. Patrols cycling through the city, their movements predictable, sloppy.
The hired hands scattered through the city were stationed along winding roads leading up to the property. They were just bodies, bought and paid for. Empty vessels with no loyalty. No fear of the name Domino.
They would learn.
The air reeked of gasoline and blood.
Marlow Heights was burning. The streets, once crawling with the desperate and damned, now belonged to the dead. Smoke curled into the dark sky, a funeral pyre for Federico’s crumbling empire.
It wasn’t a fight.
It was a massacre.
“A fractured future of a dystopian nightmare…” Remi muttered under his breath beside me as we weaved through the burning remnants of an overturned SUV.
“You getting inspired, piccolo agnello ?”
Shadows danced in Remi’s eyes, their flickering shapes reflected in his hungry, manic gaze. White-hot flames licked toward the night sky, their light catching on a ruined body lay sprawled near the wreck, flesh charred black, fingers curled into the pavement as if it had tried to crawl away.
The fire had claimed it. What was left flaked in the wind like burnt paper. I felt Remi’s slow exhale beside me. Felt his smile before I even looked.
My soldiers moved through the streets like specters, cutting down the last remnants of Federico’s men with ruthless efficiency.
The mercenaries he’d hired—pathetic, desperate, inadequate—fell fast. They died screaming. Their bodies painted the pavement, twitching in the amber glow of the streetlights, their spilled blood turning the cracked asphalt into something slick, something hungry.
The Gallos cleared a path through the gated community where Federico had barricaded himself, his cowards and traitors huddled behind automatic weapons and anti-aircraft guns.
They thought steel walls and bullets would be enough to keep us out.
They were wrong.
Six SUVs filled with Gallo soldiers completed the motorcade, their presence heavy with something more than firepower. They should have hated me.
Should have wanted me dead for the bodies I’d taken from them. Instead, they looked at me with something else—begrudging respect.
Fear. Recognition. They saw me for what I was.
Not an enemy. Not an outsider.
A weapon.
Remi pulled out the estate blueprints over the hood of a still-burning car, voice steady as he relayed Ghost’s intel, laying the plan bare in front of them all.
My men.
His men.
One army.
One plan.
Black combat gear was handed out. Kevlar vests. Ammunition. Weapons. Salvatore treated us like his own. And I didn’t quite know what to make of it.
Salvatore led the charge, moving through the crumbling gates like a harbinger of war. Enzo, Luca, Diego, and Elio closed ranks behind him like a wall of death, each a force of nature in their own right. They were relentless and precise, moved as a unit, their rage honed into something disciplined and terrifying.
Ghost rejoined us and moved with the second wave. He was a shadow. Silent. Lethal. His blade slid into flesh without resistance, carving open throats and leaving bodies crumpled in his wake.
Angelo followed, brutal and efficient, putting bullets through skulls like it was muscle memory.
And then there was Remi.
My Remi.
He was a storm in human form. A vicious thing; his knife danced in the firelight, a whisper of silver before it plunged into flesh. Blood speckled his face like war paint.
His movements were poetry.
A song of violence and death, written in the bodies of the fallen.
He didn’t hesitate.
Didn’t falter.
I fought at his side, a reflection and shadow, each moving like two halves of the same darkness.
He ducked, and I covered. He swung left, I went right. His blade sank into a throat at the same time I emptied my clip into another.
We moved like a single, deadly entity.
A force of nature.
An unstoppable nightmare.
Salvatore pushed through the gates first, a wave of gunfire trailing him. Chaos erupted. Snipers on the balconies opened fire.
Luca snapped a man’s neck before he could even lift his gun, let alone pull the trigger.
Enzo threw a grenade through an open window, the explosion turning the interior into a hellstorm of shrapnel and screams.
Diego, slick with blood, gutted two men in quick succession, his blade carving through their stomachs like wet silk.
Ellio fought like a ghost made flesh, darting between bodies, knife flashing, opening throats like whispers of death. Then finished each with a bullet between the eyes just to make sure they’d never rise again.
The Gallo soldiers advanced, their firepower turning the estate’s manicured lawn into a graveyard.
Hand-to-hand combat broke out as clips ran dry.
Fists. Knives. Teeth.
One of Federico’s men lunged at me. A nameless merc. I caught his wrist before the blade could sink in. Snapped it. Ripped the knife from his failing grip. Buried it in his eye.
A bullet whizzed past my ear.
Remi was already on the shooter, slitting his throat before his finger could pull the trigger again. A flash of silver. A line of red. The merc collapsed, his throat carved open.
His gaze snapped to mine, wide-eyed, feral, and manic with bloodlust. He smiled. A slow, sharp, wicked thing baring his blood stained teeth.
Like he knew exactly what I was thinking.
Because he did.
Because we were the same.
We fought through the last line of defense, like wading through a river of carnage and fire.
Salvatore’s voice rang through the night. “End this.”
Federico’s men broke. Some ran. Others were gunned down before they could take another step.
Cowards.
Traitors.
Dead men walking.
We pushed through the wreckage, past shattered bodies and smoldering debris. The estate doors loomed before us. We knew where Federico was waiting..
Remi wiped the blade clean on his thigh, his chest rising and falling with each measured breath. Controlled.
But I could feel the war inside him.
A mirror of my own.
He turned to me. Blood streaked his cheekbone. His eyes burned.”Ready?”
My grip tightened on my gun. A slow smirk curled my lips. “Always.”
“Stand back,” one of the Gallo soldiers said as he wired up some C4 to the doors and began his countdown as we backtracked down the driveway.
“Cover,” someone else shouted, and I braced my arms over Remi’s head, pulling him down to the ground with me as the explosion rocked the ground beneath our feet.
One of the doors exploded inward, slamming against the far wall with a violent crack. The other collapsed, crashing down onto the white marble with a deafening boom.
Cracks spiderwebbed through the tile, jagged fractures marring the pristine floor. Smoke and blood followed us inside, the scent thick, clinging to my skin.
Salvatore and my brothers broke into two teams, peeling off into the darkened corridors of the first floor.
Their footsteps disappeared into the shadows, the air filled with muted gunfire, the wet sounds of knives sinking into flesh.
No screams.
Only silence.
A symphony of efficient, disciplined death.
A broken, bleeding thing that used to resemble a man was slumped against the bottom step of the stairs, his once-impeccable suit now nothing but torn fabric and deep, dark stains. His face was nothing more than caved in flesh and bone, blood still sluggishly trickling down his neck.
“No pulse,” Remi confirmed before dropping his eyes to the tablet in his hand.
His breath ghosted over my shoulder as I stepped up to him to take a look. A single red dot pulsed on the screen. Federico. He’d most likely locked himself away in a panic room. Fucking coward.
We followed it up the grand staircase, our boots whispering against the worn runner. The air was thick with the remnants of gunpowder and fear. Faint, ragged breathing filtered through the comms.
Enzo was ordering the dead be cleared away and burned in a pit that was being dug somewhere on the grounds.
Luca’s grunts were indistinct, but it sounded like he was in charge of clearing the city of the dead.
I didn’t know who their cleaners were or if they were equipped for something like this, but I didn’t give a flying fuck right now. I was focused on making one person suffer as much as possible for all he’d taken from me.
Federico knew we were coming. There was no way on this earth he didn’t.
Remi moved beside me, silent, a shadow stretching long under the dim chandelier light. His blade still dripped red, his fingers curled loosely around the hilt. There was no hesitation in his movements. He was calm. Controlled. Lethal.
I could feel the anticipation humming under his skin, the way his breathing remained steady, even as my blood roared in my ears.
We reached the top of the stairs. The hallway stretched long and empty before us, lined with doors that led to rooms already abandoned, their occupants either dead or fleeing.
But not Federico.
He had nowhere to run.
We followed the blinking dot on the screen, down the hall, past shattered picture frames and overturned furniture and bullet holes blown through the walls.
The sound of a door creaking open had my gun raised in an instant. But it was nothing. Just the house settling in the wake of the devastation we’d wrecked on it.
Or maybe it was the weight of death pressing in from all sides. Remi tilted his head, eyes flicking between the tablet and the doors ahead.
“Here,” he murmured, voice soft, intimate in its certainty.
The last door at the end of the hall. A master bedroom, most likely. A place meant to be safe. Untouchable. The irony almost made me laugh.
Remi sheathed his knife, rolling his shoulders, stretching his fingers. I caught the subtle flicker of excitement in his eyes.
He loved this.
Not just the violence—not just the hunt.
But this moment. The weight of inevitability.
The knowledge that Federico was already dead.
That he was simply waiting for his fate to arrive.
I lifted my boot and kicked the door in. The wood shattered inward, splintering as it slammed against the far wall with a deafening crack. The room reeked of sweat, fear, and blood.
And there he was.
Federico DeMarco.
A wounded animal, slumped against the far wall, his once-pristine suit a shredded mess of dark stains and torn fabric. Blood smeared his face in sticky, half-dried streaks. A gash split his temple, his left eye nearly swollen shut.
He was already broken. What a shame. I’d been looking forward to a blank canvas.
Remi let out a soft, amused hum. “Looks like someone’s been having fun without us.”
I stepped forward, slow, deliberate. Federico flinched. His chest heaved, every breath a struggle, his fingers twitching where they lay limp against the floor.
But his eyes…His eyes were still moving. Still calculating. Still trying to find a way out.
There wasn’t one.
“Please…” he rasped, voice cracked, raw, either from pain or the screams he’d already given.
Remi laughed—a low, breathy sound, sharp with amusement.
“Please?” He mimicked, crouching beside him. “Oh, Federico. You think we’re at the part where begging helps?”
Federico’s lips parted, swollen and trembling. He swallowed, tried to shift, but his body was wrecked—too battered to fight, too weak to run.
Which meant all that was left for him to do was suffer.
I grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and dragged it across the floor, the wood screeching against marble as I set it down in front of him.
I sat. Unhurried. Comfortable. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, gun dangling lazily from my fingers.
“Talk.”
Federico’s breath shuddered out, his gaze flicking between us, his body visibly trembling. “About what?” he croaked.
Remi clicked his tongue. “Wrong answer.”
His knife flashed, and in a blink, he drove it through Federico’s palm, pinning it to the floor.
Federico screamed a wet, garbled sound, his entire body convulsing from the pain.
Remi twisted the blade. The crack of splintering bone was music to my ears.
“About what?” Remi echoed, voice mocking as Federico gasped, struggling against the pain. “I don’t know, Federico. Maybe about how you thought you could fucking get away with it?”
Remi twisted the knife again, then rested his boot on top of it, slowly increasing the pressure.
Federico choked on a cry, his free hand clawing at the ground. His body writhed like he could somehow escape into oblivion.
I let the silence drag. Let him suffer.. I leaned in closer, my voice low, almost gentle.
“You were always going to end up here. You just didn’t know it,” I smirked. “I was trained never to exist in the shadow of another man.”
Federico’s breathing was erratic now, his entire body shaking violently as he stared up at me.
“This wasn’t personal,” he rasped, desperate. “B-Business—just business.”
I exhaled sharply. “Business?”
Remi tilted his head, his knife still lodged in Federico’s hand, his fingers casually tapping against his blood-drenched thigh.
“Is that what you tell yourself?” Remi murmured, voice soft, thoughtful. “That it wasn’t personal when you murdered his mother and made him an orphan? When you stole a child’s innocence by making him murder your men?”
Federico’s face twisted in something almost like recognition. A shadow of some emotion I’d never seen on him fell across his face, but it was gone in the blink of an eye.
Remi yanked the knife out.
Federico howled, clutching his mangled hand to his chest, his body jerking violently as blood seeped through his fingers.
“You know,” Remi mused, rising slowly to his feet, “I could make it personal.”
I didn’t stop him when he stomped on Federico’s knee, first one, then the other. Sharp cracks echoed through the room with sickening satisfaction.
Federico screamed again, louder this time. Loud enough to strip his vocal cords and make them bleed. A raucous cheer echoed through the house from somewhere on the floor below.
I could see it now—the last vestiges of defiance slipping from his face. He wasn’t thinking about escape anymore.
Just about the pain.
“Remi.” My voice was a warning, but only just.
He looked at me. And for a moment, he was glowing with it. The violence. The pleasure of it. His breath was heavy, his pupils blown wide, his hands coated in red.
“Alright, alright.” He let out a breathy laugh, rolling his shoulders. “Just had to get that out of my system.”
Federico was panting, shaking, his face pale with agony. Tears streamed down his blood stained face.
“Please, Domino, please.” His voice cracked, his body curling in on itself.
I tilted my head in confusion and arched a brow, waiting for him to continue.
He wasn’t begging for his life.
Not anymore.
Just for the pain to stop.
But that was the thing about men like Federico. They never learned until it was too late. “You’re just like me.”
A hollow laugh slipped past my lips. “No, Federico. I’m much worse.”
I pulled my gun and pressed it to his forehead. His breath hitched. The entire room hung in silence. He knew. We all knew.
I let my finger rest against the trigger.
Let it sink in.
“You should have begged sooner.”
My finger slowly depressed the trigger but before I could release it?—
Bang.
Blood and brain matter splattered the pristine white walls, sliding down in thick rivers of red. Federico slumped, head rolling to the side, his lifeless gaze staring into nothing.
The silence that followed was thick, almost heavy.
Remi let out a slow, satisfied sigh, tilting his head back like he was savoring the moment. Like he was memorizing the feeling of the kill. He turned to me, his eyes still bright, still wild.
“That was fun.”
I exhaled, wiping blood from my jaw.
“He wasn’t yours to kill,” I growled.
Remi grinned, stepping closer, his voice taunting, breathless with excitement.
“Then make me pay for it.”
And just like that?—
The hunt started all over again.