Dominic’s POV
I had felt tensed when I saw the woman that my heart started to beat for fall for me.
My heart had lurched forward into my stomach. I had been scared. Terrified. It wasn’t the same when I found out she had cancer. Then I hadn’t cared but now I did. And she survived. I was glad she did.
And then that call came.
Nico.
Gone.
The drive was a blur. Rain pelted the windshield, the kind that turned streets to glass and blurred city lights into trembling ghosts. I didn’t speak. Didn’t blink. Just kept my grip tight on the wheel as Julian sat beside me, silent for once.
We pulled into the alley behind an abandoned warehouse near the docks. The flashing blue of police lights bathed the crumbling walls in cold color. My men had cleared the scene–no uniforms. Just us.
“Where is he?” I asked, my voice low.
Julian pointed. “There.”
I walked.
Each step echoed in my head like a gunshot.
He was lying on his back, slumped against a wall, legs stretched out awkwardly like he’d fallen mid–step. Blood soaked his shirt. His jacket was torn. One shoe missing.
And his face-
My stomach twisted.
It was swollen. Bruised. Jaw slack. Eyes half open, glassy and distant. A bullet hole between the brows. Execution style. Just like they said.
There was something carved into his chest.
Crude. Fresh.
“For the King.”
I crouched slowly, my coat falling around my boots.
My hand hovered, then lowered, pressing two fingers to his neck.
Cold.
Too cold.
Julian stood behind me, arms crossed, lips tight.
The scent of blood was sharp in the air.
I swallowed, dragging my eyes across the body again. The angle of the jaw. The cut on his lip. The little scar on the brow he used to brag about–said it came from a girl who punched him in third grade.
But the scar wasn’t there.
I frowned.
My eyes swept lower.
No tattoo.
Nico had a small one behind his right ear. A snake coiled around a dagger. He used to joke that it was how he remembered who he really was when the world tried to clean him up.
But this body? Nothing. Just skin.
I looked up at Julian slowly. “This isn’t him.”
Julian raised a brow. “What?”
I stood, voice firm now. “That’s not Nico.”
Julian frowned, his dark eyes looking at me then
Successfully unlocked!
I had gone mad.
“I get that grief would have gotten to you,” he said carefully, “but Dom, come on. That’s him.”
“No,” I said flatly. “It’s not.”
Julian tilted his head, clearly trying to stay calm. “Then who the hell is lying dead at our feet?”
1/4
Chapter 130
I stepped forward again, crouching by the body. My fingers brushed behind the right ear–nothing. Smooth skin. Not even a faint scar.
“You remember the tattoo?” I asked, my voice quiet now, almost distant. “The one we got when we were thirteen?”
Julian blinked. “The snake and dagger.”
“Exactly. Right behind the ear. He said it’d be our mark. That no matter how dirty the world got, we’d know where we came from.”
Julian knelt beside me. I saw the moment he realized. The shift in his face. The hotation.
“This guy’s clean,” I muttered. “Not even a smudge of ink.”
Julian’s voice was tight now. “So where’s the real Nico?”
That was the question echoing in my head like a ticking bomb.
I stood, brushing blood from my palm onto my coat.
The betrayal had always been a slow drip–suspicions, inconsistencies, whispers in the dark. I wanted to believe Nico would never turn. But deep down, I had known. The signs had been there.
The file that disappeared from my safe.
The Bratva’s sudden moves–too calculated, too well–timed.
The hesitation in Nico’s voice the last time we spoke.
I didn’t want to see it.
But now? Now I had no choice.
He had betrayed me. Joined Mikael. Lied straight to my face.
And faked his own death to slip deeper into the shadows.
Julian‘ exhaled sharply beside me. “This goes deeper than we thought.”
I nodded. “Much deeper.”
I turned away from the body, already calculating. Already plotting.
If Nico thought this would break me, he was wrong.
I’d been broken before.
Now, I was just cold enough to do what needed to be done.
Back at the estate, I stood in front of my office window, the city stretching out like a battlefield beneath me. My mind moved faster than my heart could keep up.
Mikael had grown too bold. Nico had been feeding him intel for months. It explained the attacks. The near hits. The Bratva‘ s sudden shift from brute force to precision.
I stared at the glass, seeing my reflection–sharp, tired, unfamiliar.
A knock came.
Julian stepped in, tossing a slim folder onto my desk. “Intel just came in. One of our guys caught chatter from Mikael’s safe house in the East End. Nico was spotted entering through the back, masked, but they caught the tattoo. He’s alive.”
I didn’t react.
Not outwardly.
But inside?
A storm.
“Good,” I said. “That’s exactly what I needed.”
Julian raised a brow. “What’s the plan?”
I turned to face him fully, my eyes dark. “We give Nico what he wants.”
Julian frowned. “Which is?”
“Me. Vulnerable. Distracted. Off–guard.”
Julian stared at me. “So we fake that. Let him believe you’re unraveling.”
I nodded. “He thinks I’m emotional over his ‘death.‘ That I’ll start making mistakes. We let him believe that for one more day.” Julian stepped closer, lowering his voice. “And then?”
I smiled.
Chapter 130
Cold, Sharp. Without warmth.
“Then we bury him for real”
That night, I made the call
To a contact Nico didn’t know I still had. A man inside Mikael’s circle. A pawn I had paid well to keep buried until I needed
him most.
I told him what to leak.
Where I’d be. How unprotected I’d be.
A fabricated crack in my armor.
Nico would bite. He wouldn’t be able to resist.
He always thought he was smarter than me.
And this time? That arrogance would be his undoing.
I looked down at the scar on my hand–the one I got pulling Nico out of a fire when we were kids. He’d laughed then. Said, ” Now we’re even.”
We weren’t.
Not anymore.
He sold out my empire.
He aimed a gun at everything I cared about.
He turned his back on me.
Now it was my turn.
And I wasn’t going to miss.
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