Chapter 151
Chapter 151
Dominic’s POV
I stood in front of Mikael’s exclusive compound–the one he dragged my woman into, thinking he could take what belonged to me and walk away breathing.
My men had tied him up, same way he’d probably done to Aria. Full circle. Poetic, if I gave a damn about poetry.
He was on his knees now. Bloodied. Arms bound behind his back. His face looked like hell bruises blooming over his cheekbones, lip split down the middle, one eye nearly swollen shut. He spat blood onto the floor like it was nothing, but I saw the tremor in his jaw. The twitch of his fingers. He was afraid.
Good.
Julian walked up beside me, silent. He didn’t ask questions. Just handed me the metal knuckles we kept in the lockbox–the ones reserved for men who needed more than a bullet.
I slid them on slowly.
They were heavy. Cold. Comforting.
Mikael lifted his head, smirk cracked and weak. “What now, Dominic? You gonna beat me like a dog in front of your people? Show them how merciful their king is?”
I crouched down in front of him, eye–level. “No. This isn’t for them.”
His breath hitched.
“This is for her,” I said. “For every minute she cried. For every bruise she couldn’t hide. For the man you butchered just for helping her stand. For the moment you looked her in the eye and told her no one was coming.”
He laughed, then coughed blood. “You think you’re a hero? You’re the same as me. Just better at wearing the suit.”
“You kidnapped her.”
“She chose you,” he spat, “but we both know you don’t deserve her.”
That was it.
I stood, stepped back then drove my fist into his face.
The crack echoed through the room, a clean, wet sound. Mikael’s head snapped sideways, but he didn’t fall. Not yet.
I hit him again.
And again.
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Chapter 151
The knuckles did their job–split skin, bruised bone, made every impact louder than the last. I didn’t say a word.
He tried to laugh through it, to taunt me with broken teeth, but by the fourth punch his breath hitched wrong.
By the fifth, he couldn’t see straight.
Blood poured from his nose, smeared down his neck, soaked into his shirt.
Still, he grinned. “You think this makes you better than me?”
“No.” I shook the blood off my gloves. “I don’t need to be better than you. I just need you gone.”
He was swaying now, barely upright.
My heart was still pounding, but it wasn’t rage anymore. It was clarity. The kind you only get when you’ve waited long enough to end something. I stood over him, calm, breathing deep through the sweat and smoke. He blinked up at me, blood in his teeth.
I tilted my head, letting the silence sit heavy between us.
“Any last words?”
He coughed. The sound was wet, messy, and it hurt to listen to. His chest rattled, shoulders shaking beneath the weight of what he was about to say.
For a moment, I thought he’d spit more venom. That he’d say something vile or cruel- maybe try to wound me with words the way he couldn’t with power.
But what came out of him wasn’t defiance.
It was something else entirely.
“Mikael,” I said lowly. “Don’t test me.”
“I wasn’t working alone,” he croaked, voice barely audible.
I stilled. “Who?”
He closed his eyes for a second, breathing hard. “Victoria.”
The name punched through the room like a shockwave. I stepped back, staring at him, watching the way the truth broke across his face.
“She was part of it from the beginning,” he said. “The plan to take Aria, to bait you, to make her scream–it wasn’t just mine.”
“She wanted Aria dead.”
“She wanted you ruined,” he wheezed. “She knew taking Aria would bring you here. That you’d come guns blazing. She planned the chaos. The timing. Everything.”
I clenched my fists. “Where is she?”
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“I don’t know,” he said quickly, panicked now. “I swear I don’t. I can’t find her. I’ve searched. Same with Nico. They were supposed to meet me here after you walked into the trap. But they never came. They left me behind.”
I stepped closer. My voice dropped into something colder. “You expect me to believe that?”
He laughed–short, bitter, broken. “I was supposed to win, Dominic. I was supposed to destroy you. Take Aria. Trade her if I had to. Keep her as leverage. She was my final hand.”
“And you lost.”
He nodded, tears suddenly pooling in his swollen eyes.
“I had nothing left,” he said, voice cracking. “No territory, no allies, no legacy. Just her. And now she’s gone, and they’re gone, and I’m down here bleeding at your feet.”
He choked on a sob. “They betrayed me.”
His body curled inward like the weight of it finally crushed him.
“I did everything right,” he whispered. “Followed the plan. But they took the money. Nico… he cut a side deal. Victoria knew. They wanted the chaos but not the fallout. I was disposable to them.”
His breath hitched again.
I watched him cry.
This man who tried to kill Aria. Who dared to touch her. To plan her pain.
And now he was crumbling like a coward with nothing left to hold onto.
I didn’t speak.
Because for the first time he wasn’t even worth words.
But the silence didn’t last. A low laugh broke from my chest. Then another. And
another.
Until I was laughing out loud.
Loud and bitter and cold. The kind of laugh that didn’t sound right coming from a man who’d just won a war.
He looked up at me through the tears, confused, half–broken, and trembling.
“You really thought you could play god, huh?” I said, still laughing. “Thought you take what’s mine, use her, trade her, torture her, and walk out a legend?”
could
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t.
So I walked forward.
And without warning-
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Chapter 151
I hit him again.
Once in the ribs. Another in the gut. And when he crumpled to the side, I grabbed his
shirt and dragged him back up just so I could slam my fist into his face.
Again. And again.
Blood sprayed. His mouth was no longer smiling. Just broken.
“In your next life,” I growled, low and brutal, “don’t mess with a man’s wife.”
He tried to say something garbled, pathetic but I didn’t let him finish.
I drew my gun.
Pressed it between his eyes.
He didn’t beg. Didn’t blink.
He just whimpered.
I pulled the trigger. The shot echoed through the compound like the final note in a symphony of violence. Mikael’s body dropped, limp and lifeless.
And that was it.
He was gone.
Dead.
But as I stood there, staring at what was left of the bastard who nearly ruined everything-
There was no victory in it.
No satisfaction. Just a gnawing emptiness in my chest.
Because Aria…
She was still fighting for her life.
And all I could think was…
What if I was already too late?
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