Page 102 of The Beautiful Dead

I stubbed out my cigarette with a hiss and locked eyes with him. “Let’s go,” I growled.

“Where?” Remi asked, following behind me to the elevator.

“The DeMarco compound.”

We slipped inside, the doors sliding shut with a quiet pssh.

“When we get there, once I’m in the meeting and everyone is occupied,” I murmured, my voice low and firm, “I want you to search the house. His office. His room. Find anything that ties into this.”

Remi blinked up at me, silent but understanding. He didn’t need to ask what would happen once we had proof. He knew.

He knew the lengths I’d go to for the truth.

He knew the vengeance I’d enact when I uncovered it.

I didn’t trust anyone in this world—except Remi. He had proven his loyalty, not with empty words but by offering his life without hesitation. It only fed the sickness I had for him.

It wasn’t just loyalty. It was obsession. A quiet, all-consuming poison fusing into my bones like a cancer.

My Ninja H2R roared to life beneath me, the vibrations rattling through my chest. The only things keeping me tethered to reality were Remi’s hands gripping my waist and the thrumming engine between my legs.

Everything else? It was nothing. The streets blurred. The countryside vanished. Until the blackened iron gates of the DeMarco compound materialized before us. The DeMarco crest gleamed in the dim light. A sigil of power and blood. Fear and control.

I felt it before I saw it—the shift in the air. Tension coiled around the compound, thick enough to choke on. By the time we reached the inner courtyard, the security presence had tripled.

Men were stationed at every entrance, their hands hovering near their weapons, their eyes scanning the perimeter like they were expecting an attack or worse—preparing for one.

I barely had time to kill the engine before three men stepped forward, shifting uneasily under my gaze as I removedmy helmet. Their shoulders went rigid. Their expressions were blank, like they were trained to be. But I saw it—the flinch.

A smirk curled my lips. They knew who to fear, and I drank it in. My father may have been a monster, but he had shaped me in his image. If he was the devil, I was the antichrist.

I was the darkness that stalked them in their nightmares. The thing that slithered through their thoughts in the quiet moments.

Their lives?

They hinged on my whim.

I swung my leg off the bike, my boots hitting the stone with purpose. I turned to Remi and nodded toward the entrance. “Stay close.”

Remi didn’t argue, falling in step with me like my shadow. But as we stepped toward the doors, something coiled in my gut.

Something cold.

Something final.

A feeling like the world had just tipped—a moment too late to stop whatever was coming.

The doors swung open. “Domino,” Bernard greeted, a tight smile pressed to his lips. “A wonderful surprise.”

A warning. His words weren’t a formality. They were caution wrapped in pleasantries.

“Your father andhismen are in the great room.”

A den of vipers laying in wait. They thought I feared them because I was younger, under the illusion that my father had me collared and chained. But that shackle had fallen away a long time ago—along with my sanity.

Rage twisted through my veins, tightly leashed.

I clapped Bernard on the shoulder. “Berny.” I gestured toward Remi. “This is?—”

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