Page 150 of The Beautiful Dead

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.

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