Page 152 of The Beautiful Dead

He scoffed, smoothing his hands down his lapels like he was still a man worth fearing. “Domino.” His voice was tight. Controlled and biting. “Took your time.”

Domino took a slow step forward, gun never wavering. “I knew you wouldn’t find anything. So why rush?”

Federico’s lips twitched. “Did I interrupt an important evening?” His gaze flicked over Domino’s suit, the dark silk still pristine despite the night’s bloodstained promises.

“No.”

Just one word. It hit like a gunshot.

Federico flinched.

I pressed a hand to my lips, hiding a grin.

His eyes flicked to me, and the way his gaze curdled made my skin prickle with pleasure.

“You’re still alive, then?” Disgust dripped from his voice.

I smiled. Sharp. Hungry. “Surprise.”

His jaw flexed.

I tilted my head. “Bet you’re dying to know why.”

A flicker of unease. The barest hesitation flowed through his features.

“Like I give a fuck about Domino’s little fucktoys,” he spat.

My grin widened. “Mmm. Shame you’ll never know the real reason he kept me around… until it’s too late.”

Federico bristled, but I saw the doubt—the fear—that flared before he buried it beneath his ego.

“You could never hurt someone like me.”

I almost laughed. It was adorable that he thought this version of himself—this frail, aging husk of a man—could ever compare to the ghost of who he once was.

Domino stepped closer to me. His breath was slow, measured. His finger flexed on the trigger but didn’t pull.

Not yet.

We knew how this game worked. Federico wasn’t going to beg. Not right away. He’d try to spin his web and weave the illusion that he was still the one holding the leash.

But tonight?

Tonight, we would give him just enough rope to hang himself.

And when the sun rose?

The only ones left standing in the smoldering wreckage of the DeMarco empire would be those who had bled for our cause.

Federico leaned against the desk, crossing one leg over the other at the ankle, his hands braced behind him in a desperate attempt to appear at ease.

He was drowning.

The sweat at his temples, the slight tremor in his fingers as he forced himself to remain still. Tells even a blind man could see. The old bastard could play the role of the dominant for only so long, but we saw him for what he was.

A man barely keeping his head above water. A man being pushed towards the edge of a cliff, too weak to decide to jump, but he’d fall so beautifully with a knife lodged in his spine.

“They don’t really want you, you know,” he drawled, his voice coated in false bravado as he gestured loosely toward Domino. “The Gallos. They just want Marlow Heights. The power that comes with it.”

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