Page 126 of The Beautiful Dead

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Domino didn’t just plan to kill Federico.

He planned to unmake him—tear his world down brick by brick, salt the earth beneath his empire, watch him drown in the ashes of everything he once ruled.

It wasn’t enough to kill him.

Federico had to suffer.

He had to wake up every day and wonder—was this the day? Was this the moment he’d feel cold steel sliding between his ribs? Would he see Domino’s face in a reflection, in a shadow, in the last seconds before the lights went out forever?

He had to fear us.

To know we were coming and be powerless to stop it.

And Domino was thriving on it. I saw it in the way his fingers twitched, in the way his breath hitched between words, in the sharp, cruel curl of his lips that made something inside me ache with dangerous, insatiable need.

The man chained to the chair was already dead. He just didn’t know it yet.

Domino moved around him like a predator savoring the last few moments before the kill, his presence suffocating, pressinginto the room like a stormfront ready to break. The air was thick with sweat, with fear—with blood waiting to be spilled.

“Where is he?” His voice slithered through the silence, whispered against Leo’s skin like a blade dragging over flesh.

The man trembled. His knuckles went white where they strained against the restraints, and for a moment, I thought he might piss himself.

“Nothing to say, Leo?”

His dark brown eyes darted to mine, desperate, searching for mercy. He wouldn’t find it.

Domino licked his lips and held out his hand, fingers curling in silent demand. The wolfshead switchblade spun lazily between my fingers, just within Leo’s line of sight. A taunt. A threat. A promise.

I placed the handle in Domino’s palm, my fingertips lingering against his, watching the shift in his expression as he weighed the knife. Something dark settled over him. Something raw and ravenous.

His head fell back on his shoulders, eyes fluttered closed as he took a deep inhale, and like a coiled spring, he snapped and drove it into Leo’s thigh.

Leo’s head snapped back, tendons straining, skin flushing blood-red, his jaw locking tight against the scream he couldn’t swallow. The sound still broke free, a wet, strangled thing.

Domino’s lips parted, and I swore I saw pleasure flicker through his eyes as he twisted the serrated blade, carving through flesh in a slow, deliberate circle.

Leo bucked against the chair, spittle dribbling from his chin, tears streaking down his face. He squeezed his eyes shut like it would make this stop.

Fool.

“Where is he?” Domino hissed, his voice curling around me like smoke, like possession.

Leo shook his head, frantic, droplets of blood and saliva spraying across the floor. The movement made him whimper.

I exhaled a quiet chuckle, biting my lip to keep it from stretching into something too eager. Too telling. He had no idea what kind of monster he was playing with.

His bloodshot eyes cracked open, locking onto me. I tilted my head, regarding him like an insect pinned beneath my fingers.

I counted down in my head.

Three.

Domino’s grip flexed.

Two.

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