Three Months of Fire
Three months.
That's how long Dominic had kept them under his boot—bleeding, breaking, rebuilding until nothing soft remained. The recruits weren't men anymore. They were husks wearing skin, eyes stripped of light, spirits ground to bone.
Three months since Elena was torn from his side.The ache lived in him, low and steady, but he refused to feed it. Want was weakness. She had to claw her way back. If she returned to him without blood crusting her hands and iron in her veins, she wasn't his.
So he swallowed the emptiness she left behind… and fixed his gaze on another.
A Shadow Named Jay
Jay.
At first, nothing but another body in Dominic's yard. Another pair of lungs wasting air but hunger was a language Dominic knew too well. Not hunger for bread. Hunger for the throne.The boy moved like every strike mattered. Every breath was measured. He was patient. Dangerous. The echo of Dominic years ago, when the fire was still fresh in his chest.Dominic didn't just watch him. He saw himself. And that was far more dangerous.
Old Enemies
The past didn't sleep. It clawed back with knives in hand.Three weeks earlier, one of Dominic's docks had gone up in smoke. An old enemy, Victor Kane, tried to storm it—too desperate, too sloppy. Kane had once worn Moretti colors. He'd eaten from Dominic's hand, then spat in his face, thinking he could walk away clean. Dominic had let him live. That was his mistake.Kane hadn't forgotten. Neither had Dominic.
The attack crumbled in minutes. Half Kane's men bled out on the concrete. The rest fled until Dominic himself stepped through the smoke, Mark at his shoulder, death following in his wake.Those who survived didn't get mercy. They were dragged here, shackled, starved, broken just enough to last.
Dominic didn't waste enemies. He turned them into lessons.
"Gather the recruits it's time for the test "he barked the order to no one in particular
The warehouse stank of rust, sweat, and blood waiting to spill. Recruits lined the floor, stiff-backed, nerves bleeding through their skin.Dominic walked slow, each bootfall echoing like a gavel. Mark stood at his flank, heavy and silent.
"You think you've survived hell?" Dominic's voice cut the air, low, deliberate. "That was instinct. Tonight, we see if you can choose strength."
He snapped his fingers.
Steel doors groaned open.
Six men stumbled forward, chains dragging scars into the concrete. Their faces were swollen, eyes feral with hate. At their center—Kane, bleeding but unbroken.
"Coward," Kane spat, blood staining his teeth. "You hide behind children now?"
Dominic's mouth curved, not with mirth but malice."To build soldiers," he said, voice silk over razors, "you need targets."
His gaze swept the recruits, carving into them."These men came for me. They'd have slit your throats if I hadn't stopped them. Tonight, you return the favor. Kill them—" his tone dipped, dangerous, final, "—or I'll let them kill you instead."
The air froze. Chests heaved shallow, fear thick enough to choke.Some recruits shook, blades slipping in sweaty palms. Others clenched their fists, rage curdling into courage.
Jay moved.
No pause. No tremor. He lifted a knife from the table, walked to Kane's man, and opened his throat in one clean line.The body collapsed. Jay didn't blink.
Dominic's smirk was sharp enough to cut. Yes. The boy had teeth.Kane roared against his chains, but Jay only looked colder.
Then came Elena.
Her hand hovered over the blade. Shaking. Not from fear, but from the weight of what it meant. Dominic's gaze locked on her, daring her to falter.
She didn't.
The cut was rough, her breath uneven, but the rival dropped. She stood over the bleeding body, chin high, eyes burning, blood dripping between her fingers.
Not mercy.
Not horror.
Something darker.
See me, her stare screamed. I'll do whatever it takes.
And Dominic saw.
By the end, the warehouse was graveyard-silent. Some recruits stared at their bloodied hands like strangers. Others shook as though the stain might never wash away.
But two were steady
Jay—cold, merciless.
Elena—shaken, but burning.
Victor Kane still lived, dragged back into the dark. His death would come later. Dominic always paid debts in full.
For now, his eyes swept the floor.
Jay—the reflection of the man he once was.
Elena—the obsession he wasn't ready to release.
One climbing, one burning.
Both demanding his choice.
Not tonight.
Tonight, they lived.
Victor Kane should have rotted in that hole.Chained like a dog, fed scraps, body hollowing into bone.
But he didn't, Because somebody turned the key .someone bold ,maybe stupid enough to try the big boss
Rain hammered the city, each strike like nails into the coffin Dominic had prepared for him. Thunder rattled the warehouse bones.
Kane sat in the dark, chest heaving shallow, skin yellowed and bruised, eyes wild with the slow drip of madness and then metal groaned,slowly but steadily the lock gave. The cell door split open. A shaft of light crawled across the floor.
Kane lifted his head, expecting guards, another round of fists and laughter.
Not this.
Not him ,not John the head of Dominic's machinery ,the one one fought with him blindly against thousands of men .The man who'd stood tall when Kane was dragged in bleeding. Loyal. Unshakable. Untouchable.
Until now.
Kane's cracked lips stretched into a jagged grin. "So…the king's men bleed after all."
John's jaw worked like a man chewing glass. His eyes darted, not the eyes of a traitor, but of someone who already knew his grave was waiting.He shoved the keys into Kane's hands. Hard. Final.
"Go," he hissed. "Now. Before anyone sees."
The chains hit the ground like thunder. Kane swayed on his feet, weak but held upright by rage. He stepped so close John could smell the rot on his breath.
"Why?" Kane rasped, voice like gravel dragged across steel.
John's answer came in a whisper sharp enough to cut his own tongue.
"Because Moretti thinks he's untouchable. Time he learns he bleeds like the rest."
By dawn, Kane was gone....gone like his presence was the fragments of an imagination.
The cell lay open. The guards lay cold.
Rumors spread faster than blood dries.
Some swore Kane chewed through steel with his teeth.
Others swore devils broke him out, No one dared name the truth: a hand inside had pulled the door wide.
Mark delivered the report. Dominic said nothing. He stood in the empty cell, hands folded behind his back, eyes fixed on the broken lock.Mark shifted uneasily. "Boss, it doesn't add up. No one slips past the guards unless ..."I know." Dominic's tone was quiet. Too quiet.He brushed a finger over the cold metal, the ruin of the lock. Poison sat heavy in his gut. A mole. One of his own.
He turned, and his gaze was knives drawn."Lock it down. Everything. No one leaves. Not soldiers. Not captains. Not recruits. Nobody."
Mark hesitated. "And Kane?"
Dominic's mouth curved into something that wasn't a smile. His voice bled iron.
"Let him run. Let him crawl back to whatever hole he thinks is safe. He'll build himself up again. He'll breathe deep. He'll believe he's free."
Dominic closed his fist, slow and deliberate.
"And when he does… I'll make the streets choke on his blood "
But the betrayal stayed. It gnawed.
He played it cool in front of the soldiers. No cracks. No tells. The empire still bent beneath his voice.
But alone—in his office, whiskey untouched, glass sweating rings onto the desk—Dominic sat with silence, and silence was worse than war.
One name.
John.
The whisper in his mind. The shadow in his empire and Dominic knew: shadows never stayed hidden forever.