Another shipment ....gone. Burned to the ground, seized, stolen. His men scrambled, muttering about fingerprints, surveillance, and the likely culprits, but he didn't speak. He just stared at the report, gray eyes cold, calculating.
"Elena," he said quietly, his voice low but sharp, cutting through the panic in the room. "Assemble the team. We leave now."
Elena's lips curved in that dangerous, dark smile he loved. "Finally," she whispered. "Some real action."
Mark, Jay, and the rest of the elite team followed Dominic into the night. The city was quiet, deceptively so. They moved like shadows, sleek and lethal, checking each checkpoint, each warehouse, every route the shipment could have taken. Dominic's mind raced—not just with anger, but with calculation. Whoever dared touch his cargo was about to learn what it meant to cross him.
Then came the smoke. A flare in the distance. Dominic's instincts screamed as Mark shouted, "Sir! Ambush!"
Gunfire erupted from every angle. Dominic's convoy was pinned. Flames burst from the vehicles ahead. Metal tore and screeched under bullets. Men fell, screaming.
Elena moved like a predator, laughter slipping through her lips even as she shot and kicked, a psychotic joy mixing with calculated precision. "They think they can scare us?" she hissed.
Dominic's hands gripped the wheel tighter, jaw tight. His mind tracked every threat, every angle, every exit. He could feel the power of the ambush—the signature, the precision all too familiar...clean yet dangerous.
"Retreat,retreat …..this is suicide" he said with a panic stricken face,voice barely above whispers …..Anyone who saw the strange reaction of Theee king of mafia ….."Dominic Moretti" will probably pray for death .
"They're outnumbering us," Mark yelled, ducking behind a burned-out truck.
Dominic's snapped out of his daze ,his gray eyes flicked to Elena. She was bloodied but grinning, wild-eyed and unhinged. "Control yourself," he barked. "We survive first, we kill later."
Elena's laugh was soft, almost sweet. "Every last one of them," she whispered. "I want them to feel us."
Dominic's jaw clenched. He didn't argue. He swerved, bullets pinging off metal, flames licking at the convoy. They were being torn apart, but he refused to lose control. Survival was the first rule; revenge would come later, precise and punishing.
Bodies fell. Fire spread. The ambush was merciless. Dominic's chest burned, not only from fear, but from knowing the war had reached him directly, and he had just been reminded that even a king could bleed.
Elena leaned close to his ear. "We'll hunt them together," she said, voice soft but filled with deadly intent.
Dominic's eyes met hers, a dark spark igniting. "Together ...soon "he said. "And they won't see it coming."
The convoy twisted and turned through alleys and side streets, retreating strategically. Dominic knew a direct confrontation tonight would be suicide—they were outnumbered, outgunned. But this was not defeat. This was information, opportunity, and fuel for a reckoning that would come with fire.
The retreat was chaos—burning trucks behind them, gunfire chasing their heels. Dominic led the way, every step calculated, every turn designed to keep his men alive.
Then, out of the smoke, a figure lunged—mask on, blade flashing. Dominic's reflex was instant. He caught the wrist, twisted hard until the bone snapped, and drove his knife up under the man's ribs. The attacker gasped, choked, and went limp.
But in that split second—before the body hit the ground—Dominic saw it. The insignia on the man's arm, smeared with blood but unmistakable. TG.
His heart slammed against his ribs. A name that haunted his nights, a name tied to the screams of his parents. Fury surged hot in his chest, but beneath it was something rarer—fear. Raw, choking fear.
"Move!" Mark shouted behind him. "We can't stay here!"
Dominic tore his gaze from the corpse, jaw clenched, gray eyes blazing. TG wasn't a rumor anymore. They were here. In his city. Cutting his empire apart piece by piece.
And now Dominic knew the truth.
This wasn't just business.
This was personal.
They came to finish what they couldn't do many years back .
They pushed through the trees, breath ragged, boots sinking in mud. Gunfire faded behind them, swallowed by the night. Dominic hadn't said a word since the kill. His silence was heavier than the gunmetal in their hands.
Elena ran at his side, sharp eyes flicking to him. She'd seen him furious before, merciless, cold as a scalpel. But this—this wasn't fury alone. His grip on the knife was white-knuckled, his breathing uneven. For the first time since she'd known him, Dominic looked… shaken.
"What was that back there?" she hissed under her breath, matching his pace. "You froze."
"I didn't freeze," he snapped, too quickly.
Elena's lips curved, dark amusement laced with concern. "I know the difference between focus and fear, Dominic. And you… you looked like a ghost clawed its way out of that corpse."
His jaw flexed, teeth grinding. He didn't answer. Couldn't. Because she was right. For a heartbeat, the emblem on that man's arm had dragged him back—back to blood on the walls, his mother's scream cut short, his father's body broken in the dirt. TG wasn't just another enemy. They were the monsters in his origin story.
Elena reached out, caught his arm, forced him to look at her. Her eyes glowed with something feral, unhinged. "Then let me say this, love… whoever they are, whatever they did to you, I'll carve them open. I'll rip their faces off and feed them to the dogs. Don't you dare let them break you."
For a second, Dominic stared at her—this woman who wore madness like perfume, who would burn the world just to keep him standing. The fear in his chest twisted into something else. Dark. Dangerous. Steadier.
"Keep moving," he muttered, finally. "This isn't over."
And for the first time in years, Dominic knew it was true:
He wasn't the hunter anymore.
He never was