“That cocksucker Oliver,” he snarled.The coffee suddenly left a bitter taste in his mouth.“I warned them!I fucking warned them,” he snarled with barely suppressed violence raging through him.That nagging voice in his head—the same one that had kept him alive through his rise from almost nothing to Viktor’s heir apparent—had screamed that Rex Oliver wouldn’t leave such an obvious vulnerability.But the other low-level founders, too eager for quick profits, had overruled him.
His phone buzzed.Viktor’s name flashed on the screen, the custom ringtone playing the first bars of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture—an inside joke about Viktor’s favorite method of disposing of bodies in his Bratva days.The old man had always appreciated theatrical touches.
Dominic drew a steadying breath.Viktor Petrov hadn’t maintained overall control of The Consortium and of the European operations for three decades by being patient with failure.The man who’d once fed a federal investigator’s fingers to his own dogs would expect answers, and “I told you so” wouldn’t cut it.
“Viktor,” Dominic answered in a carefully modulated voice.“Kinda late at night, or rather early morning, for you to make this call, isn’t it?”
The silence that followed was deafening.Dominic could almost see Viktor in his study, probably swirling a glass of his precious Macallan 1926, the same way he’d done the night he had taught Dominic about power.“Power isn’t in the killing,”he had said, watching a man slowly drown in a tank of water.“Power is in making them wish they were dead, making them beg for it, then denying them even that mercy.”
“Dominic, ??? ??? (my son),” Viktor’s voice finally came through, smooth as aged whiskey but twice as dangerous.“Tell me why I’m looking at empty bank accounts when I should be counting billions.”
Dominic’s knuckles whitened around the phone.“I just discovered it myself, Viktor.I’m about to question Bill Fowler—”
“Am I hearing excuses where I should be listening to solutions, Dominic?”Viktor’s voice sliced through his explanation like a heated blade.“I don’t fucking care who did what.What I do care about is success.You guaranteed it.Now make it the fuck happen.”
The call ended with a decisive click, leaving Dominic staring at the screen with bile rising in his throat.The last time he had disappointed Viktor flashed through his mind—a simple coffee order wrong eighteen years ago, not long after he had taken him under his wing.He’d brought Viktor an Americano instead of the specified Ethiopian pour-over.Viktor had smiled, taken the coffee...and made him watch as he forced the barista to drink boiling water until her throat blistered.“Details matter, ??? ???????.Every.Single.One.”
“BILL!”His roar echoed through the underground facility.“GET YOUR FUCKING ASS IN HERE!”
Bill Fowler appeared moments later, his usual nervous energy amplified.They’d both watched the transaction progress—every fucking dollar climbing toward that beautiful billion-dollar mark.The numbers had danced across the screen, a digital ballet of wealth transfer that had made Dominic’s mouth water with anticipation.
“How?”Dominic’s voice was deadly quiet as he followed him back to the IT center.“How does a billion dollars just vanish into thin fucking air?”
Bill’s fingers flew across his keyboard, his face illuminated by multiple screens.“The final export shows the same value, but the actual transactions...”He froze, color draining from his face.“Oh fuck.Oh, fuck no.”
“What?”Dominic’s hand instinctively moved to the back of his pants, where his Glock pressed against his spine.
“It was a cypher run...a front, a fucking fluke!I need to check something.”Bill’s fingers flew over the keyboard.
“Check what?”The words exploded from Dominic like shrapnel.
“Someone like Oliver...a cypher run...he’d do it for one reason.Every click, every keystroke we made trying to access that gateway left digital fingerprints.Fingerprints they could trace...to find us...our location.”
Raw hatred surged through Dominic’s veins.He could taste the metallic sharpness, like blood on his tongue.That smug bastard Oliver had played them.Played HIM.He had been compromised.If they had the location of the hub, they knew he was the master of it since it was right under his house.His fingers twitched with the urge to kill something—someone—anything.
“Bring me Masters,” he snarled.“He’s the one who knows everything that goes on in the banking industry.I want that piece of shit in front of me NOW.”
Bill’s next words turned Dominic’s blood cold.
“We already tried.He’s gone.His house is locked up tight, and their kids were pulled from school.They’re gone...vanished.”
The rage that exploded through Dominic was primal, animalistic.Oliver and his fucking mates got to Masters first.They definitely had confirmation by now about his involvement.The coffee cup shattered against the wall.The dark liquid streamed down like rivulets of dark blood.He’d been outmaneuvered, made to look like an amateur in front of Viktor.The humiliation burned worse than any physical pain.
His mind raced with visions of retribution—what he’d do to Masters when he found him and how he’d make Oliver watch him fuck and slowly torture the woman he was besotted with before it was his turn.He’d make Viktor proud, show him that his protégé hadn’t lost his edge.The lessons learned in that basement eighteen years ago flooded back.Make them suffer, make them beg, and make them wish for death.
“Find them,” he whispered, his voice trembling with barely contained violence.“I don’t care what it takes.Find the entire Masters family.And when you do...”A cold smile curved his lips, promising unspeakable violence.“When you do, we’ll show them exactly why The Consortium doesn’t tolerate betrayal.”
The office door slammed behind him with enough force to rattle the framed Consortium charter on the wall.Dominic didn’t flinch.His pulse still hammered in his throat in a drumbeat of fury, but the storm inside him demanded an outlet—any outlet—before it consumed him whole.
The espresso machine hissed as he brewed another cup, the rich aroma conflicting with the flush of adrenaline through his veins.He carried the steaming porcelain to his desk.The heat searing his palm was a welcome distraction as he dropped into his chair with the predatory grace of a man who had just decided how he’d break his prey.
His fingers flew over the keyboard, pulling up the live feed from the hidden cameras in Xia Foster’s penthouse.The angle was perfect—one of his techs had embedded this one in the recessed lighting above her bathroom, the lens disguised as a ventilation grate.She’d never know.No one ever did.
There she was.
Xia stood in front of the vanity, her reflection caught in the mirror as she unclipped her hair, the thick waves tumbling over her shoulders.She wore a silk robe, the fabric clinging to the curves of her hips as she shrugged it off.Dominic’s breath hitched.The robe had been a gift—one of his, sent with a note that read,For the sub who made facing Rex Oliver’s anger worth it.She’d worn it.That was something.
The tub was already filled, bubbles frothing over the edges like a decadent white sea.Xia stepped in, sinking into the water with a husky moan.His cock twitched as she leaned back, her fingers trailing through the suds before drifting lower, between her thighs.Then she reached for the handheld showerhead, adjusting the spray to a pulsing rhythm.
