Page 99 of Dominance

Ero winks, flicking one finger so only I can see.

Guns ratchet back around us, every one of the stone-cold bodyguards taking aim. Giuliano’s smile turns deadly, derisive. “Last words?”

“Just tell me one thing.”

“Fine.”

“You said Dom was ‘three-faced.’ Who else did he play?”

“This, I tell you, Adriano. Dom turned his back on your family, his family, yes?”

“That’s one, then. Yeah.”

“For your brother, I tell this. He also turn on me, and on others who help him when he need to disappear.”

“And the third?” I ask, tensing my body.

“One thing, I said, for each of you. The third, I think I keep for myself, as insurance.” Giuliano frowns, his head tilting as a noise echoes down into the tunnels from a distance, through the tunnels, coming from everywhere at once. “What is that?”

“That’s our third face.”

The rumble rips up to a screech, the scream of an insanely loud motorcycle engine filling the air, turning every eye to the impossible sight up above us.

A bright-green bike soars overhead, out into thin air.

Carrying my little brother, laughing hysterically.

Panic slows down time around us, Carcosa’s men all shouting at once, raising their guns, bullets start to fly. Mostly from Ciro’s dual pistols as he lets go of the bike, diving hard and unloading on the circle of assailants around us in a spiral of death.

Ero and I are already in motion, explosively leaping from our places on the ground and dashing in different directions. He takes down one thug, then another, sprinting toward the wall.

I lose sight of him as I bolt for Giuliano, tackling him and charging as hard as I can, back into the archway door ahead. Just as the motorcycle smashes into the ground behind me, exploding in a cacophony of flame and violence.

Screams fill the air through the smoke as the blast takes me to the ground, Giuliano taking the brunt of it as I rolled in midair.

Ringing ears, bleary-eyed, I push the stunned, injured man off of me, stumbling back to the doorway, worry tightening my chest.

“Ciro?! Ero?!”

“Adriano! Hey!” Ciro’s chipper voice echoes as the smoke clears, revealing bodies everywhere, the wreckage of his Ducati still smoldering.

Looking side to side, I don’t spot either of my brothers until I look up, my mouth dropping open in disbelief.

Like two swinging pendulums in a clock, my twin brothers dangle above me, a cord strung over a beam high above clipped to a harness at each of their waists. Ero must have clipped himself in as Ciro fell, slowing his fall.

“You ever going to tell me how you two do that?”

“Do what?”

“Time shit like that so well.”

“Psycho twin connection, of course!” Ciro laughs, flailing about at the end of his line.

“It’spsychic, fuckwit,” Ero mutters, glancing around, realizing the problem.

“Right. Right. Well, maybe you can use your twin magic to get down,” I snip, turning back to a moaning, whining Giuliano.

“You fucking Diamantes…you are insane!” Blood is spattered all over his suit, soot and dirt smearing his swollen face.

---