Page 53 of Dominion

I tasted his name on my lips, rolling the syllables on my tongue, while my eyes dragged over the high cheekbones and eyebrows some girls would kill to have. His dark brown hair was cut short on the sides, leaving only the top part longer, artfully made to look as if he’d been running his hands through it for the last couple of hours.

Dark eyes studied the three of us—calculating, measuring, observing, dragging his onyx eyes over my body until Ash bristled next to me, stepping forward and partially hiding me behind him. Full lips marred with one scar in the corner pulled into a taunting smirk, and I didn’t mistake the way he observed Ash, as if he was an animal that needed to be studied.

“Hunter,” Casimir said, a warning clear in his voice as he observed the entire situation. “That’s enough.”

“Such a shame.” The man in question pouted, and I knew without a doubt that on anyone else, it would’ve looked ridiculous. But he managed to pull it off. “I was just getting started.”

“Well, keep it for later,” Casimir added. “We’re here to do a job, and we can’t waste time.”

“Why?” Hunted turned to look at him. “The subject is already detained. There’s no need?—”

“I said enough!” Casimir roared, the vein on his neck ticking. “That’s an order, soldier.”

Hunter straightened, shocking me momentarily, and turned toward the entrance to the tall residential building, leaving us all alone on the sidewalk.

Soldier?

What was that?

“Let’s go,” Casimir called as he turned toward the glass doors, following the same path Hunter took. “We don’t have the whole day.”

16

ASH

The pristine marblesurfaces inside the building almost immediately made my hackles rise. Not because of how it looked, but because we’d spent years moving from one shitty place to another, living in terrible neighborhoods, eating junk, because Neal told us time and time again that we didn’t have enough money to cover everything.

Now I knew that we had more than enough, and that fucker was using the hard-earned money my parents had left for Sebastian and me. Casimir filled me in on all the details surrounding Neal and what he and Judah had done. The more I heard, the more my anger grew.

My feet pounded on the floor in the rhythm of my heart, and I put all my concentration into ignoring the worried looks Skylar kept throwing my way. I didn’t want them here. I didn’t need them here.

I didn’t want her to see the monster hiding behind the mask I wore. I didn’t want her to see who I was when no one else was looking, because the moment Casimir said that he knew where Neal was, I knew what I needed to do. He wasn’t going to leave this building alive. That was a promise.

Casimir strolled casually through the hallway on the thirteenth floor, walking toward the apartment where Neal lived. The apartment he bought with the blood money Judah probably gave him. There was no way in hell that someone like him, someone without a job, could afford a place like this on his own. I hated that we had somebody else involved in this mess, but I didn’t have the energy to question Casimir over the fact that he brought someone completely unknown to us.

I’d met enough scary and shady people over the years to know that Hunter wasn’t someone you should cross. The way he carried himself reminded me of the soldiers, muddling everything I thought I knew about Casimir. He wasn’t the only one who could run a background check on someone, but while he could most probably find out everything about me, I barely came up with surface facts that couldn’t be used for anything if the need arose.

“How did you two meet?” I asked Casimir directly, just as we crossed the apartment1506 B, getting closer and closer to our destination.

“I tried stealing from him.” Hunter was the one who answered. “In my defense, I was starving, fresh out of fucking hell.” Interesting. “And I knew who he was,” Hunter added, looking over his shoulder at us. “I figured, if he wanted to kill me, he would be doing me a favor. There was nothing left here for me.” His shoulders sagged with that last admission, while the shadows played over his face. “But instead of killing me?—”

“I offered him a job,” Casimir said. “That’s the end of the story.” The way he looked at me gave no room for discussion and I didn’t want to anger him as well. Not that Skylar and Dylan were angry at me—not yet—but they hated me shutting them out. I could relate to the way they were feeling right now, because I’d hated it when they had shut me out not so long ago.

Not that we were a picture perfect throuple that talked about everything, but unlike a couple of days ago, I could see the light at the end of this endless tunnel. I could see us winning this war and living somewhere where no one would know who we were.

“We’re here,” Hunter announced, stopping in front of the door that had1523 Awritten on the door.

My emotions were my greatest weakness, and I prided myself on hiding them from everyone—even those I loved. But anger—anger was easy to control. It was easier being angry than sad because no one would question me barging through the door and killing Neal on the spot.

But we had a plan, and as much as I wanted to, I wouldn’t have a chance to destroy him just like he destroyed my parents. At least not yet.

Hunter pushed the door open, already unlocked, and strode inside the apartment without waiting for the rest of us. Casimir let us pass through first. The fury I’d been trying to tame lit up again when I saw Neal in the middle of the room, sitting strapped to a chair with a gag in his mouth.

Bruised and battered, he barely resembled the man who had raised Sebastian and me. He lifted his head, his eyes widening the moment he saw me. It was obvious that he had no idea I already knew the truth. He started thrashing, trying to get out of the restraints tying him to the chair, mumbling over the gag in his mouth, while his eyes pleaded with me—with us.

But I had no remorse for men who lied to me. I had no remorse for those that fucked my life up.

Not a day passed when I didn’t think what my life would’ve been like had my parents stayed alive. Would we be a normal family, far away from the Order and Winworth? It was obvious that both of them disagreed with Judah and the way he ran things, otherwise, they wouldn’t have risked their lives to save Skylar and her parents. To hide them. To protect them.

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