Page 236 of Craving Venom

He bucks weakly beneath me, blood soaking the floor.

“Dominicus said we were building a city. An empire. They called it Volis. They sold it like it was the future, an off-grid sanctuary for the rich and untouchable. Without any laws, government or extradition. A city built in the shadows, run on crypto and bloodless transactions. They promised neon towers lit by black-market tech, clinics that never asked questions, ports that moved product without customs, and brothels that doubled as political leverage. Investors came in droves. Bankers, developers, even ex-intelligence. Everyone bought in, thinking they were part of a clean criminal elite.”

My jaw tightens. Not at the mention of brothels or bloodless deals, I expected that. Assumed they did it for the power, the pleasure, the sickness.

But it wasn’t even that.

It was greed.

“And girls.”

“We didn’t know at first,” he croaks, trembling. “We didn’t know we’d be labeled ‘masters.’ They made it sound clean. By the time we realized what Dominicus really wanted, it was already too late. They owned us.”

“You didn’t want this?” I repeat. “You just wanted returns.”

Bailey’s breathing staggers.

“You let them break girls,” I continue, twisting the shard deeper until he shrieks, “so your offshore account could stay in the black.”

He tries to shake his head, but I slam my palm against his throat, pinning him down.

“I thought I was coming for monsters,” I whisper. “Turns out I’m just knee-deep in fucking cowards.”

I don’t wait for him to plead again. I reach for the next shard and place it with precision, one after another, a grotesque mosaic stitching itself into the ruin of his body.

“Tell me who the Dominicus is.”

His head lolls. “We don’t know. No one does. You think I’d be stuck doing deliveries if I had that kind of access?”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I’m not lying. The Dominicus doesn’t show. He speaks through firewalls, through fucking burner servers hosted out of god-knows-where. His systems are rigged with voice modulators. Proxy chains. No one knows his name. He only comes to one thing.”

I thread all the glass pieces together with copper wire, looping the barbs into a lattice across his lower belly, tight enough to pull skin in directions it wasn’t made to stretch.

“The Quadrennial.”

I pull the wire tight. His stomach rips in crisscrossed tears. Blood pours down the slope of his abdomen, soaking his cock and thighs. He’s sobbing now.

“You know about… the auction?”

My silence is all the answer he needs.

“You were at the last auction,” I mutter. “Tell me how to get in.”

“There’s a screening,” he wheezes. “A vetting system. You don’t just walk in. You need credentials.”

“You have ten seconds to give me more than that.”

He sobs.

“I have a face code,” he blurts. “It’s tied to my auction profile. They scan your face on entry, match it to your encrypted identity. No name. Just the biometric pattern. I’ve got the data key in my watch. It syncs to the entry program once you step through the scanner.”

I snatch his wrist. Snap the watch from his arm. It’s sleek, black, nothing fancy because fancy doesn’t survive blood.

I pocket it.

“How do I spoof your face?” I mutter.

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