He smiled a smile of pure evil, and the dimple in his right cheek disarmed me, or would have, had I not seen the darkness, the depravity, the cold, cold emptiness inside those steely, beautiful eyes, and I wished—and I knew he knew I wished it in that moment—I wished I could take it back. I wished he had never taken the mask of death from his face. I wished he’d never shown me this, this perfect evil, this perfect, cold beauty.

“You want to know my name?” he asked, rising, breaking into my thoughts.

I shook my head. He patted my hair as if he were a proud parent. He then unbuckled his belt and whipped it out of its loops. The sound made me gasp. He doubled it over, watching me as he set the buckle in the palm of his hand.

He moved behind me.

“I underestimated you.”

The first lash of the belt seared my ass, making me scream.

3

Dominic

I have no delusions about the darkness inside my soul. It is a black abyss, a hole so deep and so dark, it could consume me.

It could swallow me whole. It will if I have anything to say about it.

After leaving Gia’s room, I locked the door and set the mask on the kitchen table. I opened the fridge and took out a beer, popping the bottle cap off and drinking half of it down on my way to my bedroom. After whipping Gia’s ass, I needed a drink. And a shower. Whipping was hard work. A workout, really.

And it made my dick hard.

Sick fuck.

In my bedroom, I stripped off my boots, jeans, and briefs, finished the rest of the beer, and switched on the shower. I stepped into the icy flow before the water even warmed, the cold not doing anything to alleviate my rock-hard erection.

I’d heard Salvatore describe me once. He’d been talking to Marco, his bodyguard—glorified foot soldier actually, but who was I to judge, considering. I’ll never forget the word he used. That one word. Monster.

Thing was, he’d been right all along. The golden boy had hit the nail on the fucking head.

I was a monster.

Salvatore thought he must be one to do what he did to Lucia. I snorted at that. He was a fucking white knight compared to me. He did bad things. You couldn’t not. I mean, it’s the fucking mafia, and he’s king. Or would have been, but he handed it all over to our uncle. I could still call Roman uncle. He was a blood relation. That should make me feel better, but it only made me sick.

Fuck them. Fuck the Benedetti assholes. Roman’s allegiance was to them—my uncle whom I’d hated because of how well trusted he’d been now sat like king of the family. Well fuck him too.