Dominate me

Chapter3

CHAPTER THREE

The salt air tasted like rust and impending rain, but it was nothing compared to the bitter copper taste of adrenaline coating my tongue.

He didn't pull away when I twisted my wrist out of his grip. He just let his fingers trail down the leather of my sleeve, slow and agonizing, leaving a path of liquid fire in their wake. He knew exactly what he was doing to me. He was trying to turn my own body into a traitor against my empire.

"Admit it, Boss," he murmured, his face so close his dark stubble brushed the sensitive skin just below my jaw. "You didn't come all the way down to this frozen harbor just to talk about shipping manifests."

"I came to keep an eye on my investment," I replied, my voice holding steady by sheer force of will. I reached into his leather jacket, my fingers bypassing his chest entirely to wrap around the cold grip of the pistol hidden in his shoulder holster. I didn't draw it. I just kept my hand on it, a lethal reminder of who we were. "You’re getting sloppy. If you burn down my docks, you ruin your own distribution network. I didn't think the East Side boss was that stupid."

He let out a low, rough growl, his hands coming up to lock onto my waist, crushing me against his frame. "I'd burn the whole city down if it meant I got to see you look at me like that again."

The friction between us was a physical weight, pulling us down into the dark. I tilted my head up, my lips a mere breath away from his, ready to give in to the toxic addiction for just one more night, ready to establish exactly who ruled who in the dark.

Then, a low beep cut through the sound of the crashing waves.

It wasn't my phone. It was his.

He didn't move to answer it, his eyes remaining locked on mine, heavy with an obsessive hunger. But the device buzzed again, a rhythmic, persistent alarm that signaled an emergency frequency.

"Ignore it," I whispered, my fingers tightening on his weapon.

"I can't," he rasped, though he looked like it was killing him to pull away. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a encrypted satellite tablet, his eyes scanning the glowing screen.

The temperature around us didn't just drop; it completely froze.

The dark, intense hunger in his eyes vanished, replaced instantly by an icy, lethal detachment that I had never seen directed at me before. His jaw clenched so hard the muscles jumped beneath his skin. He looked down at the tablet, then slowly, terrifyingly, his gaze rose to meet mine.

"What is it?" I asked, my hand instinctively dropping from his holster back to my own pocketed weapon.

Without a word, he turned the screen toward me.

It was a live security feed from an East Side warehouse on the southern border. The building was engulfed in flames, black smoke billowing into the night sky. But it wasn't the fire that made my blood run cold. It was the digital manifest stamped at the bottom of the screen, detailing a massive, multi-million dollar shipment of narcotics that had been intercepted and seized just twenty minutes ago.

Right next to the seizure notice was the digital signature of the cartel informant who had leaked the coordinates to the feds.

The decryption key belonged to my personal terminal. The signature was mine.

"You set me up," he said. His voice wasn't a growl anymore. It was dead, flat, and hollowed out by a brutal, immediate hatred.

"I didn't do this," I said, my voice sharp, my mind racing as I stared at the screen. The financial hit alone would completely bankrupt his syndicate’s quarterly economy, forcing his men into starvation. It looked like a textbook assassination of his business. "I've been in a car or in front of you for the last three hours. I haven't touched my terminal."

"Your underboss, Mateo, just signed off on the transfer of those seized routes to the West Side," he replied, taking a slow step back from me, his hand dropping to his side where his weapon rested. The vulnerability from moments ago was entirely erased, replaced by the ruthless warlord of the East Side. "You played me beautifully. You kept me distracted in the boardroom, you left me hanging to keep me desperate, and then you called me out to an abandoned pier so your crew could dismantle my entire southern network without a fight."

"Look at me!" I demanded, stepping into his space, my cartel authority flaring through the panic. "If I wanted to destroy you, I would do it to your face. I wouldn't use a cowardly leak."

"The evidence is on the server, Boss," he spat, the word dripping with pure venom now. The irresistible man from the boardroom was gone; only my mortal enemy remained. "The economy of both our bandos depended on that southern line. You just broke the treaty. You just declared war."

"It's a frame job," I argued, but even as the words left my mouth, I knew how weak they sounded. The digital footprint was flawless. Someone inside my own house had access to my encryption keys—someone wanted us to tear each other to pieces.

"Save it," he said, his eyes burning with a cold, terrifying promise of retribution. He stepped backward into the rolling fog, his silhouette fading into the darkness of the shipyard. "The next time I see you, it won't be behind closed doors, and it won't be to talk. Tell your men to start praying."

The sound of his heavy boots faded into the distance, leaving me completely alone on the pier. The fragile bond we had built in the dark was shattered, replaced by a cold reality: a war was coming, and the man I was addicted to was officially going to try to kill me.