CHAPTER 33: CRIMSON DIABLO’S OBSESSION [-R18]

A few days after Lucien was kidnapped.

"Mikhail, we need to do something. Vincent’s plan was doomed from the start!" Victor, one of Mikhail’s most trusted men, snapped.

Crimson Diablo never trusted anyone enough to keep a true right-hand man. He hoarded the big picture and his hidden agendas close to his chest.

He might be the closest, but even he couldn’t read his boss.

Victor was tall, muscular, with dark hair and onyx eyes; today he looked impatient while Mikhail lounged calmly, feet on the table, chewing bubblegum like nothing was wrong.

"What if Lucero sniffed us out and found out what we did to their leader? They’ll tear us apart, Mikhail. We’re finished."

A bubble popped. For the first time, Mikhail’s eyes flicked toward him. He scoffed. "They’re just a bunch of old men who thought everything in the world belonged to them."

He tilted his head. "Surely you’re not actually afraid of them?"

Mikhail’s tone was mocking and condescending, exactly the kind of thing Victor hated.

But he never dared openly oppose him; he remembered too well how that ended last time.

Diablo looked like a brawler, but when a crisis came, he always solved it, every time.

That’s why Dominus, though not as large as Lucero or Lunox, had become the fastest-growing crime syndicate in the country.

Now they were up against two major families. Even if they survived, the fallout would be severe. So that was why he couldn’t just stand still.

"Then what’s the plan? Don’t make me wait another day," Victor demanded.

Mikhail blew another bubble. "Ah, right, your ulcer flaring up again? Isn’t that from your vodka—"

"MIKHAIL REZNIK! I’m serious!"

Diablo rolled his eyes and tapped the table. "You go get Vincent."

Victor’s face went white. He slammed his hands on the table. "Are you insane? You want to declare war on them?"

"What, are you afraid you’ll get caught?" Mikhail laughed.

"The Don of Lucero now is like a basilisk, Mikhail. Even if you crave adrenaline, it’s suicide to challenge him."

"Lucien may be patient, but Salvatore will crush you the moment he gets the chance."

Victor spoke with deadly seriousness, knuckles whitening as he gripped the edge of the table. The Basilisk had a reputation, one glance at him and challengers turned to dust.

"Do you want Vincent to spill our deal and drag us into the war you fear?" Mikhail stood, leaning in; his voice went low and cold.

"Victor, you’re a pawn, my tool. Do tools speak back to their master?"

He grabbed Victor’s jaw with a hard hand. "No? Then shut the hell up and do as I said. Fast. Clean. Get that rat."

Victor swallowed. The alpha’s presence pressed down on him like a physical weight. He nodded without a word and left the room, moving to prepare the operation to capture Vincent.

While Mikhail sighed, his mind lingered on Vincent.

Honestly, he wanted to get rid of him too, but right now, he needed another tool to reach Lucero and the closest one who knew about their operation, power, and secrets was Vincent himself.

He needed to secure him before the Basilisk decided to eliminate him first.

"That useless guy... how could he get trapped that easily?" he muttered, rubbing his chin as he shook his head in irritation.

Diablo then turned around and reached for the thick red curtain hanging on the wall. He pulled it aside, revealing a massive portrait beneath.

The image was haunting even in the dim light; the golden hair of the man in the painting shimmered faintly, blurred by the darkness, but those amethyst eyes—sharp and proud—seemed to pierce straight through the gloom.

Lucien sat there, composed and eternal, forever trapped inside the golden frame where he seemed to belong.

Mikhail grunted softly. "Why are you so hard to get? Every time you’re within my reach, you just slip away... like smoke through my fingers."

Every time he looked at Lucien, that familiar pull returned, an aching sense of belonging, as if the man had been made for him, destined to be his.

Diablo wanted to keep him locked away forever, to trap him in a cage where no one else could see his beauty, where no one could admire that star he called his own.

He wanted the world blind to that intoxicating charm, those mesmerizing eyes that could melt a man from one glance, that gentle, beautiful voice that could make even the cruelest heart yield.

Mikhail wanted to worship him, to immortalize his star, to carve Lucien’s name into his eternity.

But like any cosmic being, Lucien always seemed to drift beyond his grasp, always drawn toward another gravity: an unknown presence more radiant, more majestic, more consuming than himself.

"That bastard... Leopard," he hissed through his teeth.

"I’ll get him. I’ll end him once and for all!"

In his mind, Diablo could already see it: the vision searing, vivid, almost maddening. He imagined Lucien beneath that man, his body trembling, his lips parted in delirious pleasure as he cried out Edmund’s name.

’That bitch in heat must love it,’ he thought bitterly.

He’d be moaning, begging, clutching at his shoulders, pleading to be taken higher, to be torn apart and remade in the arms of another.

The thought burned through him, hot and poisonous. His pants grew unbearably tight as his cock hardened, pulsing with frustrated need.

He cursed lowly, his breath ragged. "Oh, fuck."

Mikhail unzipped his trousers and let his cock spring free. It was thick, hot, slick with precum.

He looked up at the portrait and sneered, mockery in his voice. "Look what you’ve done to me."

Diablo trailed his fingers down the shaft, imagining Lucien’s trembling hands wrapped around it.

In that fantasy, his star mouth greedily took him in, circling the tip with a long tongue, wetting him as the alpha grabbed his golden hair.

"Ah, shit. Lucien..."

Mikhail moaned, eyes glazing as his hand picked up speed. His omega in the painting blurred and rearranged itself into a new scene: Lucien choked, drooling, ravaged beneath him.

"Damn it, I’m going insane, Lucien! Hah, this is all your... fault!"

He hissed, spat on his palm, and resumed the handjob, the saliva making the motion easier. His other hand braced against the frame to steady himself.

The image in his head grew more violent, more intimate: Lucien pinned in the car, begging for more, fingers digging into his shoulders until they bled, and the sight of that pain pushing Mikhail higher.

"Ffuuck!!"

He couldn’t hold back. He pumped faster, inhaling the imagined scent—sweet and sharp like pomegranate—the unique odor of his star that threatened to drag him under.

"Ahh..."

Mikhail finally came, his semen splattering across Lucien’s painted face, smearing the portrait obscene and intoxicating all at once.

He barked a laugh—part triumph, part mockery—either at himself or at the ruined image of his star.

Either way, he felt satisfied: in this moment, he had the power he craved.

"Right. I’m coming for you, Lucien. This time, I will never let you escape," he promised, grinning as he wiped the thick white stain with his palm and spread it over the gilded surface, staining the portrait even more.