Dominika entered the dungeon with the same aura she carried everywhere, an aura that made the air itself shrink back. Her heels clicked sharply against the stone floor, each step echoing through the massive chamber like a declaration of authority. Her expression was carved from ice, her eyes burning with a constrained, simmering anger. She appeared to be looking straight ahead, her gaze fixed on some distant point. Yet she saw everything. Every corner, every shadow, every trembling body suspended within the vast underground hall.
And the dungeon was enormous. People often bragged about theirs, believing they owned the biggest, most fearsome pit. But Dominika didn't compete, she simply owned more. She built bigger. She created spaces whose size alone made men's hearts collapse in their chests. This one was five times the size of what others proudly flaunted. A cavern of fear, authority, and perfectly engineered despair.
Despite the breadth of the chamber, Dominika's eyes took it all in without ever shifting. She was a woman whose awareness didn't depend on movement. She felt the room, breathed it, ruled it. She sensed every breath drawn in fear, every muffled sob, every restrained plea. The thick atmosphere was familiar to her, comforting, even. It smelled of iron, sweat, and the lingering heat from tools used earlier. But to Dominika, it was the scent of an empire. Her empire.
The dungeon was alive with the sounds of men hanging from restraints, suspended upside down, stretched out, or confined in positions meant to break their spirit before breaking anything else. Some wore the evidence of earlier punishments like a second skin. Others, newer ones, still trembled and gasped, unable to mask their fear. And yet, all of them had the same expression when Dominika walked by: the expression of prey that had finally realized there was no escape.
This place wasn't just a work station. It was her joy, her pleasure, her sanctuary. She had several facilities. Naturally, she would. But this one? This was the heart of her power. The place where she made examples out of men who forgot themselves. Where justice, her kind of justice, was exercised with precision and elegance. Here, egos were crushed, pride dismantled, and illusions of superiority extinguished.
Dominika walked with a smooth, commanding grace toward the center of the hall, where her throne-like chair sat elevated slightly from the floor. It wasn't adorned with gold or velvet, those things meant nothing to her. Instead, the chair's design spoke of dominance and permanence: high-backed, metallic, with sharp silhouettes and cold edges. It was less a seat and more a throne stripped of ornament, leaving only authority behind.
She sat with slow, deliberate poise. Her posture was perfect, her chin angled just enough to signify that she was both watching and being watched. The entire dungeon seemed to still the moment she settled into place. Silence became a living thing, hovering.
Then she snapped her fingers.
The sound was soft and crisp. But in her dungeon, it was a command that no one dared misunderstand.
Two heavy-set men stepped forward immediately, dragging another man between them. They each gripped one of his ankles, pulling him across the stone floor so roughly that his back arched in discomfort. His head scraped against the ground as he was dragged, and though Dominika didn't look directly at him yet, she could sense his fear. The tremor in his breath, the frantic shuffle of his hands trying to lift himself even slightly, the half-formed protests that died in his throat.
By the time he reached her, they forced him upright and shoved him to his knees. He swayed slightly, weak, beaten, barely able to hold his posture. His face showed the aftermath of several punishments. But Dominika didn't react to his condition. Not with sympathy, nor disgust. To her, this was routine. Consequence. Order.
She shifted slightly in her chair before speaking, her voice rich and smooth with an undercurrent of threat.
"People assume I'm the problem," she began, her tone almost conversational. "They convince themselves I create chaos simply for the thrill of it." Her fingers drummed lightly on the armrest. "What they always fail to understand is that I mind my business. I stay in my lane. I don't trouble any man who doesn't insist on troubling me first."
She leaned forward just enough for the man to feel her presence like a weight on his chest.
"Yes," she continued softly, "I was born to deal with men. But not all men. Only the foolish ones. The ones who think calling me weak or useless will somehow make it true."
Her eyes locked onto his.
"Now tell me," she said, her voice sinking into an almost dangerous quiet. "Why did you do it?"
He swallowed hard, tears already spilling as he shook uncontrollably. His voice cracked as he spoke.
"P-please… please, I swear… it wasn't intentional."
Dominika blinked once. Then she threw her head back and laughed. A loud, sharp, wicked sound that echoed across the dungeon. The kind of laugh that told everyone she wasn't amused, she was insulted.
"Oh, boys?" she called out lightly, her voice dripping with mockery. "Did you hear that? He says it wasn't intentional." She widened her eyes in feigned innocence. "So shouldn't we just… let him go? After all, he didn't mean it. Right?"
The chamber froze again.
No one dared to respond.
Until one voice, shaky, hesitant, disastrously foolish, spoke from the left side of the hall.
"Yes, ma'am… I think so."
The temperature of the room seemed to drop instantly.
Dominika didn't move, but her entire presence shifted, as if the air recoiled.
"Who just said that?" she yelled, her voice slicing through the silence like a blade.
Every man stiffened. Every breath hitched.
Her boys scrambled quickly, shoving prisoners aside, scanning faces, looking for the culprit. It didn't take long to drag out the trembling beginner, the new recruit. His face carried the clueless fear of someone who hadn't yet learned the rules.
Once he was set before her, one of the senior guards spoke with caution.
"He's new, ma'am. He… he doesn't know how things work around here yet."
Dominika's expression softened, but not kindly. It softened the way a predator might tilt its head while deciding which part to bite first.
"Ohh," she murmured. "A newcomer."
She rose slowly from her chair. Her steps were unhurried as she approached him, studying him with deep interest.
"I'm not a cruel woman," she said, her tone gentle enough to unsettle him further. "I simply enforce justice… appropriately." She nodded once, almost thoughtful. "So I'll spare your life. For now."
Relief washed over his face too quickly.
"But first," she added smoothly, turning to one of her boys, "he's going to learn that speaking in my presence without permission is unacceptable. Remove the part of him that spoke."
A single gesture from her, and he was taken away struggling, dragged by the arms. His muffled protests faded into the background of the dungeon's ambient terror.
Dominika returned her attention to the original man kneeling before her.
"And back to you."
She began to walk around him slowly, each step causing his breath to hitch. Her voice dropped to a chilling whisper.
"I can tolerate stupidity. I can tolerate arrogance. What I cannot tolerate," she said, circling him like a shadow, "is a man who refuses to take responsibility for his behavior."
She paused behind him, letting her words seep into his spine.
"If you hadn't tried to twist your failure into my fault, maybe, just maybe, I would have allowed you to breathe for a few more days."
With that, she returned to her seat.
She signaled.
A bottle was brought forward, its contents dangerous, corrosive, the kind of thing that belonged nowhere near a human body.
Her guard gripped the man's jaw firmly and tilted his head back.
Dominika watched, legs elegantly crossed, as he was forced to swallow. The struggle, the choking, the desperate spasms, none of it fazed her. In fact, a faint smile curved on her lips, as though each frantic movement fed her calm rather than disturbed it.
The moment the bottle was emptied, she rose again.
"Take him," she ordered, waving her fingers dismissively. "Remove his legs. Leave him at the far end. Let him think about life for however long he has left."
The guards dragged him away, his cries echoing down the endless corridor.
Dominika wiped her hands together, satisfied.
"That is what one gets," she said with a cool shrug, "for trying to steal from my seventy percent to feed his thirty." Her tone sharpened. "Business is business."
She glanced toward the trembling newcomer, now restrained in the corner.
"And you," she added with effortless authority, "stay there until I decide how valuable or useless you truly are."
Her personal assistant stepped forward then, handing her the large leather-bound record book. Dominika took it with bored familiarity.
It was time to sign out.
Because even the queen of darkness kept her paperwork neat.
After all, this dungeon, terrifying, vast, and powerful, was her office.