The Tattooed Emperor: Reborn Before the Apocalypse

Chapter 5: Beating You Down First Talking Second

Inside a warehouse big enough to swallow sound whole, rows of men stood waiting in loose, restless lines.

Different ages, different builds, different styles but every single one of them carried the same low, simmering menace, the kind you couldn't fake.

They hadn't gathered here for a war, a hit, or a heist.

They were standing in line for tattoos.

And despite the discipline in their posture, patience was clearly running thin. It was written all over their faces.

"Somebody tell me why Frank's making us all line up for this garbage. We've bled for this family since when did loyalty need ink to prove it?"

"Tell me about it. I genuinely don't know what's gotten into that old man."

"Word is this whole thing was the kid's idea. Guys without ink get forced to get some and the ones already covered? Getting stripped down to one or two pieces, max."

"The kid. God, don't even get me started. I used to think the apple doesn't fall far from the tree with that family, but apparently one bad hit to the skull and he's out here making demands like he actually runs something. I don't know how Frank let this happen."

Grumbling rippled through the warehouse in low, ugly waves.

Every man there kept his voice down whenever Frank passed close by but Frank hadn't survived this long by missing things. He didn't need to hear every word to know exactly what was being said behind his back.

A few choice phrases still reached him anyway, and Frank drew in a slow breath, jaw tightening.

He knew the grumbling would die the second the world actually ended Damon had told him it was coming within the next day or two, and once it did, none of this would need explaining.

But standing here, listening to grown men trash-talk the boy he'd sworn his life to? That, he wouldn't tolerate.

Clap. Clap.

Frank strode to the center of the room and clapped twice, sharp enough to cut through the noise.

"Eyes on me, all of you. I've got a few things to say."

Curious and confused faces turned toward him in unison.

"I know exactly what half of you are thinking right now. That the Young Master's lost his edge after one bad beating. That I've gone soft in my old age, coddling him too long."

"Those thoughts aren't unreasonable. But I've got something to say about that, and I'd like you all to"

"Hold that thought."

A voice cut clean through Frank's sentence, and the entire warehouse went dead silent.

Nobody interrupted Frank. Nobody.

It wasn't just his rank that earned that silence it was the man himself. Old as he was, there wasn't a soul in that room who could last a hundred exchanges against him in a real fight.

The nickname "Uncle Frank" hadn't been handed to him out of respect. He'd earned every letter of it, fist by fist, and most of the men standing here had the bruises to prove it personally.

So who in their right mind would dare cut him off mid-sentence?

A ripple of anticipation moved through the crowd half curiosity, half hunger for a show.

Then a tall man in a black suit stepped out of the shadows near the entrance, unhurried, calm as still water.

"Young Master?"

Frank's furrowed brow smoothed instantly into open confusion.

"Young Master, weren't you supposed to be resting? What are you"

Damon waved him off with an easy smile.

"Uncle Frank, some things I decided I'd rather handle myself."

A fresh wave of muttering broke out the second Damon stepped further into the light.

"The Prince? What's he doing down here?"

"Please tell me he didn't come all the way down just to admire his own handiwork."

"Whatever. Let's give Frank the benefit of the doubt. But if this kid so much as looks at me sideways, heir to the Syndicate or not, I'll knock some sense into him myself."

Damon heard every word. Every syllable, clean as day.

And strangely, none of it landed as an insult.

Looking out over the crowd faces that were somehow both strangers and family at once something heavier than anger settled over him. Guilt, mostly.

The youngest man in that room was pushing twenty-seven. Every single one of them had once sworn their loyalty directly to his father, valuing his father's life above their own and by extension, they'd extended that same loyalty to his father's only son, whether that son had earned it yet or not.

In his first life, Damon had spent months drowning in grief and self-pity right up until the apocalypse began. And through all of it, these men never once walked away.

It was that loyalty their bodies between him and every threat that came calling that had bought him enough time to eventually stumble into the mysterious mark and claw his way toward real power.

But by the time he'd finally become someone worth following, most of them were already gone. Dead, or broken beyond repair, paying the price for a leader who hadn't been ready to lead.

In the final second before his own death betrayed, cornered, out of options the thing that haunted him most wasn't his own ending.

It was the thought that if he'd only pulled himself together sooner, so many of the men who'd bled for him without asking anything back might still be alive.

That guilt had followed him across two lifetimes.

And now, impossibly, he'd been handed a second shot to get it right.

So when Damon heard grown men mocking him to his face, there wasn't a shred of anger in him. Just a slow, warm smile.

The sheer unexpectedness of it caught the whole warehouse off guard.

Is he... different today?

Then he opened his mouth again, and whatever confusion had softened their expressions hardened right back into irritation.

"I heard everything you were saying a minute ago. And I know exactly what you're all thinking right now, too."

"But I'm not going to waste breath explaining myself. Not yet. I think it'll land a lot better if I earn that explanation first."

He paused, sweeping his gaze slowly across the hundreds of men gathered in front of him, and let a broad, confident grin spread across his face.

"So, who wants to go first?"

The warehouse went dead silent for exactly one heartbeat.

Then it erupted.