Once the count got too damn high, Lucca stopped, his mind already too heavy. He closed the distance without the counting, his blue-green eyes piercing down at the dirty Nike-checked shoe.
One thing was for certain; Cassius may not die …
Lucca kicked the shoe, sending it flying through the dirt.
But Dominic will.
And when Lucca went back to the funeral home, getting lucky that the body hadn’t yet been incinerated, he found that the bullet Dominic had fired had gone through the back of the head and right between the eyes of the accomplice. That was when he decided, Dominic Luciano will definitely die.
Hell, he was probably now his biggest and only threat for the throne, so his name shot up to the first on his list for avenging his mother, and now …
Lucca just needed the crown.
FIVE
THE GLOCK AND GOD HAD SPOKEN
LUCCA, AGE 26
“Hey, darlin’.” The moment Lucca’s eyes landed on Chloe’s scarred face, all his plans came crumbling down. The need for revenge was gone, and in its place was only one need …
To protect.
It was almost poetic that the man who had given her those scars was none other than Lucifer Luciano, and it was even more so ironic now that the Luciano mob boss, who was no more, lay rotting away where only Lucca could find him.
With her monster gone, he was finally able to say the words, “Marry me, darlin’.”
Lucca knew then what he had to do. He had to do everything his father hadn’t so he could protect his future wife, because burying Chloe in the ground, like he had his mother, wasn’t an option. And God forbid, if she lay in a casket for anything other than old age, the world would certainly pay.
Lucca had finally realized what all his other predecessors hadn’t—the weight of the crown must be shared. He just thought he would have some time for his plan to be set into motion, but little did he know someone else had plans of their own …
Whistling, he strode up to the body that lay flat on the ground, careful not to step in the puddle of blood that was beginning to pool before he used his Italian leather shoe to flip the hefty body over.
It was a clean shot, straight through the back of the head, exiting right between the eyes. He had expected no less, even though a Glock wasn’t his favorite gun of choice. But he needed them to think it was Dominic Luciano who had taken the shot. Now all he had to do was dump the body in the alleyway behind the Casino Hotel for them to find.
He stared down at the desolate eyes. The schmuck had had no idea it was coming, and that was how he liked it. When a hit was made, he took only one chance to make it, making sure there would be little error. And, if for some reason the shot was missed, then he took it as a sign of God’s will that it wasn’t that person’s time to depart this earth.
Poor Tom. The Glock and God had spoken.
Tom would be the first casualty of many to come, but it wasn’t the first Caruso life he had taken, and just like the last, he planned for a Luciano to take the fall.
Now let the war begin …
SIX
THE DEATH OF A FRIENDSHIP
Lucca sat on the swing set, waiting.
He looked at his watch. These days, Lucca could only meet once a month, and it was thirty minutes past. He would give it a few more minutes, even though he knew Cassius wasn’t going to show even before he had driven down to Blue Park.
It would be their first time meeting since …
* * *
The second Lucca crossed the Lucianos’ home’s threshold, his cold blue-green eyes landed on Cassius.
He could see the shock in his now teenage eyes before realization dawned in them, now knowing his friend, Luke, had actually been Lucca Caruso this whole time. It was as if you could see everything Cass had ever told him that could be used against his family swim in his eyes.
The reason why Lucca was here in the first place was the last to shine through their depths, and it was as if Lucca could read the young mind.
Kat.
Anger was the last thing that flashed across Cassius’s face before Lucca turned to look at the Luciano women lining up. It took him all of five seconds to glance down the line and know she wasn’t among them. Every unmarried Luciano woman over the age of eighteen was supposed to be lined up, but there was one missing, and it was the only one who mattered. The only one who would set his plan into motion.
He might have never seen Lucifer’s daughter, but his son had sure told him enough about her. Enough for him to pass right by the line of women and the new head of the Luciano family, Dominic, to go snooping around the shabby house. Supposedly, she had baby pink hair that she dyed, and if that wasn’t a dead enough giveaway, the dead black eyes were when he found her hiding in the basement.
Offering her to Drago to marry meant any friendship and trust he had built with Cassius over the years would die in an instant, and yet …
Lucca did it, anyway.
* * *
The chains of the rusty old swing set rattled when he stood. He headed for the park exit, but his steps ceased at the silhouette that appeared in the distance.
His gaze met the eyes of the young boy he had betrayed. He knew Cass had looked up to him as if he was another brother, and yet Lucca had stabbed him in the back without a moment’s hesitation.
Over the years, he’d trained the youngest Luciano to follow his monstrous footsteps instead of his father’s, and like Lucca, who had a soft spot for his mother at that age, he had a soft spot for his sister. So, to say he had betrayed him in the worst way possible was an understatement.
Lucca went to open his mouth, but before he could form the words, Cass shook his head.
“Don’t,” he mouthed. Then, before he knew it, Lucca was watching the silhouette’s back as he walked away.
Cassius had come there for one reason and one reason only—to tell Lucca what he himself already suspected.
The death of a friendship.
Closing his eyes, he rubbed his temples, missing that his office door had quietly opened.
A soft hand brushed his hair back. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” His eyes finally opened to see his black-haired beauty had snuck in on him. As he grabbed her, Chloe trustfully allowed herself to be drawn down onto his lap so he could hold her. He remembered how hard it had been to get to the point where he could touch her, reminding him of just how far they had come for her to be the one to initiate touch. “Just tired.”
Once she was comfortable, she lifted a fingertip to trace under his eyes. “You sure?”
Lucca was finding it harder to keep Chloe in the light and away from his darkness. He always made sure to tell her just enough to know he wasn’t a good person, but he left the details out of just how twisted he was. She knew he had been made at seventeen because of something he had done, but he had yet to tell her what exactly that was.
“You can tell me anything, you know that, right?” she said, almost reading his mind. It was her way of politely letting him know she knew exactly who she was engaged to, but Lucca knew she wasn’t quite so sure she did. To actually hear the things he had done would change the way Chloe looked at him, whether she thought so or not, because not in her wildest dreams could she think them up. Never mind if she were to witness them.