Dom’s mouth fell open at hearing her call him that. Stammering, it took him a second to get his words out. “N-No, Katarina, I’m your brother, not your father.”
“You’re not my daddy?”
He shook his head.
Kat’s little bottom lip poked out. “Can’t we pretend you’re my daddy?”
She was starting to break his heart, but he stayed strong. “No, we can’t pretend.”
“Why not?” She furrowed her brows, getting more upset.
“Because it’s important to know who your father is and where you come from, Katarina.”
“But the scary man upstairs can’t be my daddy.” Her eyes started to well with tears. “You take care of me, not him.”
Dom reached over, picking her up to place her on his lap. “Just because I’m not your dad, doesn’t mean I don’t love you just as much, and it doesn’t make us any less family,” he told her, wiping her tears off her rosy cheeks. “But I’m your brother, Katarina, along with Angel and Matthias. Our father is the scary man upstairs, whether we like it or not. But we have to know that. One day, you will understand why it’s important to know that, and to know who we came from.” Waiting until she slowly stopped crying, he wanted to make sure she understood. “Okay?”
“Okay.” Kat nodded her head against his chest, understanding as best as she possibly could at her age. “I still love you, even though you’re not my daddy.”
Laughing, he gave her a squeeze. “Good.”
Holding Kat’s hand, he watched her skip beside him, as her tiny pink backpack that looked too big on her flew up with each skip.
“You excited?”
“Yes! I’m so happy I get to leave my room and finally go to school!”
He gave her tiny hand a squeeze. “Me, too.”
When they reached the door that he and his brothers had once gone in every morning, he bent down to talk to her. “Okay, this is it, Kat. I’ll be right here after school’s out.”
“Wait … You’re not going to kindergarten with me?”
“No.” Dom shook his head, wondering why he felt a pain in his chest. It should be no different than when he had taken his brothers to middle school for the first time, just on the way here, but it didn’t feel the same. “I already went to kindergarten. My school is just right across the street.”
“Oh ….” Kat nibbled her lip.
“Going to school means you’re a big kid now, and big kids go to school all by themselves.”
“But Angel and Matthias go to school together.”
“Well, they were born together, remember? We didn’t get so lucky, so that means we have to be brave and try new things on our own.”
“What if the other kids don’t like me?”
“Some might not.” He told her the truth, wanting her to be prepared for what the last name Luciano meant. “But not everyone has to like you.” Lifting her chin with his finger, he smiled down at her. “Plus, I know, once they do get to know you, they’ll love you.”
Katarina smiled big back at him.
“Now, what are we going to be?” he asked.
“Polite to my teacher and kind to my classmates.” She nodded but quickly spout off again, “Oh, and now brave without you.”
“That’s right.” Dominic gave her a big hug and had to clear his throat before he continued. “Now go on and have fun, Kat. I’ll see you after school.”
“Okay. Bye,” she told him with a wave of her hand and a smile.
Dom didn’t dare let a threatening tear fall. “Bye …”
A year later
Dominic gave Kat the biggest hug when she came running out the school. “So, how was first grade?”
“Wow, you were right. Mrs. Smith is really nice. Way nicer than my old kindergarten teacher.”
“I told you. She was my first grade teacher, too.”
“And you were right about the baby stuff. No more nap time; thank gosh,” Kat continued, as if ready to be shipped off to college.
“Yep.” He laughed. “It’s all downhill from now—”
“Dominic?”
“Mrs. Smith.” He stood up straight, the seventeen-year-old who now towered above his first grade teacher.
“I should have …” Realization hitting her, Dom could tell she felt dumb when she put two and two together. “I’m sorry. I have so many students and names to remember, I must’ve not been thinking.”
“It’s only the first day,” he told her. “Give yourself a break.”
“So, Katarina is your …?”
“Sister,” he said the word along with her, confirming what she thought. “Yes.”
“Listen … um, I was hoping one of her parents would pick her up, as I would like to talk to them.”
Clearing his throat, Dom looked down at his sister. “Hey, Kat, why don’t you go sit down on that bench over there and let me talk to your teacher a minute, okay?”
“Is it all right if I go talk to some of my friends over there instead?” she asked, pointing to a group of girls who were waiting for their parents to pick them up.
“Yes, that’s fine.” Dom let her go, then waited until she was out of earshot before he turned back to Mrs. Smith.
“Kat doesn’t have a mother, and her father is the same as mine, and I know it’s been a long time since I was in your class, but I’m sure you know that getting my father down here isn’t going to happen.”
“I was afraid of that.”
He continued, “So, whatever it is that you want to say, Mrs. Smith, you might as well tell me, because I’m all she’s got.”
The teacher thought for several moments before she gave in, knowing he was right. “Katarina is … gifted.”
Dominic just stared at her blankly.
“As in, her intellectual level far exceeds her fellow students. I believe she may be a mathematical prodigy.”
“I know,” he told her simply, clearly unfazed by the news.
“I-I …” Mrs. Smith had to think about what she wanted to say next, surprised by Dominic’s quick response. “I don’t think she belongs in the first grade. Hell, I don’t think Katarina belongs in this school. There are much better schools out there for he—”
“No, thanks.” Dom shook his head before looking for his sister. He should have known Mrs. Smith wouldn’t have been like the rest of the staff, who turned a blind eye to a Luciano. “Come on, Kat!”
“Dominic.” Mrs. Smith touched his shoulder, stopping him from leaving. “She’s sitting in a class where the other students are still learning four plus four, for Christ’s sake, and she can already multiply numbers that I have to use a calculator for.”
“Like I said, I’m aware.”
“Maybe this is something I really should have talked to your father about.” Taking a step back, she tried to level with him. “I just think Katarina deserves an environment where she can perform to the best of her abilities, is all.”
“If you think my father would give two shits about her solving equations that he has never looked at a day in his life, then by all means, give him a call.” Dominic spoke to her quietly but firmly. “I wasn’t sure if you knew who my father was back then, but now I’m sure you know exactly who Lucifer is, don’t you?” Changing his quiet tone from firm to soft, he relaxed his facial features. “Mrs. Smith, I appreciate that, unlike the other teachers here, you care, I really do, but like me, she was dealt a shit hand on the shit side of the city, and this is the only environment a Luciano is going to get.”
Looking to see Kat was still talking to her friends, he was about to yell for her again.
“I tried to help you, you know? Back then. I called everyone I knew, even Social Services, but the second they heard your last name, they all hung up on me.” Mrs. Smith looked down at the pavement, her voice sounding as broken as an old record. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”
“You did,” he said, taking a step forward to place a hand on her shoulder. “You gave me a safe haven for eight
hours, five days a week … and now that’s what I need you to do for Kat.”
Mrs. Smith looked up from the ground and managed a smile. “I can do that.”
“Wait here,” Dom said, when he got to the front door of their house. Walking in and not seeing his father anywhere, he let Kat in. When she booked it to the basement door and flew down the steps, he went after her.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” he asked as Kat ran down the steps with her little legs.
When he had picked her up on her second day of first grade, she had acted much differently than she had the first day.
“No!” Kat huffed after slamming herself down on her pink bed.
Sitting down on the edge of it next to her, he pretended to beg. “Come on, please.”
Kat huffed, shaking her head, her pigtails that Dom had put up for her this morning swung adorably.
“I’ll tell you what …” He leaned over to whisper, as if what he was about to tell her was top secret and the most important thing in the world. “If you tell me what happened at school today, I’ll go get your baby brother to come play with you.”
“All night?” She emphasized the only deal she was willing to take.
Dom smiled at the lawyer in the making. “All night.”
“Well, I don’t really know what happened,” Little Katarina began. “Yesterday was fun, just like kindergarten, but today, none of my friends would talk to me. And when Katy passed out her birthday invitations, I didn’t get one. I asked her why, but she said her mommy said she couldn’t ’cause of my name.” Looking up at Dominic, she looked confused. “I don’t get what my name has to do with not being my friend anymore.”
Dom took a deep breath. He knew this day would come, but he’d hoped that Kat being a girl might have somehow made the Luciano name less threatening to the gender-stereotyping parents. Hell, he even understood why a parent would tell their kids to stay away from Luciano men, even if they were only boys. The whole city knew where their footsteps were bound to follow.
But Katarina was different. She was everything him and his brothers weren’t. She was smart, kind, loving, and funny. If they spent just five minutes with her, they’d want their child to be around her in hopes that she’d rub off on them. No one on this side of the city were upstanding citizens by any means. They all were poor pieces of shits, who either had a drug problem, a drinking one, or were suppliers to those problems. No one here was better than the other, except Kat.
“Kat, our father isn’t only the scary man upstairs to us … he’s the scary man to everyone else too.”
“He is?”
“Yes, he is a bad man out there too.” Dom nodded. “And because your last name is Luciano, people are scared of that last name because of our father. But that doesn’t mean they are scared of you, okay?”
She thought for a moment. “Did this happen to you?”
“Yes, exactly like you. Kindergarten was fine, because kids don’t really listen to their parents at that age, and they don’t care about stupid stuff like what you look like or how much money you have. They just want to have fun, no matter who they are playing with. But when they get older and get a better understanding of right and wrong, good and evil, they start listening to their parents, even if their parents are wrong.”
“That’s stupid.”
Shocked at the simple response from a smart six-year-old, he couldn’t agree more. “You’re right; it is pretty stupid.”
“Katy was my friend, even though her daddy smells like DeeDee, and I still wanted to go to her party. So she should still want to be my friend, even though the scary man upstairs is mine.”
Dominic gave a chuckle. “She should. But you’re smart enough to make your own decisions about who you want to be friends with.”
“Well, then I don’t want to be friends with Katy, or anyone else who doesn’t like us because of a stupid name we didn’t even get to pick, anyway.”
Staring down at her, he didn’t know whether he should be worried about the things that came out of her mouth or proud. However, he decided the latter was easier to handle. “Okay, then I guess that’s settled. We didn’t want you to go to Katy’s party, anyway.”
“Nope,” she sassily agreed. “Now, can you go get my baby brother already?”
“I’ll be back.”
Seven
The Last Luciano
Dominic, Age 17
Going to the door of the littlest bedroom in the house, he reached up above the doorframe, grabbing the tiny gold key to unlock the door. Opening it, he saw what he always did—DeeDee passed out on the old rug. This was about her naptime every day, and she continued to do what she had done since he’d been a young child—locking them in a safe room and calling it babysitting. Sure it was babysitting, but whether it was actual childcare was up for debate. He figured it was effective, and none of them had gotten seriously injured … yet.
Stepping over DeeDee, he went to the small child who hadn’t looked up at him or cared that he had entered. The youngest Luciano was … different. Not in the gifted way that Kat was. No, in a strange way that Dominic hadn’t quite yet understood.
The boy didn’t cry, didn’t smile, didn’t laugh, all the things he’d seen from raising his other siblings, except for …
“Cassius,” Dom called out to get the four-year-old to look up from the same blocks that he had used to watch Kat play with.
The little boy didn’t look up.
“Cassius.” Kneeling down, Dominic made his voice firmer. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
When his baby brother finally looked over at him, a chill went up his spine as he stared at him. It was like looking into a mirror.
None of his siblings looked like him, bearing their father’s resemblance, but Cassius didn’t look like he was fathered by Lucifer … but from Dominic himself.
Their skin was a beautiful tanned brown with a matching full head of thick brown hair and both of their eyes were hazel ….
Dominic didn’t know how early it was when he woke up on the pink, fuzzy carpet in the basement. He and his brothers would take turns sleeping down here with Kat, not wanting to leave her alone. They secretly wished they could be down here all the time with her, because at least, down here, they were away from their father.
To outsiders, Katarina appeared to have it the worst, but he actually worked hard to find her a safe haven in hell.
Not knowing what time it was, he went upstairs to see if he needed to start getting ready for school as his little sister slept peacefully.
Opening the basement door, he quickly found out that morning had yet to break, but it was the two figures in the kitchen that were heading for the back door who had his attention. One was his father, and the other a woman, who he was seeing out. Since he had seen his father with many women over the years, it was unsurprising, but looking at this particular woman had the hair on his arms standing up.
It was the way she looked at him, he supposed—her brown eyes softening as she stared at him—or maybe it was her look that had his attention. She was truly beautiful. Her thick, brown hair went to her hips, shining even under shitty lighting. He had never seen hair that long before. She didn’t look like she belonged next to his father. The two looked like complete opposites, and he wondered if that was why she looked so breathtaking—because she looked normal standing next to a monster.
“H-Hello,” the woman choked out after several moments with a quick glance at Lucifer, making sure that it was okay before she continued. “I’m Elena.”
Dom didn’t move. “Hi.”
She brought her hand over her heart as she took a step forward. “You’re Dominic, right?”
“Yes.”
Her brown eyes went glossy. “How old are you now …?”
“Thir …” He trailed off when she seemed to already know the answer.
“Teen.” Wiping a tear that had fallen on her cheek, she tried to put on a happy face over her longing one.
“My gosh, you’re so grown up and handsome now.”
“It’s getting early,” Lucifer interjected. “It’s time for you to leave.”
Elena stared at Dominic for a moment longer, not hearing his father’s words until he touched her arm.
“Yes, it is.” She cleared her throat, giving him one last look. “It was nice seeing you, Dominic.”
He tried to form the words “you, too,” but when she gave him her back, the words wouldn’t come out. Instincts told him to run after her. He didn’t know why, only that his gut begged him to, yet his feet remained planted, because of the little girl who slept in the basement.
He thought maybe a part of him should warn her, even though he seemed to know this woman didn’t need a warning. The real reason why he desperately wanted to run after her, he hadn’t known at the time ….
Looking at Cassius, he saw him with new, rose-colored glasses as he watched Kat place one of her pink bows in his hair. It was a good thing for his sister that their baby brother didn’t care what anyone did to him, as she used him as her own personal baby doll.
He stared more intensely at the four-year-old child who was looking like him more and more every day.
I’ll be damned …
Pulling out the old, wooden chair, he joined his father at the table and cracked his knuckles before picking up the Glock to clean it. He cleaned his father’s guns meticulously every night, finding pride in the act of keeping something that only brought pain working in tip-top shape.
Putting the gun back together after cleaning it, he had just set it down and was about to pick up another when he noticed a dark red mark on his fingertip.
He looked at his finger more closely, rubbing the dot with the pad of his thumb. He had expected it to disappear, but the red mark spread. The shiny red speck smeared.
Dominic (Made Men Book 8) Page 6