Blood.
After all the numerous times he had cleaned his father’s guns, not once had he thought about the lives they had taken. Did this mean the blood was not only on his father’s hands but his too?
He rubbed the red mark again with the pad of his thumb until it disappeared. “Me and Cassius are brothers, aren’t we?”
The band that had been snapped before the words had left his lips was the only thing you could hear as they all went quiet. Even his twin brothers, who were changing the wheels on their skateboards on the floor, didn’t make a sound.
Lucifer lifted his black eyes from the green paper. “Of course he’s your brother—”
“No,” Dominic stopped his bullshit answer. “We have the same mother. We’re full-blooded brothers, aren’t we?”
Picking up another stack of bills, Lucifer licked his pale, skinny finger to begin counting them, blatantly ignoring his son’s question.
“Answer me!” Dom pounded the old, wooden table, causing a stack of unsecured cash to fall when his father’s lips had yet to move. “You won’t tell me because you killed her, just like you killed Carla, huh?” Dominic didn’t hesitate to say that, even though Angel and Matthias were in the room. He had told them stories about their kind mother ever since they were babies, and when they got older and asked where she was, he told them the truth. Sugary, cute lies about how their mother had grown wings and flew to heaven was what you told normal children, not those who were born in hell.
“Yes, he’s your full brother!” Lucifer roared back. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Dominic glowed back at him. “I want to hear the truth.”
“Okay, here’s your fucking truth.” His father stood up so that all his sons could see him as the harsh words fell from his evil mouth. “Carla was weak, and the only reason I chose her was because I knew twins ran in her family. I thought, since I was the father and would be the one raising them, there was no way they could be weak, but clearly, I was wrong.” Lucifer looked at Angel when he said the last part. “When she was delivering them, there was a complication, and the doctor made me choose between saving Carla’s life or theirs. I didn’t hesitate in my decision, as it saved me a bullet, because I had decided her fate before we even left for the hospital. I didn’t want her babying my sons.” He emphasized his belief that his sons weren’t meant to be shared, like they were his property and his alone.
He looked at Dominic. “Yes, Elena was Cassius’s mother … and yours. Unlike Carla, she was a strong woman, and when her younger brother joined the family, she asked me to let him go. I told her I would under one condition, and she paid the ultimate price a woman and a future mother could pay. After Carla birthed these sons”—he waved at the twins, who were fiddling with their skateboards, then looked at his oldest—“I wanted another soldier.”
When his father finished, Dominic watched him proudly sit back down. If there had been a bullet in one of the guns laid out in front of him, he was certain Lucifer’s brains would have been splattered on the wall behind him, while his soul would have been on its way to hell, where it belonged.
Their father had said some sick shit to them over the years, but for him to make his twelve-year-old sons believe they were lesser than their brothers was something Dom wanted to blow him to kingdom come for.
Thankfully, for Katarina’s sake, none of the guns were loaded. It gave him a moment of clarity.
“You said was.”
“Was what?” Lucifer spat back.
“You said, ‘she was a strong woman.’”
“I told her, if she gave me a second son, that I’d let her see you both. I would have kept her around to give me my army, but she ended up being too strong for my liking. As soon as Cassius popped out of her, she asked to see you, and when she didn’t want to hand over my newborn son, I knew I had to get rid of her.”
Dominic bunched his hand into a fist, squeezing tightly, his tanned knuckles going pale white. Every pore in his body steamed as the world around him went red. The only thing that remained in color was the revolver.
He picked the heavy weapon up by the muzzle and bashed the butt over his father’s head, as if it were a club. Dominic wanted the last Luciano he created to be his true and final one, not wanting another woman to lay with the devil or have a child born by the creature ever again.
The liquid that spewed from Lucifer’s helpless head dripped down onto the pile of money with a thud, matching the coloring of his new world ….
And then the imagery was gone and he returned to the real world where his father sat counting his money, perfectly healthy before him. Dominic stared at the muzzle of the gun for a moment longer … and then he started cleaning it.
Eight
You Don’t Want To Meet Me In The Pit
Dominic, Age 18
“Do you want to be partners?” Bristol asked with a smile when the history teacher asked them to pair up.
Dominic was caught off guard, but he finally answered, “Yeah.”
Bristol scooted her desk closer to him, causing screeching noises when the rusty legs scraped across the dirty, tiled floor.
The once cute, little blonde girl had turned into a pretty teenager who all the boys in high school wanted to either kiss, date, or fuck. Ever since that day on the playground, they had stayed friends. She was actually one of the only friends he had besides Anthony. The boys at school kept their distance from him for obvious reasons, but the girls only kept theirs when he never paid them attention.
“Why are you acting all surprised that I asked to be your partner?”
“I don’t know.” He laughed at her lighthearted question. “I just thought you’d ask one of your friends.”
She playfully hit his arm. “You are one of my friends, silly.”
“You know what I mean; your popular friends.” He had wanted to use a different word to describe them but thought better of it.
“Well, you would be one of those, too, if you actually talked to people.”
What she said was mostly true. He was sure he could squirm his way to the top of the high school totem pole, like Matthias and Angel had done in middle school with their looks and charm. But Dominic didn’t want any of it.
“I’ll pass.” It wasn’t like he was unpopular, per say. Everyone just stayed the fuck away and gave the large senior a wide berth.
Bristol looked at him through her lashes. “You know, we could be more than friends …”
“We’ve talked about this, Bristol.” Dom’s gut sank, feeling bad for having to let her down for the hundredth time.
“I know.” She gave him a big, cheesy smile. “I just like making you feel bad.”
He had a smile of his own. I should have known. Bristol wouldn’t be Bristol if she didn’t tease him or give him a hard time. It was why he was able to keep her as a friend.
“Now, are we going to get started on whatever the hell this is?” she asked, looking at the project rules she didn’t understand when the teacher had gone over them. “Or, are we going to fail this one like the last one we did?”
“I shoulda told your ass no when you asked to be my partner, huh?”
“Well, Dom”—she gave him the side eye—“it wouldn’t have been the first time you turned me down ….”
The silence between them was only slightly awkward until they both busted out laughing and began the project, seriously this time.
On the outside, Dominic looked like his brain was focused on the project, but on the inside, his mind swirled with thoughts of what she had jokingly said. He knew they were jokes, but he also knew they were jokes with truth behind them. Funny jokes were all created the same, with a little trauma.
He should have stopped being friends with her in the sixth grade when she had asked him to be her boyfriend the first time. He’d known when they made it to freshmen year in high school and Bristol asked again, in hopes that he’d grown over the summer or changed his mind, he shouldn’t have continued talking to her. Dominic, h
owever, couldn’t resist since she was his only friend in school. She helped make his life bearable, and every time she asked to go out, he hated himself a little more for not having the decency to let her go.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like Bristol. He did. But she deserved a hell of a lot better than a Luciano.
Dominic knew the path he walked led him to hell; whereas, Bristol’s path led to a white picket fence. He wouldn’t let his life of murder and guns ruin the future she should have. The future she deserved. So, no matter how much he liked her, he had promised himself they’d never be more than friends.
When the last bell rang for the day, Dominic and Bristol exited the classroom together, laughing their way into the hall.
“We’re going to fail that project, aren’t we?”
“Probably.” Dom shrugged. “But at least it’s the last one we could possibly fail since school’s almost out.”
Bristol looked down at her feet, clearly saddened by his words. He knew why. She could probably see it in his eyes that he planned to cut her out of his life the second they graduated high school.
He was about to be an official made man, and he didn’t want Bristol to be anywhere near him. It was time to cut ties and go their separate directions.
Her mouth formed a word, but she hesitated, and before it could came out, Bristol was suddenly grabbed and pulled into a locker.
“You’re really just gonna walk past me like that, Bristol?”
Dominic stopped in his tracks at seeing Bristol get pushed up against a locker by the guy she had recently started dating. She’d had little flings throughout high school, since he continuously turned her down. And Bristol had shitty taste in men, though it wasn’t like Blue Park High had the cream of the crop. Still, she managed to get involved with the worst ones here. However, she had really scraped the bottom of the barrel with this one who had his hands all over her.
“Sorry, I didn’t see you.” She tried to laugh it off, clearly embarrassed by her boyfriend’s behavior.
When he kept kissing on her neck, she tried to put some space between them. “Stop it.”
Her boyfriend just switched to the other side of her neck. “You haven’t congratulated me yet for winning the fight—”
“That’s enough!” Dominic grabbed his shoulder. “She asked you to stop.”
“Back off, Luciano,” he snarled, shrugging off Dom’s hand.
Staring back at the gold eyes, one surrounded by a purple and blue bruise, that dared him to do something, Dominic grabbed his shoulder again, firmly this time, deciding to give him a warning.
“I said that’s enough … Kayne.”
Kayne pushed away from Bristol. Turning around, he went face-to-face with Dom. “You know, if I get in one more fight at school, I’ll get expelled. But I’ll make a fucking exception for you, Luciano.”
That black eye he sported, Dominic knew was from skipping lunch today. Kayne was always fighting with someone behind the school at a secret place they called the pit. The reason Kayne was popular at Blue Park High was from the fear he instilled. If someone much less looked at him fucking wrong, he’d make them meet him at the pit if they didn’t want to get a little-bitch status put on them. When raised in poverty, all anyone had was their pride, so every sucker met him there, even if they knew they were going to lose … And when you fought Kayne, you knew you would.
Dominic could say a lot things about Kayne, but he did know how to fight. For a guy who’d been in too many fights to count, he had never lost a single one.
Kayne took a step forward, putting his face an inch away from Dom’s, and spat right in his face. “Or do you want to take this to the pit?”
“No,” Bristol said, grabbing her boyfriend’s arm. She tried to back him up and calm him down. “Come on—”
“This is between us, not you, Bristol,” Kayne said, pushing her a little too hard until she slammed up against the lockers.
That was all Dominic needed.
Pushing his hands out, he hit Kayne so hard on his chest that he practically knocked the wind out of him when his back met the metals lockers with a smash, giving Kayne a taste of his own medicine. “If I catch you laying your hands on her again, I’ll make sure you’ll never be able to fight again.”
An audience was forming with the thud of hitting the lockers, causing Kayne to hesitate. They were so close to graduating, but the second Kayne put his hands on someone else, there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it, he would get expelled no matter how close he was to the end of the year.
Certain the audience would save Kayne from making that decision, he made a last-ditch effort to call him out on his pride. “You’re too scared to fight me in the pit, aren’t you, Luciano.” He lifted the left side of his lip up in a smile. “My father always told me not to fuck with you, but I see you for what you are, Dominic. Behind your father and your last name, you’re just a little … bitch.”
Squeezing his ready fist, Dominic looked Kayne up and down, deciding he wasn’t worth the risk and released his fist. “For your sake, I hope you never find out.”
Pride wasn’t something you had to fight for when your last name was Luciano. There was nothing he had to prove that his name didn’t already say.
Giving Kayne mercy, he turned to walk away, saving the proud prick his future … until he saw the quick flash of movement from the side of his eye.
Dominic caught the fist that was coming for his head. He grabbed and twisted it until he flipped Kayne around in one swift motion, keeping the painful hold behind his back. Using his other hand, he grasped a chunk of his hair tightly in a fist to hold him up against the lockers.
Kayne might have been the best fighter at Blue Park High, but he was no match for Dom, who had been trained by the best fighter in Blue Park period. His secret sparring with Anthony had done him well over the years.
“See?” Dominic spoke low but deadly right into his ear. “You don’t want to meet me in the pit, Kayne. I’d break your precious undefeated record in—what was that?—” Dominic pretended to count how long it took to place him in this position. “—three seconds?”
Kayne tried to push off the locker with his free hand to get out of the hold but was unsuccessful.
“I’ll kill you!” he roared furiously.
Grasping his hair tighter in his hands, Dom moved his head back an inch until he could slam Kayne’s face back into the locker’s little outward slits. “Then I hope they lock you up next to your dad in prison.”
“Dominic, please.” Bristol touched his shoulder as she cried for him to stop.
Seeing the tears that were starting to well in her eyes, he softened his grip, deciding to let Kayne go … for her.
“Of course you’ll listen to your little lovesick bitc—”
Dominic took Kayne’s pinky finger from the hold he had at the boy’s back and snapped the tiny appendage in two. “Next time will be your hands.”
Kayne, Bristol, and the crowd that had gathered all either screamed, winced, or gasped at the suddenly quick sound of the bone breaking.
Knowing the teachers were making their way through, Dominic finally let Kayne go.
“Why the hell would you do that?” Bristol yelled at him through her tears as she went to Kayne, who helplessly held his broken fingered hand to his chest. Three horizontal cuts started to ooze blood, now accompanying his black eye. “What is wrong with you?”
Confused, Dominic took a step back, pain striking him right in the chest at seeing his friend pick her shitty boyfriend’s side, the boyfriend who had just insulted her in front of the whole school. Hell, the only reason Kayne even went out with her was to piss Dominic off and to try to make him jealous. He’d had it out for Dom ever since they were kids and got in that silly, little fight on the playground. He almost couldn’t believe Bristol, until he saw the fear in her eyes.
All these years, she had never believed he was anything like the reputation his last name made him out to be. Now that she had seen
it for herself, Bristol looked at him like the rest of the world saw a Luciano … as a monster.
Nine
Lucifer owns every dump I take
Dominic 19
“We good?”
Dom placed the two wadded stacks of bills in his thin jacket pocket. “We’re good,” he answered, rising from the table, then slinging the last of the drink that Anthony had given him.
The older man laughed when Dom took a gasping breath at the fire hitting the back of his throat. “That’s what happens when you drink the good shit.” Anthony chuckled. “I didn’t give you the crap I pour when your old man comes along with you.”
Dominic raised a brow at the contempt that Lucifer’s strong arm didn’t bother to conceal, drawing another chuckle from Anthony.
“Kid, if I was afraid of bad-mouthing Lucifer in front of you, I wouldn’t have taught you how to hold your own when he goes off the rails.”
Both of them knew, if Lucifer noticed that the two of them had became friends and Anthony had been teaching him the dirtier art of fighting, Lucifer wouldn’t haven’t trusted him to collect the money owed to him from the businesses and poor suckers that Lucifer shook down.
“You hate the punk-ass motherfucker as much as I do,” Anthony noted.
That wasn’t a shock. What was surprising was Anthony admitting out loud the contempt he felt.
“You’re just as trapped as I am,” Dominic stated, seeing the man’s hatred burning, which had Anthony refilling his glass. Usually, Anthony made an effort not to exhibit the contempt he felt, just as Dom did himself. Tonight, Anthony wasn’t keeping his words in check.
“Lock, stock, and barrel, Lucifer owns every dump I take.”
“What does he have on you?” The weariness etched in the lined faced of the only one of Lucifer’s minions who had tried to help him when he had seen the beatings Lucifer inflicted on him. Sneakily, Anthony had taught him the ins and outs of the jobs he carried out for Lucifer, as well the fighting tactics that would at least give him a chance of defending himself against his father.
Dominic (Made Men Book 8) Page 7