“If you puke, I’ll slit her fucking throat and bring in another slut to get the fucking job done.”
Lucifer’s threat had him gagging back the bile and blood choking him.
Closing his eyes to shut out Lucifer’s and Anthony’s stares, Dominic used his imagination to take himself away from the bedroom that had probably been used hundreds of times to fulfill the customers’ fantasies at the brothel that Lucifer must own.
“You just going to lay there and let her do all the work?”
Dom ignored the goad, tuning his thoughts to another channel where Lucifer, Anthony, and the woman sucking his dick didn’t exist.
Feeling a condom rolled onto his dick, he was almost torn back to reality, but he succeeded in staying in his own thoughts, telling himself he was strong enough to get through this punishment that Lucifer was determined to administer.
Forcing his aching ribs to work, Dom shifted enough to clumsily drag his body over the woman. Inexperienced, it took two tries to find the target, to sink his dick inside of her.
Losing his virginity in front of his father and Anthony hardened his soul enough to complete the act, as he drowned out the excited moans the woman pretended to give. She deserved a fucking Academy award, but he wasn’t so naïve that he wasn’t aware her pussy was dry.
Both of them in a hell of his own making, Dominic blamed himself for ever trusting Anthony and lowering his guard enough for Lucifer to see his disgust about the callous treatment Sal had received from him. Hell, his brother had been the lucky one.
Painfully heaving into a sitting position, Dom sat on the edge of the bed to reach for his pants after disposing the used condom.
“You’re not done.” Lucifer’s black, maniac orbs looked at him before he yelled, “Amy, get your ass in here!”
He could only sit there, shell-shocked, as another woman came into the room and approached the bed, taking off her top.
“This time, make me believe you enjoyed getting some pussy.”
Dominic opened his mouth to tell Lucifer to kill him, as it would be easier than having to live through this hell, but the black eyes stopping him were the precious ones in his mind—his sister’s.
Defeated, he handed over what dignity he had left to hold out his hand. “Give me another condom.”
Three hours and four women later, Lucifer finally stalked toward an exhausted Dominic on the bed.
His cold face stared him down as he reached out, taking Dom’s sweaty chin in a death grip. “Now you can call yourself a man.” Letting go, he reached into his pocket to pull out his silver money clip to start counting bills. “You know, I was worried about you when Angel and Matthias started sneaking out to fuck every girl in Blue Park, but now I see I’ve just kept you too busy.” Lucifer sprinkled the cash down on the bed with a sinister laugh. “You thought it was funny that I fucked a hooker. Well, congrats, son, you’re no better than your old man.”
Finally satisfied he had humiliated him enough, Lucifer left.
Dominic’s hatred for him seeped out of his every pore as he watched his audience laughingly begin to exit. Dominic had learned his lesson on trying to outsmart Lucifer. He wasn’t ready to take him on… yet.
As both men put their coats back on, Dom stared at Anthony’s enviously, thinking back to how he had used it to lure him into trusting him. Both men created fear just at the sight of those coats; Lucifer in his fancy wool, Anthony in his opposing leather.
Stinking of sex, cheap perfume, and cherry incense, Dominic tried to drag his sore, exhausted body into his clothes. His eyes glittered in the dark room, trying not to let a tear spill.
Dominic didn’t know what hurt worse: the fact that his last bit of innocence had been taken away from him … or that he had been betrayed by his only friend.
Thirteen
The Day Dominic Broke
bRRing.
The house phone ringing had Lucifer answering.
Dominic never paid any mind to his father when he was on the phone, but he could feel the air in the house change, which had him listening in intently.
Looking at Lucifer, he could see his black eyes turn blacker, if that was even possible, as he stayed silent, listening to the other end of the phone.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Lucifer answered as harshly as he was looking at his son, then slammed the phone back on the wall.
Adrenaline rushed through Dominic’s veins, instinctively knowing that whatever was coming tonight was going to end very badly. The look on Lucifer’s face told him one thing, and one thing only.
He wanted blood.
Bravely, Dominic asked what he wished he didn’t have to. “Who was that?”
“The school.”
“Matthias, what did you do now?” he snapped over the loud shooting video game that he and his brothers were playing on the couch.
“Nothing!” Matthias nonchalantly yelled from over his shoulder.
It wasn’t until Angel had paused the game did he notice the shift in the air that his twin had already caught.
Even little Cassius, who had been intently staring at the TV as they murdered Nazi zombies, turned his head too.
“Not him.” When Lucifer’s skinny, pale finger pointed to the floor, the fear emanating from the boys was palpable before he even said the next word. “Her!”
Fuck. Dominic breathed silently to himself, already making a fist.
Angel stood up quickly, followed by a shaky Matthias. Little Cassius, however, looked back at the paused TV.
Dominic took a step forward, seeing the basement door was in Lucifer’s reach. “What did the school say?”
“They want me to come up there to talk about her grades. She’s fucking stupid, isn’t she?” Lucifer’s cruel words whipped him.
Dom’s jaw flexed, wanting to take the knife off the kitchen counter to slit his father’s throat for how he spoke about Kat when he didn’t know a single damn thing about her. He’d have him buried six feet deep by morning if he wasn’t still afraid the system would take his underaged siblings away. With Lucifer dead and Dominic not the head of the family yet, the fear his father put on the city would all be gone. The fear Lucifer instilled would turn to hatred, and the family would go down; there was no question about it. They would throw his ass behind bars. He was a made man now, and that was the consequence of being one … if you got caught.
“I should have never let you raise that child and gotten rid of it myself!” he roared. “Lucianos have never been dumb! We are the smartest people in this city, and you’ve let her taint the name!”
“Well, if you had raised her, you’d know she’s not dumb,” Dominic coldly told him.
“Clearly, she isn’t that fucking bright if I got a call, now is she?”
Dominic opened his mouth to tell him that his ten-year-old daughter, who he didn’t fucking want, was smarter than he would ever be, but he shut his mouth. He and his brothers kept that part about Kat secret. Not only did he not deserve to know his daughter was a genius, but Dominic was scared that Lucifer would feel inferior to her intelligence, making him hate her more.
“I thought so,” Lucifer spat before turning for the basement door.
I’m not going to let you get her again. Dominic swore to the devil and to God Himself.
“No,” Dom ordered, holding a tone that his father sometimes respected.
When Lucifer paused, he continued, making him a promise. “I’ll go to the school and handle it. You will not get a call again.”
Lucifer stared at the basement door for several moments with the tension in the room on high alert. “Fine.” He turned back around, heading out the front door. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
What the …? That’s it?
All the brothers let out a sigh of relief once the door closed.
“I’m gonna let Kat come up to play now.” Little Cassius got up, walking to the basement door.
“No, not yet,” Dom told him from over his shoulder, watching his father walk to his
car, knowing Lucifer never backed down. Something felt off.
The basement door creak open, and then Cass yelled out, “Kat! Come up and play.”
“No, it’s not s—”
Dominic went to the basement door to hurry up and stop her, but seeing her happy, little face as she was already excitingly starting to come up the steps, he couldn’t tell her no now. Knowing she hated the basement, he went against his instincts, letting her come up before their father could drive off.
Watching Kat practically skip to the couch where her twin brothers went back to sitting, her butt didn’t touch the couch for a second when the front doorknob jingled.
Dominic ran to the door in a split-second, keeping it from opening. He looked over at a scared Kat who had jumped back up from off the couch.
“Go.” He mouthed for her to run. Every nerve ending in his body was struck with cold fear as he watched Kat run off, horrorstricken.
“What the fuck!” Lucifer hissed from the other side of the door.
Looking at his twin brothers, who had made it to the door beside him, he asked them gravely on a whisper, “Ready?”
A prepared Angel nodded, followed by a scared Matthias.
“Open this damn door! I’m going to fucking kill—”
Dominic flung open the door once he heard Kat close the basement door behind her, knowing he couldn’t hold the devil off forever.
It was his brother, Angel, who jumped him first, and even though the fifteen-year-old was brave, he didn’t stand a chance against his father. The back of Angel’s head split on the wall the second Lucifer threw him back on it.
Dominic was thankfully quick enough to get to his father before Matthias, knowing he would be scared shitless, tried to face Lucifer.
When Lucifer reared his fist back, Dominic caught it, showing him a trick he had learned from his own enforcer.
The look of Lucifer’s face switched from shock, to disbelief, and then to cold murder. The student had now become the teacher, so what did Lucifer have to do? He fought dirty.
When they had destroyed the whole house and ended up in the kitchen, Lucifer picked up the kitchen chair, smashing it over his son’s head and breaking it into pieces.
Matthias didn’t go into action until he saw Dominic fall to the floor. However, he was no match. Even though Lucifer had to be tired after the fight he and his oldest son had, Matthias had gone down quick. The punch his father planted on him sounded like he had possibly broken his nose.
The sound of the basement door opening had true fear setting in for Dominic. Lucifer was too crazed and hungry to get ahold of Kat after the phone call and now this.
Dom had done his best to keep their father away from her, but over the years, Lucifer had slipped past him a few times and got to her before he could protect her. In the past, he had just been in a torturing mood, but this time, he was in the mood to kill.
Shaking his head to get his thoughts back, he fought through the pain to somehow get back up. The world had become blurry from the blood that seeped into his eyes, so he didn’t even notice little Cassius going out the back door and into the night.
Limping to the basement door, he could already hear her little body tumbling down the steps. Knowing Kat had probably stayed on the other side of the door to hear them fighting. He really wished she would have listened to him when he’d told her to go hide under the bed if she ever heard anything scary coming from upstairs.
When he got to the door, he used the doorframe to hold his broken body up, and when he saw the scene of her crawling across the concrete floor to get away from Lucifer, his heart broke in two.
“No!” Dominic tried to go down the steps, but his broken body fell, hitting the concrete floor with a thud. The last of his adrenaline shot through his body, letting him stand up to grab the back of his father’s shirt as he stalked toward a crawling Kat.
Lucifer turned, spitting the words, “You can’t fucking protect her from me this time,” before he smacked Dom across the face with the back of his hand.
The hit on his already defeated body had him kissing the concrete again, but Dom wouldn’t give up protecting her, so he tried to get up for what would be the last time until Lucifer’s foot kicked him to the ground for good. However, he didn’t stop there as he continued to beat his son over and over, making sure he stayed down this time.
All Dominic could do was lay there as he watched Katarina crawl underneath her bed.
He hoped for death to come, to take him away, knowing his heart wouldn’t be able to watch what Lucifer would do to his precious sister, but he should have known better when his father stopped kicking him before darkness could take him away.
Internally, Dominic screamed from the top of his lungs for help as Lucifer turned to go for his target. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes, knowing what it would do to him if he watched, but he forced himself to, not wanting his sister to go through what she was about to experience alone.
What hurt the most was that she wasn’t looking at Lucifer, who was stepping closer; she was looking into his eyes, pleading for help, and there was nothing he could do about it.
When Kat’s scream entered his ears as Lucifer dragged her out from under the bed, the two broken pieces of his remaining heart shattered.
Lucifer lived for one reason—to break souls. He marked the living. It was his signature he left on a soul that you could only see through someone’s eyes who had been touched by Lucifer. That was why, over time, when he let Dominic out of the closet, he would stare into his eyes, looking for the mark that told him he had finally broken him.
Dominic knew it killed his father that he had yet to break him, but it was kind of ironic that the reason he hadn’t yet was because the hell he’d put him through was the exact thing that made him resilient to it … until now.
For twenty years, he had lived on this earth, never letting his father get the best of him, no matter what sick torture or games he played on him. He was feeling his resolve slip now, though.
He held onto his soul for as long as he could while watching Lucifer mercilessly beat his own ten-year-old daughter. The only thing that saved her was her body protecting itself from the pain when she passed out.
Dominic didn’t even watch Lucifer walk past him when he tossed Kat’s body to the ground like it was a piece of trash. He only kept his eyes on her.
Time seemed to pass slowly. He didn’t know how long he lay there on that concrete floor. The pain he felt in his body was unmatched to the pain that was in his heart.
It took everything he had in him to crawl over to her when he finally could. Every inch he scooted closer to her, the more his soul slipped, until he finally got to her unconscious body and rocked her in his arms like he had the first night he’d met her.
Then that was it.
For the final time, Lucifer had finally … won.
Dom sat in the chair at the tattoo parlor, taking in the pain with stride. What he felt as the tiny inked needles sunk deep into his skin was nothing compared to the day Dominic broke.
Lucifer might have won the battle, but Dom wasn’t going to let him win the war. His father had made the biggest mistake of his life that day by forcing him to watch as he hit his little sister. He had finally marked him and broken a piece of his soul, but just like he had broken his wrist … it healed back stronger.
Looking down, he watched the black ink stab into his fists as the eight letter word slowly formed over his fingers.
He had promised himself two things that day …
First, Lucifer would never lay a hand on Katarina again. He had to tell the devil their little secret, and when she healed, he had brought her upstairs to the kitchen and out of the basement for the first time as Lucifer had sat, counting his money.
The mathematical prodigy had showed Lucifer how far from stupid she really was when she had counted the cash on the table without touching a bill.
“She’s special …” The devil leaned forward, sta
ring at the little girl, who he had never wanted to call his daughter, right in her eyes. “Like him.”
“She is,” Dominic confirmed. “Do not make the same mistake again by leading her right to our enemies.”
Lucifer snapped his dead, black eyes back to his son’s at the insult. “Is there anything else you want to fucking say?”
“She is too valuable to us.” Dominic placed his hands on the table before he stood. Staring the devil down, he showed him the monster he had created. “And you will not touch her again.”
And the second thing he promised himself was …
Lucifer would only die by the hands that now had the word O-V-E-R-C-O-M-E splayed across them.
With the door opening and the lightswitch being flipped, the man that had come in suddenly stood frozen in place.
Using his shoulder to close the apartment door, he pressed the gun at the base of Anthony’s skull. “Don’t fucking move,” Dominic warned, using his other hand to lift Anthony’s coat and take out the weapon that he always carried on him. Unloading them, he tossed the pieces across the room.
Now with only his gun in hand, he shoved Anthony to the side of the living room before carefully walking backward to the table in the middle of the room, keeping the bastard within his field of vision.
“You’re making a mistake. Your old man won’t be happy with you taking out his strong arm.”
“Everyone’s day comes,” Dominic mocked him, enjoying the spurt of fear that came to his so-called friend’s eyes. “Tell me, was it Lucifer’s idea to get me to trust you enough to tell you my deepest, darkest secrets, or did you just betray me all on your own?”
Anthony swallowed hard as sweat began to bead on his brow. “Would it matter?”
“No … I suppose not,” he admitted callously, laying his gun down on the table before slowly backing away. “Out of respect, I’m going to give you a chance to keep your title.” Dominic halted with a smile, giving Anthony an advantage to the table that held the gun by a couple of inches. “Don’t you think the man who deserves to be the Luciano enforcer should be able to get to the gun first?”
Dominic (Made Men Book 8) Page 10