“I won’t be a kid forever.” He wasn’t exactly promising to help, if the day ever came that he could, but the silent meaning was clear. Dom owed Anthony more than the man would ever know. Lucifer thought that Anthony was just a stupid bag of muscle, while Dominic saw the only person who actually gave a fuck about him. Anthony treated him like he didn’t exist around Lucifer, but when he wasn’t around, Anthony treated him like the son he never had.
“No, you won’t. Just hope I live long enough to see that day.”
Dom’s concern grew at seeing the weariness become more apparent. “Are you sick?”
Anthony gave a sarcastic laugh. “Sick and tired of dealing with Lucifer. Does that count?”
Ruefully, Dom nodded. “Yes. We’re both saddled with the same disease.”
Anthony nodded toward a gun that was laying on the table next to the liquor bottle. “There’s the vaccine. Both of us know that’s what it’s going to come down to. The question is”—Anthony refilled his glass—“which one of us will get the fucking pleasure.”
Dom didn’t have to think twice about his answer. “I will.”
“You sure about that? I could do it without a guilty conscious.”
“Me either.” He shrugged.
“You sure?”
Seeing the life drain from Lucifer’s dead body would be the highlight of his existence. “Oh, I’m sure.”
“Then I guess”—Anthony took another drink—“we wait.”
Dom nodded. “For now.”
Going for the door, Dominic buttoned his thin jacket.
“Kid, you need a thicker jacket. It’s cold out there.”
He managed to scrounge around enough money to get Angel a winter coat. He still needed to get Matthias one. Winter would be over before he had enough to get one for himself.
Dominic shrugged, not wanting to admit the truth to Anthony. “Don’t need one. The cold doesn’t bother me.”
“Take mine.” Anthony wasn’t buying that load of shit. “I’ll get myself another one.”
Dominic looked at the distinctive coat that was hanging by the door. “No, thanks.”
“Take it,” the gruff enforcer barked out at him in a tone that had Blue Park quaking in fear when they saw him. Then the man, who was as close to a true father that he would be granted, got out his chair to take his coat off the hook and shove it at him.
Dominic pushed it back. “What do you think Lucifer would do if he saw me wearing your coat? He wears a fucking wool coat. He knows it’s freezing outside. He’s trying to teach me a lesson. If I wear your leather, it’ll just piss him off.”
“What fucking lesson could you learn from freezing your ass off?”
Dominic’s hazel eyes glowered. “That until he’s ready, I’ll only have what he wants me to have.”
“Thanks, kid.”
Confused, Dom stared at him as Anthony hung the coat back up. “What for?”
“For making me feel better about my shitty life.”
Ten
Where It Had All Begun
Dominic, Age 20
Getting out of the car, Dominic fixed the ugly, dark brown suit his father made him wear. You could practically smell the dust on it from where it had hung in the back of his father’s closet for all those years. Shoulder-wise, the old suit fit, but the rest of it hung like it was still on a coat hanger from where he was so lean.
“Did I really need to come?” Dominic asked his father quietly in the parking lot. Lucifer had requested his capos to attend and show respect, and Dom was still just a soldier in the family.
“You’re my son.” Giving him a side-eye, he just as quietly hissed out his next words, “Now, don’t ruin this fucking day for me.”
He had never seen his father this happy in his life, and to see it on a day like today made Dominic sick to his stomach.
“Then what about the ones you left at home?”
Lucifer stopped to look hard into his son’s eyes. “They’re not the ones who will be running the family one day, are they?”
His father’s question sounded like a threat, like he could change his mind who sat at the head of the family when he was dead and gone.
“No.” Dominic made it clear that the Luciano throne was his and his alone. “But one will sit underneath me.”
The underboss. It was all the twenty-year-old thought of obtaining. When he got the title, he would be one final step closer to the throne.
“Cassius,” his father said without a second thought before walking off.
“Cassius?” a stunned Dominic repeated. “But he’s only seven. How could you possibly make that decision no—”
“Because I did,” Lucifer announced firmly.
“Angel and Matthias are only fifteen; you don’t know what they’ll be capable of. They could be better than me, and you don’t even know it.” Dominic paused a moment before he bravely said his next words. “You won’t even give them a chance.”
“Let’s be clear.” His father spun around so his vicious tongue could slap him in the face. “The only real threat you have for taking your place in this family is Cassius, and you fucking know it.”