Dom couldn’t hide how cornered he was. Lucca could see it through the tiny mirror.
“If Katarina isn’t happily married when I take my father’s place, I will make Drago file for a divorce or let you kill him. It’ll be your choice.”
Dom’s brows drew into a line at seeing that the underboss was fucking serious, and he wasn’t just saying it because he was scared for his life.
Continuing his promise, Lucca blew out a puff of smoke. “And as for Maria, I’ll—”
“Oh, come on, we both know you’re not leaving this car alive,” Dom stopped him. Cocking his Glock, the sound echoed throughout the small space ominously. “You don’t point a gun at the boogieman and live.”
It didn’t matter what the underboss told him, he couldn’t let him live. Dom had a better shot at facing Dante, and the father had way less of an imagination than his son.
Lucca took a long, hard hit of his burning cigarette. “I followed the car that picked up the dead body you shot outside the gas station. I visited that funeral home and told them to give me a call whenever a body needing to be discreetly disposed of was brought in. I knew every person killed by you. Every single one of your kills landed them with a bullet right between the eyes. The only one you shot from behind was the one I saw that day.”
Dominic continued to listen to every word spilling from Lucca’s lips.
“That was also the day I knew I would have to kill you.” He crushed his cigarette in the ashtray without looking away from Dom. “The first real chance I got, I knew I’d have to take it, because no man who only took a life by looking into their eyes and possessed your skill would be happy with the shitty, little piece of this city you were given.”
“Until you met her,” Dominic said the next part of the story, letting him know he knew why he had asked for the fifty-fifty agreement.
“Yes,” Lucca agreed. “The second I saw Chloe, I no longer wanted you as my enemy. What happened to my mother, I will not let happen to her.”
“It was the day of your mother’s funeral that I knew I could kill you.” Dominic drifted his eyes to the loaded Glock in his hand, telling him his own story. “I thought you were like my father, but he never loved a soul. I could see the way you loved your mother when you looked at her casket. I knew you would love again … but I also knew you’d die if you lost her.”
Lucca stared at him fiercely in the rearview mirror, showing Dominic just how right, but oh so wrong, he was. The man he held a gun to might not live long after the death of his soulmate, but the boogieman promised him with evil blue-green eyes that he would burn the city to the ground all by himself, destroying every living thing in its limits before he’d take the man responsible for Chloe’s death to hell with him.
“Relax,” Dom told him. “The gun’s pointed at you, not her. My father already touched her, anyway, and I take no pleasure in hurting anyone Lucifer has marked.”
Taking in his wholehearted answer, Lucca lit up another cigarette, the glow of the Zippo in the dark car lighting up his face. “There will come a day when we will make an enemy, whether its inside or outside of the city, and I’d like to have you on my side. I won’t be able to protect Chloe alone.”
Dom could see he still wanted them to work together, but he had yet to prove it.
“You want me and my men prepared to die for her, not to actually share the city.”
“You’ll want it too, you know,” Lucca warned him. “You’ll want me and my men prepared to die for the woman you love too.”
“The woman I love, your men are already prepared to die for,” Dominic spat behind him, letting him know it wasn’t the same thing.
The underboss taunted him with the cold hard truth. “Their love for Maria will die the second she becomes a Luciano.”
“Well, it’s a good thing she didn’t choose me,” he bit back.
Staring back down at his gun, it was time he decided what to do. “Not once did I ever consider running this city together. I promised myself long ago I would take the throne and become king.” Dominic lifted his hazel depths back to the rearview mirror. “You will always need me more than I need you. You were born for this life, Lucca, but … I was made.” Uncocking the gun with his last words, Dom let the boogieman go free, both with the knowledge of who truly deserved to wear the crown.