Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49562 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
God, let’s hope not, Lucca thought, looking at his watch again.
“It’s okay if you need to go. Dom told me not to be out too late after dark, anyway.”
“You sure?” Lucca pretended to ask if it was okay, knowing he was going to talk his way out of leaving soon, anyway, if he was going to do what he needed to in time.
“Yep.” Cass threw the leftover gummies back into the plastic bag before he jumped off the swing. “See you same time next week?”
“Actually, I needed to talk to you about …” Lucca’s words trailed off once Cassius’s face fell. Suddenly, he didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was going to be too busy with a new job and his visits to Blue Park were no longer going to be weekly. “Sure, kid.”
Putting out his fist, Cass smiled.
Lucca bumped it before they did their secret handshake that a once littler Luciano had come up with on their third meeting.
As he started to walk home, Cass yelled, “Bye, Luke!” over his shoulder before he disappeared.
Shit. Lucca stood still then started walking, counting his paces. He almost lost count due to his distracted mind. Truthfully, he was no longer so sure if he was capable of killing the kid. With each visit, he got to learn something new about his enemies that he could one day use to take them down, but it also meant he grew closer to the Luciano each time. Cassius happened to be the same age as Leo, and while he was nothing like his sweet little brother, he was starting to see him as one.
Once the count got too damn high, Lucca stopped, his mind already too heavy. He closed the distance without the counting, his blue-green eyes piercing down at the dirty Nike-checked shoe.
One thing was for certain; Cassius may not die …
Lucca kicked the shoe, sending it flying through the dirt.
But Dominic will.
And when Lucca went back to the funeral home, getting lucky that the body hadn’t yet been incinerated, he found that the bullet Dominic had fired had gone through the back of the head and right between the eyes of the accomplice. That was when he decided, Dominic Luciano will definitely die.
Hell, he was probably now his biggest and only threat for the throne, so his name shot up to the first on his list for avenging his mother, and now …
Lucca just needed the crown.
FIVE
THE GLOCK AND GOD HAD SPOKEN
LUCCA, AGE 26
“Hey, darlin’.” The moment Lucca’s eyes landed on Chloe’s scarred face, all his plans came crumbling down. The need for revenge was gone, and in its place was only one need …
To protect.
It was almost poetic that the man who had given her those scars was none other than Lucifer Luciano, and it was even more so ironic now that the Luciano mob boss, who was no more, lay rotting away where only Lucca could find him.
With her monster gone, he was finally able to say the words, “Marry me, darlin’.”
Lucca knew then what he had to do. He had to do everything his father hadn’t so he could protect his future wife, because burying Chloe in the ground, like he had his mother, wasn’t an option. And God forbid, if she lay in a casket for anything other than old age, the world would certainly pay.
Lucca had finally realized what all his other predecessors hadn’t—the weight of the crown must be shared. He just thought he would have some time for his plan to be set into motion, but little did he know someone else had plans of their own …
Whistling, he strode up to the body that lay flat on the ground, careful not to step in the puddle of blood that was beginning to pool before he used his Italian leather shoe to flip the hefty body over.
It was a clean shot, straight through the back of the head, exiting right between the eyes. He had expected no less, even though a Glock wasn’t his favorite gun of choice. But he needed them to think it was Dominic Luciano who had taken the shot. Now all he had to do was dump the body in the alleyway behind the Casino Hotel for them to find.
He stared down at the desolate eyes. The schmuck had had no idea it was coming, and that was how he liked it. When a hit was made, he took only one chance to make it, making sure there would be little error. And, if for some reason the shot was missed, then he took it as a sign of God’s will that it wasn’t that person’s time to depart this earth.
Poor Tom. The Glock and God had spoken.
Tom would be the first casualty of many to come, but it wasn’t the first Caruso life he had taken, and just like the last, he planned for a Luciano to take the fall.