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)
The end of his cigarette glowed brighter as he watched Lucifer draw closer to the car. Lucca didn’t know exactly what he planned to do tonight, as it ranged from torture to murder at the moment. A million different sights of the devil being in pain flashed through his mind as he gripped the steering wheel, trying to keep himself in place, and just as his grip loosened … the Luciano boss headed back to the house.
Would he come back out?
Maybe he had just forgotten his keys?
Had he missed his one and only chance?
Lucca’s eyes were pinned on Lucifer, seeing him now bang on the door of the old, beaten-up house. Every instinct he had told him something bad was about to happen to the family inside that home, and he was proven right once that door was finally flung open. He got to witness it all through that open doorway as he started to watch each of the Luciano brothers fall.
The younger twins fell quickly, but it was Dominic, the oldest, who put up a brave fight. He took note of the future Luciano mob boss and realized that, if it came to a fight between them, Lucca would have to fight dirty, like Lucifer. So, why did he find himself getting out of the car to go help him? Just moments ago, he had wanted everyone who carried the Luciano name to be put six feet under with his mother, and now he was about to help his future’s biggest adversary …
A small shadowy figure came out from behind the house and started walking down the street. Lucca’s attention now drawn to it, he found himself following at a distance, his instincts telling him this was more important. When it veered off toward a children’s park that had been overrun by the less fortunate, he let himself get closer, and his interest was suddenly piqued.
It was a child, a young boy, who had walked off into the scary dark night. To any other kid, this place would have been frightening to such a young mind, but he supposed this was far less scary than the house he had just left.
He inched closer and closer once the kid had taken a seat on the dirty old swing set. At first, Lucca thought he looked sad that no one was there to push him, but the second he got close enough to see that his foot had stomped on a spider on the ground and he was now watching the half-alive creature being tortured, he realized what that expression on the kid’s face was …
Boredom.
“Hello.” Lucca finally let his presence be known once he took a seat on the swing beside him.
“Hi.”
The little shit couldn’t be less afraid of him.
“What’s your name?” Lucca asked, as if he didn’t have a fucking clue, even though it was more than obvious who this little psychopath in the making was who looked like a pocket-sized version of Dominic.
The boy looked at him as if he should know who he was. “Cassius.”
Lucca started to gently swing with a smile on his lips. He was indeed exactly who he’d thought. “It’s nice to meet you, Cassius.” He watched as the young boy went back to staring at the tortured spider.
Cassius was the last son born to Lucifer Luciano, and it looked like the devil had finally perfected his offspring.
“What are you doing out here so late?”
“My father is trying to hurt Kat again.”
His ears perked up at hearing a name he hadn’t yet known. Sal had broken down the Luciano family tree, along with any acquaintances the hacker could get his hands on, but he knew distinctly that he would have remembered a name like that.
“Who’s Kat?” he asked, looking down to see what the boy was staring at.
“My sister.”
Lucca almost couldn’t believe it. “Oh.” He was pretty fucking sure no one knew of Kat’s existence, maybe not even Lucifer’s men, and he was definitely fucking sure he was now the only Caruso to know.
There had to be a reason she was being hidden, but Lucca wasn’t just going to find out more about the secret daughter; he was going to find out every fucking weakness the Lucianos had so he could wipe them off the crime family map when he became king. And the kid sitting next to him was going to be how. There was just one problem …
Standing, Lucca crouched in front of Cassius, the moonlight illuminating the kid’s face. On the outside, he might’ve been the spitting image of his older brother, but on the inside, they were as dark and fucked up as their father. And that was the problem.
“I like to hurt things, too.”
Finally, Cassius looked back at Lucca. “You do?”
“Yes, but”—his shoe hovered over the tortured soul and then, as his shoe met the ground, he wished he didn’t have to settle for just a measly spider for the night—“they must deserve it.”