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He watched his father release the empty mag, and even though Dominic was certain there hadn’t been a bullet in the chamber and knew his father was certain, as well, Lucifer still checked, racking the gun to see no bullet pop out.

Continuing to watch him, Lucifer then broke the gun down slowly, showing him how to do each step until all four pieces were laid out on the table. Four pieces that were nothing but scraps of metal apart, but together, they made a deadly weapon.

Dominic didn’t think he’d ever forget it. Something about it was meaningful, even to a ten-year-old boy.

The light touching his face always woke him up when the closet door was opened, unlike when he slept in his own bed; then it was his father’s footsteps.

Lucifer stared at him for a hard second like he always did. Dom never understood why he did that or what he was looking for, but he always walked away unsatisfied.

Leaving the closet, it was never his body that betrayed him; it was the light. He hadn’t yet found a remedy for that and didn’t think he ever would.

His first stop was always the bathroom, using it and cleaning the filth off. The second stop was checking in on his brothers, but when he entered the living room, they weren’t there.

“Where are the twins?” Dom asked Lucifer, who was sitting at the table, counting his money while all his guns were laid out in front of the empty seat where he usually sat.

“They laid down for a nap, but you can go wake them up. Dinner’s ready.” It was DeeDee who answered with her rough voice.

Lucifer shook his head, pointing for Dominic to sit down. “We don’t eat until after Dominic cleans the guns.”

“Okay then.” DeeDee closed the pot, then grabbed her cigarettes and lighter and headed to the sofa. If his mouth could water, it would, even for the gross spaghetti DeeDee liked to make with ketchup. It was like drinking the thick red liquid out of the bottle with a side of noodles. But with his stomach growling, even that sounded good right now.

His dry throat barely let him swallow as he took a seat in front of his father.

Picking up his favorite gun first—the Glock—he felt the weight of it instantly. Instinctively, he knew the little secret held in the barrel.

“How long was I in there?” he asked his father as he dislodged the empty mag.

Lucifer’s black orbs coldly stared at him before he looked down to the Glock. “Three days.”

His trigger finger, which was safely under the barrel like his father had taught him, made the slightest waiver … right before he racked the slide, sending the golden bullet that had been hidden in the chamber safely flying out.

It had been a test. He knew it the second he saw his father’s smug face, but he went on cleaning the gun, pretending nothing had happened. If he had acknowledged it was a test, then his father would know he had contemplated using it.

Lucifer got a large glass of water from the sink; he set it down in front of Dominic. “Son, I think it’s time to know your purpose.”

He quickly dropped what he was doing and picked up the glass, drinking down the glorious liquid loudly until there was nothing left. It took him a second to catch his breath.

“My purpose?”

“There’s a war coming, and when it comes, we’ll be ready.”

Dom’s little bushy brows furrowed. He didn’t know much about war, other than people died, but he knew there were two sides. “Who are we fighting?”

“Another family, like ours,” Lucifer told him, barely able to get the name out of his mouth without disdain. “The Carusos.”

“Carusos …,” he repeated the name, liking the way it sounded against his last name. The Carusos and the Lucianos. It was like the Hatfields and the McCoys but even cooler sounding.

“They’re like us, but with a lot more money.” Lucifer looked down at the stacks of cash he was counting as if it was nothing. “And more men. But I plan for you to have more brothers to help us fight when that day comes.”

Dominic, who began cleaning his gun again, looked up at his father. “Is that why you don’t want girls?”

“A woman has no place in a war,” he told him simply, making the words and the reality of what he did in his past somehow even harsher.

Dominic saw how Lucifer treated women, and while he didn’t treat most men with respect, his behavior toward women was worse. Much worse.

Dominic didn’t get it. The only person in the world who had been nice to him was Carla, and she was a woman. All the girls at school were nice to him, even though he thought they stared at him a bit too much, while all the boys were told by their parents not to talk to him.