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“What do you say, Maria?” Lucca whispered to her dark soul as he outstretched a hand. “Do we have a deal?”

She looked away from the city and over to his hand. She had just been offered everything her little black heart desired. All she had to do was shake on it ….

Turning back to face him, her pointy heels directed toward him, she stood strongly before the underboss. “I want two things before I do.”

Lucca took back his hand, but he didn’t shoot her down, waiting to hear her ask.

“No guards, but I will take a driver of my choosing to watch my back.” It was a compromise. She didn’t want a suit watching her every move or telling her where to go, but she did understand that her being the consigliere would come with more risks than she was already under.

He waited to hear the second stipulation before deciding.

“And”—Maria smiled—“I want you to buy me a car.”

He raised an amused brow. “What kind?”

“Whatever one I want,” she told him, not revealing what she had planned.

Lucca held his hand back out for her to take. “Deal.”

Making her own deal with the boogieman, she shook his hand. “Deal.”

It was decided. The three would share the throne.

Clicking her heels as she headed out of his office, she had almost forgotten.

“Oh, and Lucca”—Maria looked back at him from over her shoulder—“I know you’ve been secretly helping Cassius.”

The underboss smiled, not denying it.

“Unfortunately, in the process, you taught him to smoke.” Going for the door, she didn’t have to look back as she walked through to know Lucca had no idea Cassius picked up that habit. “Now fucking undo it.”

Dominic sat in the cold warehouse on his old, tufted leather chair. His tatted hands gripping the arms, he stared at his three brothers who stood before him on the other side of his desk.

Angel’s, Matthias’s, and Cassius’s gazes were unwavering, staring down at him not as a brother but as the boss. Every one of them knew why they all were here—Dominic had yet to choose the titles of consigliere, underboss, and enforcer.

This was a decision he hadn’t come to lightly. It was one that could break their family and bonds apart if he chose wrong or one brother felt slighted by another. The only reason Katarina wasn’t here was because Lucca had noticed her talents and employed her as the Caruso bookkeeper. That Caruso job excluded her from holding any power in the Luciano family, as it did his wife Maria. Those two actions alone caused Dominic to give his full trust over to the underboss and future Caruso boss once and for all.

“I have come to a decision,” he told them, meeting the eye of each man before moving to the next. “We run this family—”

Each brother waited on bated breath as Dominic said his final word.

“—together.”

Fifty-Six

Your Soul To Take

“Do I get to see you finally shoot now or what?” she asked, standing in his backyard. She had been married to this man for a week, and while they had fucked their way through most of it, she needed to see the legendary Glock in actio—

“What the fuck!” she yelled when the gunshot went off beside her. He had been standing perfectly still one moment, and the next, his Glock was in his hand and had already fired.

Dominic laughed. “Sorry, princess, but you asked for it.”

There is no fucking wa—

Maria’s mouth dropped seeing the can yards away with a bullet hole right through the middle. How was something like that even possible? But fuck me, that is so hot.

Looking back from the can to him, she raised a brow and smiled. “Can I try?”

“Have you ever shot a gun before?” he asked, slightly unsure or slightly scared.

She wanted to lie but didn’t. “No.” She had someone following her twenty-four seven; she didn’t need to have a gun in her hand.

Releasing the mag, he put it in his jacket pocket before he racked it, clearing the chamber of the little bullet before it was safe.

“Okay, come here,” he said, pulling her waist until he planted her right in front of him and the target. Handing her the gun, he showed her the correct stance that his father had taught him many years ago.

“Now, this finger”—he removed her pointer finger to where she had instinctively placed it on the trigger to let it rest under the barrel—“goes here. Your finger only touches the trigger when you’re certain you want to pull it.” He began to stress this fact even more. “The only reason I didn’t shoot you that morning when you surprised me is because I kept my finger here. You must be completely certain who is on the other side before you do, because”—he placed her finger back on the trigger and lightly pulled … click—“once you do, it can’t be undone.”