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He was about to be an official made man, and he didn’t want Bristol to be anywhere near him. It was time to cut ties and go their separate directions.

Her mouth formed a word, but she hesitated, and before it could came out, Bristol was suddenly grabbed and pulled into a locker.

“You’re really just gonna walk past me like that, Bristol?”

Dominic stopped in his tracks at seeing Bristol get pushed up against a locker by the guy she had recently started dating. She’d had little flings throughout high school, since he continuously turned her down. And Bristol had shitty taste in men, though it wasn’t like Blue Park High had the cream of the crop. Still, she managed to get involved with the worst ones here. However, she had really scraped the bottom of the barrel with this one who had his hands all over her.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you.” She tried to laugh it off, clearly embarrassed by her boyfriend’s behavior.

When he kept kissing on her neck, she tried to put some space between them. “Stop it.”

Her boyfriend just switched to the other side of her neck. “You haven’t congratulated me yet for winning the fight—”

“That’s enough!” Dominic grabbed his shoulder. “She asked you to stop.”

“Back off, Luciano,” he snarled, shrugging off Dom’s hand.

Staring back at the gold eyes, one surrounded by a purple and blue bruise, that dared him to do something, Dominic grabbed his shoulder again, firmly this time, deciding to give him a warning.

“I said that’s enough … Kayne.”

Kayne pushed away from Bristol. Turning around, he went face-to-face with Dom. “You know, if I get in one more fight at school, I’ll get expelled. But I’ll make a fucking exception for you, Luciano.”

That black eye he sported, Dominic knew was from skipping lunch today. Kayne was always fighting with someone behind the school at a secret place they called the pit. The reason Kayne was popular at Blue Park High was from the fear he instilled. If someone much less looked at him fucking wrong, he’d make them meet him at the pit if they didn’t want to get a little-bitch status put on them. When raised in poverty, all anyone had was their pride, so every sucker met him there, even if they knew they were going to lose … And when you fought Kayne, you knew you would.

Dominic could say a lot things about Kayne, but he did know how to fight. For a guy who’d been in too many fights to count, he had never lost a single one.

Kayne took a step forward, putting his face an inch away from Dom’s, and spat right in his face. “Or do you want to take this to the pit?”

“No,” Bristol said, grabbing her boyfriend’s arm. She tried to back him up and calm him down. “Come on—”

“This is between us, not you, Bristol,” Kayne said, pushing her a little too hard until she slammed up against the lockers.

That was all Dominic needed.

Pushing his hands out, he hit Kayne so hard on his chest that he practically knocked the wind out of him when his back met the metals lockers with a smash, giving Kayne a taste of his own medicine. “If I catch you laying your hands on her again, I’ll make sure you’ll never be able to fight again.”

An audience was forming with the thud of hitting the lockers, causing Kayne to hesitate. They were so close to graduating, but the second Kayne put his hands on someone else, there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it, he would get expelled no matter how close he was to the end of the year.

Certain the audience would save Kayne from making that decision, he made a last-ditch effort to call him out on his pride. “You’re too scared to fight me in the pit, aren’t you, Luciano.” He lifted the left side of his lip up in a smile. “My father always told me not to fuck with you, but I see you for what you are, Dominic. Behind your father and your last name, you’re just a little … bitch.”

Squeezing his ready fist, Dominic looked Kayne up and down, deciding he wasn’t worth the risk and released his fist. “For your sake, I hope you never find out.”

Pride wasn’t something you had to fight for when your last name was Luciano. There was nothing he had to prove that his name didn’t already say.

Giving Kayne mercy, he turned to walk away, saving the proud prick his future … until he saw the quick flash of movement from the side of his eye.

Dominic caught the fist that was coming for his head. He grabbed and twisted it until he flipped Kayne around in one swift motion, keeping the painful hold behind his back. Using his other hand, he grasped a chunk of his hair tightly in a fist to hold him up against the lockers.