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Dominic eyed the man standing in front of him, noticing the jeans and black shirt before him might have been simple, but they were a lot nicer than the worn-out ones usually worn around here. Looking up, he watched the man turn his head slightly toward him and recognition dawned.

“Slumming it today, Lucca?” Dom asked, feeling stupid when Lucca glanced down at the amount of candy clutched in his hands and raised his brow.

“Passing through.” Lucca shrugged, starting to advanced forward as the line toward the cash register moved and giving him a cold shoulder under what Dom would bet was at least a fifty dollar T-shirt. He could buy a pack of five of the same shirt at their local Walmart for eight bucks.

Dominic automatically looked toward the glass door when he heard the jingling bell as another customer entered. The man had a wild look on his face when he barged forward, ignoring the waiting line as he shoved his way past him, then Lucca, before thrusting aside an older woman.

“Give me your fucking money!”

Well … shit.

Dom saw a flash of gunmetal as the robber pointed a gun at Carlos across the counter. The owner quickly began opening the register, taking out the cash inside.

Neither Dominic nor Lucca made any move to stop the robbery, seeing another man outside, blocking anyone else from coming in. Dom would let them leave, then track down the fuckers when he didn’t have to worry about Carlos’s face getting shot off by the robber who looked coked out of his mind, already trying to get his next fix.

Lowering his hands, he held the candy lower to his waist and waited for the robbery to play out, seeing Lucca was doing the same.

“Dad, I’m done. You—”

Startled, the robber turned at the sound of Marco’s voice as the boy came from a side room to go behind the counter, unaware his father was being robbed.

The muzzle of the gun turned toward the boy, but before the robber could pull the trigger, he found a booger the size of 9mm shoved up his nose.

“Put the gun down,” Dominic instructed the robber coldly, feeling the burning bite of a bullet that hit his upper arm. Unfazed, he pulled the trigger, splattering brains and gore around the counter and ceiling.

Tightening his hand on the grip of his gun, Dominic turned in one motion toward the door and the robber’s accomplice, who had fired the bullet at him.

The man wasn’t so high that he didn’t recognize who he had just shot and who else was standing by the counter. Pure fear flashed across his face before he took off running.

Lucca made it out the door first since he was closer, but Dom was on his heels as the accomplice ran like hell, trying to disappear down the street. The fucker was sprinting, not high enough not to know he was dead man if he was caught. He had gotten far enough away that he had nearly reached the end of the block. If he managed to get around the corner, he would be able to disappear from sight. The man could have been a fucking Olympic runner; he was moving so goddamn fast that Dom could only make out the color of his red T-shirt.

Lucca raised his gun to fire, but Dominic didn’t hesitate a beat.

“Don’t,” Dom said as he raised his gun alongside Lucca’s. “He’s mine.”

The bullet that left his pistol at the speed of light fired before Lucca could sight his fleeing target. The man could have out run the fastest person alive, but he wasn’t going to beat a bullet.

He suddenly stopped running midair, dropping to the ground facefirst.

Lucca slowly lowered his gun and turned, staring at Dominic hard with his blue-green eyes. “You shot him in the head.”

“Yes, I wanted him dead,” Dominic said simply. Placing his gun back at his waist, he made a smart-ass remark to the man who had been made at seventeen. “I didn’t think you’d be opposed to it.”

Lucca looked back to where the body had landed, seeing how far away it was. “But it only took you one bullet.”

“Lucky shot.” Dom shrugged it off, then quickly changed the subject. “You could have saved me the bullet if you had caught him.”

“I don’t know a man alive who could have caught that fucker,” Lucca told him, not insulted in the least. Putting away his own gun, he went back to staring him down.

“Maybe,” Dominic agreed with a smile, unable to resist saying the next words. “But you woulda had a better shot of catching him if you put down the cigarettes once in a while.”

Sure, Dom might’ve been lucky that Lucca had already put his gun away before making that comment and that Carlos had come out and was heading toward them.