Luciano released a long breath. He sounded exhausted as he asked, “Why would I do that?”
Swallowing hard, Dom resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably.
Luciano showed his palms. “Never mind. If you’re here with that”—he nodded toward the pistol in Dom’s hand—“then the verdict has been read.”
Their eyes met. Dom’s heart sank a little deeper. Corrado would never rescind the hit. The man would let his own son take a bullet rather than raise questions about his ability to lead, to determine guilt or innocence. A dead son was better than friends or enemies believing he was gullible.
Luciano’s lips curled into an odd smile. Sort of amused, maybe even a bit proud. “I always wondered who my father had for his big jobs. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
Dom glanced at his pistol. “I wish I didn’t, to be honest.”
“No, it’s probably just as well.” Luciano’s gaze rested on the weapon for a moment, and then met Dom’s. “You’re not a psychopath. If there’s a man alive who could be a hitman without torturing his marks, I’d lay money on that man being you.”
Dom didn’t know what to say to that.
Luciano pulled in a breath and pushed his shoulders back. “Would it be too much to ask for a favor?”
“That depends.”
Luciano eyed the gun, then met Dom’s gaze. “Take me somewhere else. Where my wife and kids won’t be the ones to find me.”
Dom’s throat tightened. All the way to the grave, Luciano was going to have faith in that woman, wasn’t he? Dom would’ve preferred Serafina be the one to find him, that she see that image in her mind every time she got on her back for a Cusimano.
But the kids. Not the kids.
“Your car or mine?”
“Yours.” Luciano tugged at his sleeve, fussing with the cuff as if something so minor even mattered now. “People might get suspicious if we leave in my car and then I turn up dead.”
Dom’s tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Please, Domenico,” his cousin whispered. “We both know you have to do this. Let’s get it over with.”
God, forgive me…
He tucked his gun inside his jacket. “Let’s go.”
In silence, they left the bedroom, descended the grand staircase into the massive foyer, and stepped outside. Luciano’s house didn’t have a huge covered portico like his father’s, and they both put on sunglasses while they waited in the thick heat for someone to bring Dom’s car.
Neither of them spoke as Dom drove. It seemed like they should’ve been reminiscing about the good times, or talking about… well, anything. But conversation just felt macabre while Dom drove his cousin to the place where the cops would find him.
He parked at a remote beach a few miles out of town. As they followed a narrow, sandy path toward the shore, Luciano said, “My father’s life is going to be in danger now. You know that, right?”
“He’s always in danger.”
“I know. But things are getting bad. Sooner or later, someone’s going for the throat.”
Dom’s stomach lurched. “I’ll tell him to bring in more security. And lay low.”
“Good. Good idea. And be careful yourself. You’re too high up the food chain to—”
“I’m pretty sure everyone knows I’m your father’s pity case,” Dom said coldly. “I’m my father’s son. I’ve been watching my back since I was a child.”
Luciano sighed. “I know.” He turned to Dom as they stopped on the sand, and his eyes were filled with sadness now. “Makes you wonder how many generations will be paying for the sins of the father. None of us asked for this life.”
“Some did.”
Luciano seemed to mull that over, and then he shrugged. “They’re fucking idiots. But those of us who were born into this…” He gazed out at the water, but didn’t finish the thought.
They stood in tense silence. Dom’s spine tingled and his stomach twisted—there was no turning back, and they both knew it, but he couldn’t find the words to put Luciano on his knees, and couldn’t bring himself to just raised the gun and be done with it.
Luciano swallowed, his Adam’s apple jumping. “May I have a moment?”
“Yeah.”
Dom stepped back to give his cousin some room.
For a long time, Luciano just stared out at the ocean. After a while, he knelt in the weedy sand, and Dom nearly started toward him again, but halted when his cousin folded his hands beneath his chin. Eyes closed, he moved his lips, though he didn’t make a sound.
Slowly, he lowered his hands. With one, he crossed himself. His eyes slid open, and he fixed his gaze on the ocean again. “I’m ready.”
Maybe you are, but I’m not.
Dom withdrew the gun as he came closer. He clicked off the safety, the sound nearly lost in the crash of the waves not fifty feet away.
Wordlessly, he pressed the pistol to his cousin’s temple. He wondered if Luciano’s life was flashing before his eyes. His certainly was. Their childhood. Their teenage antics. The day Luciano proudly became a made man. The day he congratulated Dom for doing the same. When they’d both congratulated each other on joining a life they couldn’t escape, a life he doubted either of them had truly grasped back then.
And now…