If The Seas Catch Fire(91)

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 f*cking 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…

Now this.

Dom swallowed. His finger was curled around the trigger, which the gunsmith had specifically set up to be only slightly less sensitive than a hair trigger. One twitch of Dom’s finger, and it would all be over. But he couldn’t move.

Luciano pulled in a deep breath through his nose. Eyes closed, he released it. “Just do it.”

The trigger was suddenly a hundred pounds. He had visions of the gun jamming. Backfiring. Exploding and taking them both out. Anything but doing what it had, without fail, done thousands of times before.

And still, his finger didn’t move.

Dom lowered the gun. “I can’t… I can’t do this.”

“Dom. Look at me.”

He lifted his gaze and met his cousin’s. Luciano swallowed. “You don’t have a choice. Either you kill me now, or my father kills us both.” He reached up and took Dom’s free hand. “I can’t let that happen. You’re like a brother. Always have been.”

A lump rose in Dom’s throat.

“If someone’s gotta take me out, then I’d rather it be you than anyone else.” He looked up, straight into Dom’s eyes. “At least I know you’ll make it quick. You know damn well my father wouldn’t do the same for either of us.”

Dom shuddered.

“I’m at peace with it.” Luciano squeezed his hand. “This isn’t your fault. We both know it isn’t. You’re caught in the machinery as much as I am.”