My Second Marriage with the Mafia Kingpin

"Give me two of those."

For a full minute, the area around the booth fell into a dead silence. Every eye was on Lucian, conflict and utter disbelief plain on their faces.

What in the world...?

When the attendant finally came to, he cleared his throat and smiled. "Sir, I think you’ve misunderstood something," he said. "You have three rounds."

Lucian tilted his head. "I know."

"Then why did you —"

"Every round is harder than the last," he explained. "Why wait for the harder rounds when you can finish them all as early as possible?"

Again, the entire area went still — eyes wide, faces twitching.

"Besides," Lucian tapped a finger on the rules plastered on the table beside the spent guns, "what’s written here says I need a total of thirty targets within the time limit of three rounds. And I did."

Everyone: "..."

Their mouths opened and closed, but no one could find a word to argue with him.

"He’s... he’s not wrong?" One of the guests who had wandered over to see what was happening stepped closer, studying the rules carefully. And he had to admit — Lucian had a point.

As for the members of Dominion, they stared at their boss with equal parts awe and disbelief.

"This is why he’s the big boss," one of the guards whispered, and those around him nodded. "He always knows where to find the loopholes."

As for Ashley and Primo, their eyes were shining brighter than the midday sun. They stood with their hands clasped together, mouths slightly parted, gazes fixed on Lucian.

"He’s amazing," Ashley murmured, and Primo nodded. "So... so cool."

Primo nodded again.

It was rare to see Lucian argue with anyone — rarer still to watch him back someone into a corner using nothing but their own fine print. He turned and pointed squarely at the teddy bear.

"Hand them over."

The moment the words left his lips, Primo and Ashley broke into applause. Lucian’s brows rose. He glanced at his wife and son, then gave them a quiet nod.

"So cool!" Ashley declared, and Primo raised a thumbs-up.

"Thank you," he replied, then turned back to the attendant. "My wife and son are waiting."

The attendant’s expression strained as he looked from Lucian’s composed face to his wife and child, who were still clapping. He gulped, glancing at the small crowd that had gathered — all of them watching to see whether he would try to wriggle out of it.

"Ah — could you please wait just a moment, sir?" the attendant asked. "I need to confirm whether this is permitted."

Lucian nodded graciously. "Get a new stuffed bear while you’re at it. A cleaner one."

"Ha..." The attendant could only nod before retreating into the booth and pulling his colleague aside to call the manager.

This had never happened before. Yes, the first round was easier, but with the time limit factored in, it was supposed to be impossible.

"Is he a hitman?" the colleague hissed, stealing a glance outside the booth at Lucian, who had rejoined his family. "How did he not miss a single shot?"

He shook his head and turned back. "Wait — is it really sixty?"

"Can’t you see the screen?" the first attendant pointed. "Sixty. Right there."

"But... how? Didn’t he waste a bullet at the start?"

That gave them both pause. They looked up at the display, retracing the sequence in their minds — and then their faces soured as they remembered: one of the pellets had struck two targets at once.

How had he done that? They had no idea.

But it was enough. By the time the call finally reached the manager’s office, their minds were already made up.

That guy was a hitman, and they better not anger him.

"Should we call the police?"

"What is it?" Suddenly, a voice came from the telephone.

"Ma’am," the first attendant said quietly. "Someone just hit sixty targets. We’re... we’re going to honor the prize, right?"

*****

"Wow, Lucian!" Ashley was still clapping as she turned to Primo. "Did you see that?"

Primo nodded.

"Isn’t he so cool?" she said. Primo nodded again.

Ashley laughed and turned back to Lucian, jumping to his side. She wrapped both arms around his while Primo took his other hand, looking up at him with wide, expectant eyes.

Lucian’s brows rose as he glanced between them. "That impressed you both that much?" he asked. They nodded vigorously.

"My heart was racing the whole time," she admitted, beaming. "Especially when you bounced the pellet off the wall to make up for the shortage — I couldn’t believe it!"

Primo hadn’t caught that detail in the blur of it all, but he had his own thoughts to contribute.

[Impressive.]

Lucian smiled, just barely.

At the same moment, the two attendants emerged from the booth, each hauling one of the oversized teddy bears — both bigger than Primo himself.

"Sir, congratulations on breaking our record," they said, the words coming out as a formality rather than a celebration. Ashley immediately grabbed one, and Lucian took the other, since there was no chance Primo could carry something larger than himself.

"This is incredible," Ashley said, peeking around the side of the enormous bear to look at Lucian.

Before she could say another word, Primo suddenly signed:

[Let’s try that one!]

He pointed at the neighboring booth, its own set of prizes on full display. Ashley’s eyes lit up instantly.

"Yes! Let’s do that one!" she said, then looked at Lucian. "And win the main prize there too!"

Lucian’s brow furrowed. "The show —"

[We don’t want the show.]

Ashley nodded firmly. "We don’t want the show. You are the show we want to watch!"

"..." The lines on Lucian’s face deepened.

Meanwhile, the attendants’ smiles went rigid. They exchanged a glance, then looked back at the trio.

No way, they thought, shaking their heads inwardly.

But before they could say anything, the family of three had already moved on to the next target. The attendants told themselves it had to have been a fluke. There was simply no way this man would ace every single game booth and walk away with every main prize.

Oh, how wrong they were.

Because before long, the attendants would come to the grim realization that this man needed to be banned from the premises entirely.

With each new main prize Lucian collected, the circle of attendants sharing the same crisis continued to grow. The telephone line to the manager’s office rang every few minutes without pause.

And whenever the manager asked what the problem was, the answer was always the same:

"Ma’am, there’s... there’s a lunatic out here who keeps finding loopholes in our rules!"