He was really offering to give me lessons in how to kill someone, way more serious than showing me how to use my noodle arms to punch. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t being punished, but in some way rewarded. His smile sealed it.
I jumped up out of the chair, invigorated and no longer wanting to run and hide in my room. The pages of a book held no challenge like finally holding a gun and learning to truly defend myself against all the foes I now knew were out there in the real world.
“Yes,” I said eagerly.
Of course, those foes included Gavril. Just not today.
Chapter 26 - Gavril
How was this possible? I had meant to be firm, even ruthless, with Lilia. But instead, I ended up leading her toward my soundproofed shooting range at the back of the property. She followed eagerly, too excited to do more than quickly rinse the dust off of her and change into clean clothes.
I turned around to see her marveling at the small orange grove between the house and the shooting range. The leaves were waxy, dark green, tiny buds on the verge of blooming into the white flowers that scented the air in spring.
“Southern California real estate is among the most expensive in the US,” she stated, reaching up to pull down one of the branches, then letting it spring back up. “You must have acres and acres. I didn’t even think it was possible in this area to have so much land.”
Why did I swell with pride? “It was several different properties that I combined into one,” I told her. “It took a lot of wrangling for permits and a hell of a lot of money to get it all the way I wanted it over the past year.”
“I keep forgetting you haven’t been here much longer than me,” she said, waiting while I unlocked the doors of the shooting range. “Don’t you ever miss Russia?”
“Don’t you?” I asked, instead of answering. The only thing I missed was the relative ease of my existence compared to here in LA, but she might have taken it personally if I said that.
“Not since Varvara’s been cooking for me,” she said with a grin, as if she hadn’t just been dragged back from another escape attempt. As if she never stuck a knife in my guard’s side.
And I was acting as if neither of those things had happened, and we were enjoying the day as if we never gotten into that argument about her job only a few hours ago.
How was it possible? She was a far cry from the trembling mess I rescued from that auction stage.
The interior of the range was quiet and dark, and I snapped on the bright, overhead lights to reveal the targets at the far end of the building. A cache of guns was stored out here, not just for training and practice, but it never hurt to always have a weapon handy.
Lilia listened raptly as I pointed out the parts of several types of weapons, taught her how to check that they were loaded, how to load them, and finally told her she could grab a pair of sound-dampening headphones and safety goggles.
She seemed disappointed that she didn’t get to immediately start out with a semi-automatic, and frowned at the small handgun I chose for her.
“The bullets kill all the same,” I said, standing behind her to help her aim.
She leaned back, nestling her soft little ass against me. I didn’t hold back a groan, and even with her headphones on, I swore there was a hint of a smile on her face as she gave one more wiggle before she was ready to aim.
Her first shot went high, then she stopped fooling around, trying to drive me wild. The next couple hit the target, and after a while, she was doing some respectable shooting.
“That would have seriously taken someone out of the fight for a while,” I said when I pushed the button to pull the target up to us. “That would probably be a kill shot, but you know it was lucky, because I could tell you were aiming lower on this one.”
She looked frustrated, but running her fingers over the holes in the paper target drained the color out of her face. “A kill shot,” she repeated, swallowing hard.
“Do you want to continue?” I asked briskly, in coach mode, even though I wanted to reassure her that as long as I was around, she’d never have to make such choices that might involve taking another person’s life.
“I think so,” she said. “I like shooting the gun, but the thought…” she sighed. “I don’t know, forget it. I was never cut out for this anyway.”
I didn’t like the hopeless tone, the rounding of her shoulders. Placing the gun aside, I turned her to face me. “There’s nothing weak about your lack of interest in crime or violence, Lilia,” I said firmly. “Your personality traits aren’t flaws. The things you enjoy aren’t a waste of time.”
She looked shocked to hear something like that come out of my mouth, especially since I had argued for the opposite during some of our movie nights. But I was telling the truth now and spitting mad about how she must have felt ostracized for her differences, growing up among ruthless killers.
“If anyone ever made you feel otherwise, they were wrong,” I said.
Her face changed instantly. “No one did,” she said, loyal as ever to her family. “No one was ever anything but supportive.” The way her eyes drifted back in time, and the wistful twist of her lips, told me that wasn’t strictly true, but she’d go down defending them.
“I admire your loyalty,” I said, wishing it was toward me, but having too much pride to tell her such a thing. “Your whole family’s loyalty,” I admitted begrudgingly. “As much as they’re a force I have to dismantle, there’s no way I can’t respect the waythey run things.” If only the Los Angeles Collective could take some notes.
Her smile turned into a frown at the slip that I was working on dismantling her family, but she smiled again. Nothing she didn’t already know.
