“You,” she starts.
I shoot her again.
Center mass this time, just like Dante taught me. The bullet hits her chest and she stumbles, her back hitting the altar, her legs giving out beneath her.
She’s sliding down the stone, leaving a smear of blood behind her, her mouth opening and closing like she’s trying to say something but can’t find the words.
I should stop. She’s dying. It’s over.
But I think about those five girls again. About Luca screaming for me. About Marco’s last breath. About six years of looking over my shoulder, six years of nightmares, six years of being afraid to live my own life because this woman and her husband decided I was property.
I pull the trigger one more time.
The third shot hits her somewhere in the upper chest and Isabella Marchetti stops moving. Her eyes are open, staring at nothing, that cold smile finally gone from her face forever.
She’s dead.
The woman who haunted my nightmares for six years is dead on the cathedral floor, and I’m the one who killed her.
I stand there shaking, the gun heavy in my hands, my ears ringing from the shots. I can’t move but stare at the body of the woman I just murdered.
Because that’s what this is. Murder. I can call it justice or self-defense or protecting my family, but at the end of the day, I pointed a gun at another human being and pulled the trigger until she stopped breathing.
I’m a killer now. Just like Dante. Just like all the men who died in this cathedral tonight.
The gun is shaking in my grip. Or maybe I’m the one shaking. I can’t tell anymore.
Then Dante is there.
He comes up beside me slowly, carefully, like he’s approaching a wounded animal. His hand covers mine on the gun, warm and steady, and he gently pries my fingers loose.
“I’ve got it,” he says softly. “I’ve got you. It’s okay.”
“I killed her.”
“I know.”
“I shot her three times.”
“I know.”
“She’s dead because of me.”
He sets the gun aside and wraps his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. I should push him away. Should stand on my own. But I can’t. I bury my face in his shoulder and let him hold me up because I don’t think my legs are working anymore.
“You did what had to be done,” he says, his voice low and steady in my ear. “She would have killed us all. Luca, you, me, everyone. You protected our family, Scarlett. That’s not murder. That’s survival.”
“It doesn’t feel like survival.”
“It never does. Not the first time.”
I pull back enough to look at his face. There’s blood on his cheek and exhaustion in his eyes and something else. Pride and respect.
“I’m not the same person I was six years ago,” I say, and I’m not sure if I’m telling him or telling myself.
“No. You’re not.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”
