Page 82 of A Love Most Fatal

My mouth is dry at the very idea, it makes my stomach roll over to imagine. “I don’t know.”

“You have to know,” Mary says. “You have to decide what you can live with to protect the people you care about.”

This is the most words I’ve heard her speak at once since moving in with the Morellis. She speaks well, deliberate and with utmost gravity to her words. This is life or death she’s talking about.

“So? Could you shoot a person?”

I think about my parents and Jenna, who I know would bail me out of any situation, but would they kill for me? Would I kill for them?

“If I had to do it, if there was no other way to protect them, I think I could do it,” I say, then correct myself, “I could do it. I would.”

Mary nods. Her full attention on me, I can spot all the ways she and Vanessa are alike and different, their brown eyes aren’t the same shade but they sit beneath their brows in similar shapes. Their noses slope alike, but have different ends. Maryhas more freckles, she looks younger, though harder. She is unfazed by questions like these.

“Pick up the gun.”

I do as I’m told, first reloading it and then turning to the target which she brings closer using the button next to the stall.

“Close your eyes.”

This I am opposed to because I am still afraid of what Mary could do to me if I’m off my guard (hell, even if I amonmy guard, she’d fuck me up), but I’m too tired to be contrarian.

“Someone has broken into your home,” she starts, not unlike when I’m interviewing men. I crack one eye open and she glares at me. “A man five times your size. He is about to plunge the largest knife you’ve ever seen into your father’s chest. Tell me what you do, and then do it.”

My dad, who’s going on an Alaskan cruise this fall that he can’t wait for.

“I shoot the man’s hand. The one holding the knife,” I say before opening my eyes, focusing on the upper left target and shooting. It’s not in the center, but it’s closer than the other shots.

“The man is hurt, but now he’s pissed, too. He storms towards you.”

I swallow what saliva I can. “I shoot him again, this time in the chest.” I move the gun, shoot again, this time in the center target.

“Nice shot, you hit a lung.”

This is the first praise I’ve heard from Mary and it’s a surprising delight. She hits the button to move the target another five yards away.

“Move faster. There’s someone about to shoot your mother in the upper right.”

I take only a moment to focus before shooting; it doesn’t meet the target, so I lineup one immediately after and shoot again, then one more time for good measure. Two of them hit.

She moves the target farther again, I squint at it, my mind already creating gruesome visages of my loved ones and what could happen to them. It’s the stuff my nightmares are made of, the kind of thing I avoid thinking about at all costs.

“Three men stand between you and my sister, she’s?—”

I don’t even hear the rest of the scenario, already aiming and shooting the upper two targets then the middle one, pulling the trigger with precision three times before emptying the rest of the magazine into the middle target. I’m panting when it clicks open, no ammo left to shoot.

Hot bullet shells scatter around my feet.

When I look to Mary, my chest is still racing through breaths, up and down. There is something knowing on her face, and something like respect there. I know she will not ask about this, nor bring it up.

“Again, this time with the .45,” Mary says, already moving the target.

I’m pacingaround my bedroom, my cock indecently hard even though I just jacked off about ninety minutes ago, when there’s a tiny knock on my door. I move my cock under the band of my sweatpants so I’m not tenting whoever’s on the other side.

I hope it’s Leo here to tell me that despite the late hour, we need to run five miles. Boss’ order. But no, it’s the boss herself, the reason I’ve had to relieve myself twice since waking up in her bed this morning. She’s wearing wool socks even though it’s the middle of June, and a hunter green silky night dress with littleloose sleeves and I want to take it from her and hide it where she will never find it so I can keep it until I die. I’ll be buried with it.

Green is my new favorite color.

“Hi,” she whispers even though my only neighbor in the hall is Mary who is still in the basement probably sharpening knives or whatever scary shit she does down there for another hour.