Chapter 5
“A strong woman doesn’t bend for any man. She chooses the places she’s willing to soften.”
— ROBERT MONROE
Constance
When I step into the basement of Maximo Luciani’s estate at precisely nine a.m. in my mostly dried suit, I expect concrete walls, cold metal tables, maybe some flickering fluorescent lights. I expect it to feel like a bunker. A cage. A place where ghosts live.
But instead, it’s clean and sleek.
Weapon racks line the walls like a museum of violence built just for one man.
Pistols. Rifles. Even an assortment of knives are hung from a corkboard with surgical precision.
There’s a workbench to my right and a long-mirrored wall to the left.
The thick rubber flooring muffles the sound of my boots.
At the back of the basement there are three long, narrow booths, which I recognize as an indoor gun range. It’s all rather…impressive.
Maximo stands at the center of it all. This morning, he looks like what he is, a very dangerous man. A man who let my father die and shouldn’t even be breathing the same air as me.
But he’s also the only one who can teach me what I need to know.
I need him, but that doesn’t mean I have to forgive him.
This morning he’s wearing a fitted black T-shirt instead of a suit, the sleeves hugging muscular biceps I’m trying not to notice. His dark slacks move like silk when he turns. There’s no tie. No jacket. No mask of civility today.
Maximo walks over to the workbench and picks up a pair of gloves, which he tosses to me. “Put those on.”
I do, assuming they’re more for keeping fingerprints off weapons than comfort. The leather is snug and probably cost more than the rest of my outfit combined. I flex my fingers and try not to let him see how fast my heart is beating.
“Have you ever held a gun?” he asks.
“No.”
“Good. You won’t have any bad habits I have to break.”
He offers me earplugs that I insert, then leads me over to the range and picks up a sleek black gun.
After loading a magazine with practiced ease, he racks the slide.
Every movement is quiet and controlled. He hesitates and looks me up and down, taking in the wrinkled pantsuit I had put back on this morning.
“You’ll have a new wardrobe by tonight. Luca scheduled the tailor to come take your measurements at noon. Now, are you ready to give this a try?”
I nod, able to clearly hear him through the plugs, and he flips the gun around to hand it over to me.
I visibly startle when he drops the heavy weapon into my hand. Not because I’m scared of the weight of it. I’m afraid of how right it feels in my hand. It’s like grasping onto a little power for the first time in my life. Deadly power.
Maximo steps behind me. Not touching, but close enough that the air shifts, filling my nose with him. He smells like expensive whiskey and something darker I can’t name.
“Keep your finger off the trigger. Wrap your right hand around the grip. Good. Now bring your left hand around it. Tighter. There.”
I steady my breath, refusing to let him see how badly everything inside me trembles.
His scent continues to fill my nose, and I swallow, gulping the air down as if I might get a taste of him. A shiver runs through me as I get myself back under control. Nothing about him should be even the least bit appealing to me.
“See that silhouette?” Maximo continues. “It’s ten feet away. Aim for the target at the center of the body. There are two bullets in the clip, fire both shots when you’re ready.”
I raise the gun.
It trembles in my hand as if I’m terrified, or eager.
“Breathe in then hold it,” he says.
I take a deep breath. Just one, resisting my earlier urge to inhale the man standing so close behind me.
Then I pull the trigger.
The first shot jerks my arms. The second one rips through the center of the paper target, leaving it flapping, and sending a vibration through my arm that I can feel all the way down to my bones. Instead of fear, something like relief fills my chest. That scares me more than the gun itself.
I lower the weapon, my hands still trembling, and place it on the shelf in front of me. A faint curl of acrid smoke rises from the barrel and stings my nose.
Maximo steps forward and pushes a button that brings the target squeaking back towards us on its track. He holds the paper steady and points out the hole my bullet left.
“First one went wide,” he says. “Second one? That was rage. Most people don’t get more stable, but your face flushed, and your hand seemed to steady despite the adrenaline. You might be a naturally good shot.”
I don’t respond. I don’t know how to reply to his compliment, or even how to act in his presence. Besides, it was just one good shot after one bad one.
“I want to go again,” I tell him when I turn around to face him.
Maximo studies me silently before asking, “Why do you want to do this yourself, Constance?”
I don’t even have to think about the answer because it’s so simple. “I want them to feel what I feel.” I want the people responsible for tearing apart my life to fucking hurt.
“Blame me all you want, but don’t ever waste a second blaming yourself for what happened to Robert,” Maximo says.
“What are you talking about?” I huff.
“Your father went into business with me so that he could afford your tuition. He told me you were going to be the first in the family to get a college degree.”
I swallow hard, hating how he just threw all that in my face.
“Your father made his decision, Constance, one to help you because he loved you,” he says. “That’s not something you should ever regret.”
“How can I not regret it when he’s dead now because of that decision?” I exclaim.
“Like I said, blame me. Better yet, blame the men responsible. As long as you know that killing them isn’t going to make that pain or your guilt go away.”
“Neither will doing nothing!” I reply. “Besides, my father used to tell me that sharing grief makes it lighter. I intend to share my grief with the men responsible for his death.”
Maximo studies me for a long moment, as if he knows I’m referring to him too, but then he nods once. “Let’s go again.”
And with that, we continue my lesson.
For the next two hours, Maximo puts me through various shooting drills.
He corrects my grip and my stance, then shows me how to hold the gun to control the recoil.
He stops me repeatedly to have me focus on my breathing and staying calm.
I shoot until my arms ache and my ears ring, even with the earplugs he provided.
He critiques me on everything from my posture, the tension in my body, even the rhythm of the shots.
He never raises his voice, but there’s no softness in his words either.
I can’t imagine that Maximo Luciani knows how to be gentle.
But he knows how to get results, though.
By the end of the session, my last three shots are easily grouped in the center of the target just like I intended.
“You’re a quick study,” Maximo says as he removes his earplugs.
I don’t want his approval. I remind myself of that every time he opens his mouth. So, I shrug as I remove my own earplugs. “I’m motivated.”
He holsters the gun and walks to the bench. There are two bottles of water that weren’t there before, which must have been delivered by someone while we were shooting. He opens one and takes a sip, then passes me the other.
“You did well.”
I wait for the catch. The warning. The veiled threat. Instead, he just watches me drink, eyes scanning me like he’s cataloging every detail. He tilts his head and says, “I think I envy you.”
That statement catches me off guard, stuns me even.
“What? Why would you envy me?”
“You still believe revenge will fix something.”
I look away because I still believe he could have stopped all of this, if he’d just listened to my father. “But you don’t?”
He steps closer. I hate that my pulse jumps. I hate even more that he probably notices. “I know it won’t. I learned that lesson a long time ago. But I also know that you’re going to chase it anyway because you think you have nothing left to lose.”
I nod to him. “You’re right. This is all I have left. There’s nothing else…”
“Then that makes you more dangerous than anyone in this house.”
There’s something reverent in the way he says it. Like he respects the monster I’m slowly becoming in order to see this through.
And God help me, I like having a man like Maximo’s respect.