Page 47 of Secret Baby for the Italian Mafia Don

He passes me the gun. Just by the way I hold it, he can tell I’m not familiar with them.

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“You’re supposed to learn how to use it.”

We walk deep into the yellowing field, where a makeshift range has been set up with logs and bullet-peppered target sheets. Shattered glass crunches like seashells on the beach as we walk along, the shards sun-bleached and interwoven in the grass. I wonder how long Nico has come out here, if some of thesebottles are from when he was my age or even younger, learning his way around a gun.

“Aren’t there gun ranges in the city?”

“There are,” he says. “There’s also a few laws there saying that me holding a gun constitutes multiple felony charges.”

“Pretty sure those laws say the same thing out here.”

“Arrest me, then.”

He pops open the cooler and takes a beer out of the ice, twisting the top off with his teeth and spitting it aside.

“Aren’t you supposed to bring empty bottles to shoot?” I ask.

“They’re gonna be empty,” he counters, tossing one to me.

I don’t like beer because of the taste. I don’t likethisbeer because I can’t twist off the cap to save my life, and Nico has to take it back from me and pop the top off with the smallest motion of his hand, staring me dead in the eyes the entire time.

“Don’t say a word,” I mutter, swiping it back and taking one disgusting mouthful. I swallow it just to spite him. We sit against the wooden fence, the sun bright and birds calling in the distance.

“This is what you do when you need to relax?” I ask him. “Shoot bottles?”

“Shoot something,” Nico agrees lowly.

I shake my head at that answer. I never heard much about the man Nico shot, and for all the stories he told me on the drive down, that one he never mentioned. I take another sip, wondering if I should bother asking about a dead man. If the how and why matters.

Nico tears through three beers in the time it takes me to get through half of mine, and I eventually give up on the taste and hand mine to him. He finishes it off for me with a couple bobs of his Adam’s apple, swiping his hand against his mouth.

I think I might like beer better if I tasted it on his mouth.

I hate myself for that intrusive thought.

He sets the bottles up on the logs set up for this purpose.

“You ever done this?” he asks.

“Not like this,” I admit. “They let me execute the man who killed Vinny.”

But there was noskillin that. Quick, point blank. The squeeze of one finger. If I think about it, I can still feel the cold pressure of the trigger against my index finger. The before and after of a man screaming, then falling forever silent. Snuffed out just like that.

He took everything from me, and I took everything from him.

It didn’t change anything, but I guess it does make me feel better in a way, knowing that he’s not still out there. He doesn’t get to carry on, living the life Vinny didn’t get to. I don’t think about it very much if I can help it.

“Alright, your turn,” Nico says suddenly. “Would you do it again? Same way?”

“You already know the answer to that,” I say, picking up the handgun again.

Guns used to make me so nervous. I would have handled one about as well as I’d have handled a live snake, as if it could lash out and hurt me. Nico takes my hands in his and walks me through the repetition of the weapon—loading and unloading, clearing the chamber, setting the safety, keeping my finger straight while at rest.

His hands are calloused and warm as he takes his time, tucking me up against his chest as he mutters his low instructions in my ear. He puts the dangerous thing in my hands like a toy, and it stirs that same feeling as when he had a knife at my throat. Dangerous and tempting.

“Aren’t you worried,” I ask, squinting one eye and practicing looking down the barrel, “about teaching a girl to shoot any troublesome men that come around, refusing to leave her alone?”

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