Page 20 of Edge of Sin

“Are you fucking kidding me, Enzo?” he screamed, coughing up blood. The crimson stained his skin and shirt, mixing with the wet mud caked on his clothes.

“I am not.” Enzo smirked and squatted beside him.

Lorenzo strained against his restraints as he tried to get to Enzo, but the furious attempt didn’t faze him. He almost seemed to find amusement in it.

Lorenzo changed tactics. “Boss, I was just trying to have a little fun with her,” he said with a humorless laugh.

“Did you have fun, Gia? Was it fun for you?” Enzo turned his face toward me.

“No,” I said with a shake of my head.

“What bothers me, Lorenzo, is that we disowned you once. You came crawling back, asking for another chance. I let you work for me, against my better judgment. My jobs kept you fed, yet you had the nerve to step in on my affairs.”

“But—” Lorenzo shook his head and drew his lips in.

“There’s nothing to ‘but’ about. I told you she was off limits, that she was my responsibility, and you disrespected not only her, but me!”

Enzo reached into the back of his dress pants and grabbed his pistol, wrapping his hand around the wooden grip. He threaded a silencer onto the barrel before holding the gun toward me. I stared at the cold steel in his grasp, too wary to step forward and take it from him. Noticing my apprehension, he stood, took several steps toward me, and shoved the pistol into my hand. Compared to my pistol—which was easy to conceal just about anywhere—this intimidating gun had some serious weight to it.Is he really trusting me with a pistol right now? After everything that happened?I felt the familiar pang of nervous excitement as I wrapped my hand around the metal and racked the slide. A gun in my hand always made me feel like I held all the power, and right then, I did.

“What is all this?” I asked.

“Retribution,” Enzo said with a cold expression.

That was such a beautiful fucking word.

I looked beyond Enzo and stared at the man sobbing in front of us. “You sure?” I asked one more time.

“I won’t tolerate rape. I’m not like him or Silvio,” Enzo said with a snarl. I didn't quite believe him because I’d heard too many stories to convince me otherwise.

He grabbed my waist and led me behind Lorenzo. His desperate pleas quickly became annoying, the sounds gnawing into my ears, making me want to silence them that much more.

“I said I’d fucking kill you, didn’t I?” I said with a suave confidence that invigorated me. “What was it that you said? That I couldn’t touch you?”

The silencer’s cool metal pressed against the back of his head as he sobbed through prayers. I looked at Enzo one more time, giving him a final chance to stop me. When his lips merely pursed, I turned my attention back to Lorenzo. He wasn’t just a man who tried to rape me. He was the embodiment ofeveryman who had.

This was something I was raised to love and hate—the moment where I took a life, even if it was a deserved execution. My finger was steadfast on the trigger as I curled it toward me. The unmistakable sound of a silenced firearm pierced through the air, cutting off Lorenzo’s screaming and praying. He fell forward, crumpling into a limp pile. Rich red blood flowed from his head wound, poured onto the ground, and saturated the earth.

That was the part I hated. The moment after my victim took their last breath. The uncomfortable silence of murder.

Enzo snuck up behind me and wrapped his hand around the still-smoking pistol. He pulled it away from me, as if I might take aim at him next.

“See, Gia? I had nothing to do with it,” Enzo said with his body still pressed against mine.

“Enzo,” I said, my gaze on Lorenzo’s body. “We just killed a member of your family. Your father’s goddamn brother. How do we—”

“Lorenzo had enough enemies, so nobody will be surprised he went missing.” Enzo looked down at the body. “And I’ll make sure he stays missing.”

“Pretty ballsy to trust me with your gun,” I said with a smirk.

“Sometimes you gotta go toe to toe with a lioness and hope she doesn’t bite ya,” he said as he unthreaded the silencer and pocketed it. “Plus, there was only one bullet. Had I given you the choice between me and him, you’d have made the right choice.” He smirked and tilted his head, which annoyed me because it made him irresistible for a moment.

There was an uncomfortable excitement between my legs as he stared back at me.What’s wrong with me?

* * *

Enzo

Well,there’s no taking that back,I thought as we walked toward the house. The pistol stabbed me in the lower back. It was much clunkier than my revolver, but I’d needed to use a silencer so no one would hear the shot. Gia stayed silent behind me, which was unusual for her. She wasneverquiet. When I looked back, she had her arms crossed and her gaze fixated on the ground in front of her.

---