Chapter 9: Arms Training
The gravel of the park path bit into the thin soles of her heels. She stopped a few feet behind him, the silence between them filled by the whisper of the river and the distant groan of the city. He didn’t turn. He simply pulled a cigarette from a silver case, lit it, and took a long drag. The smoke merged with the mist off the water.
“You followed,” he said, his voice flat.
“You left the door open.” She wrapped her arms around herself, the silk offering no warmth. “That’s not an invitation. It’s a test.”
He half-turned, the cigarette glowing in the grey light. His eyes were tired, the skin around them tight with pain. The tape on his nose was a stark white against the mottled bruising. “You passed. Go back to the car.”
“No.”
The word hung there. He raised an eyebrow, a silent question.
“Marco made an offer on something,” she said, stepping closer. The wind caught her hair, whipping it across her face. “You told him it wasn’t for sale. But we both know everything has a price in your world. What’s mine?”
He watched her, his expression unreadable. “Right now? Your usefulness. Your ability to be a thorn in Castello’s side that he can’t simply pluck out without offending me.” He flicked ash. “That’s a fragile currency, Izzy. It depreciates fast.”
“Then I should become a harder asset.” She held his gaze. “You said it yourself. Next time, it won’t be an offer. It’ll be a threat. I won’t wait in a safehouse room, jumping at shadows. I won’t just wear the dress.”
A grim smile touched his lips. “What are you proposing?”
“Teach me,” she said, the words leaving her mouth before she could judge their weight.
He took a final drag and crushed the cigarette under his shoe. “Teach you what? How to launder money? How to bribe an inspector? You already have the art for it.”
“How to not be a victim.” Her voice was low, fierce. “You think I didn’t see the men posted at the restaurant? You think I don’t know Marco had two shooters in a car across the street? I’m in the cage. I want to know the dimensions of the bars. I want to know how to rattle them.”
Enzo stared at her for a long moment. The calculation was back in his eyes, the strategist weighing a new, unpredictable variable. He gave a short, sharp nod. “Fine. But we do it my way. No arguments. No second guesses. You listen, or you end the lesson. Understood?”
“Understood.”
He turned fully toward her. “The dress is a weapon. So is knowing how to twist a man’s thumb until it snaps. So is recognizing the sound a slide makes when a round is chambered in the next room.” He stepped closer, his height blocking the weak sun. “You want the syllabus, princess? It’s written in blood and consequence. You still sure?”
She didn’t blink. “Yes.”
“Get in the car.”
They didn’t go back to the safehouse. The sedan navigated a series of narrowing roads, leaving the city for wooded hills. Forty minutes later, they passed through a towering, wrought-iron gate that swung open silently. The estate was severe, modern, all sharp angles and tinted glass overlooking a manicured emptiness. It felt less like a home and more like a command post.
He led her through a sparse, cool house and out a back door, across a slate terrace, to a low, windowless concrete building that seemed to bleed into the hillside. A keypad glowed green; he punched a code. The heavy door sighed open.
The air inside was cool, stale, and carried the sharp, acrid scent of gun oil and something else—the ghost of burnt powder. Enzo flipped a switch. Overhead lights flickered on with a dull buzz, revealing a long, narrow room. It was a shooting range, pristine and clinical. The back wall was a giant berm of packed earth. The lanes were defined by concrete partitions. At the far end, paper targets hung, silent and waiting. One of them was already shredded, a cluster of holes where the heart would be.
“Home sweet home,” Enzo said, his voice echoing slightly. He walked to a locked cabinet set into the side wall, worked another combination, and opened it. Inside, a series of handguns lay on felt lining, their metal dull under the lights. He selected one, a compact black pistol, and picked up a box of ammunition. “Beretta 92FS. Nine millimeter. It’s heavy. It kicks. It’s reliable.” He placed it and the box on a polished oak stand that stood between two lanes. “This is not a gallery exhibit. It’s a tool. You will respect it, or it will break your wrist.”
Izzy approached slowly. The gun looked foreign, simultaneously simple and profoundly menacing. “I’ve never held one.”
“I know.” He moved behind her. “Ear protection.” He nodded to a pair of electronic muffs on the stand. She put them on, the world becoming muffled, her own breathing loud in her ears. He slid a pair of protective glasses over her eyes.
“Step here.” His hands were on her shoulders, positioning her feet a shoulder-width apart, facing the target twenty-five yards away. It was a simple silhouette. “Posture. Everything comes from your foundation. You’re a reed, you’ll fall over. You’re a statue, you’ll shatter. Be a tree. Roots down, give a little.”
His hands left her shoulders. He picked up the Beretta. “Safety is here. Off.” He demonstrated with a crisp click. “It’s off now. Never point this at anything you do not intend to destroy. Even if you’re sure it’s empty. It is an extension of your will. A violent one.” He ejected the magazine, showed her how to load the cartridges, each one a small, deadly brass cylinder. The snick as each one slid into place was definitive. He slammed the magazine home with the heel of his hand. “Rack the slide.” He guided her hand to the top of the gun. “Pull it back firmly and release. Don’t ride it forward. Let it go.”
She did. The action was shockingly mechanical, a solid chunk-clack that vibrated up her arm. A round was now in the chamber. The gun felt infinitely more dangerous.
“Both hands.” He moved behind her again, his chest not touching her back but close enough that she felt his body heat through her dress. His arms came around her, his hands closing over hers where they gripped the pistol. His touch was clinical, adjusting her grip, positioning her thumbs. His voice was a low vibration in her ear, bypassing the mufflers. “Dominant hand high, support hand wrapping. Grip it like you mean it. You’re not holding a teacup. You’re trying to strangle the life out of it.”
She tightened her hands. The checkered texture of the grip bit into her palms.
“Sights.” He nudged her arms up. “Front post centered in the rear notch. Focus on the front sight. The target will be blurry. That’s fine. The sight is your truth. Align it with the blur.” His breath was warm on her temple. “Now, breathe. Out. On the exhale, when your body is still, squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it. A smooth, steady pressure straight back. As if you’re surprising yourself.”
Her heart was a frantic bird in her chest. The gun was heavier than it looked. Her arms began to tremble slightly.
“Steady,” he murmured, his body a solid wall behind her. “This is how you protect what’s yours. Not with clever words in a restaurant. With this. With the will to use it.”
She stared down the lane, the black front sight wavering against the white blur of the target. She exhaled slowly, and as her breath stilled, she pressed the trigger.
The explosion was immense. A deafening crack that slammed through her bones. The pistol jumped in her hands, a living, furious thing. The recoil snapped her wrists back, traveled up her arms, jarred her teeth. A spent cartridge spun through the air, tinkling on the concrete floor. The smell of cordite, sharp and chemical, filled her nostrils.
She hadn’t even seen where the bullet went.
“Again,” Enzo said, his hands still over hers. “Breathe. Focus.”
She fired again. And again. The noise became a rhythm, a brutal percussion that shook the air in her lungs. Each shot was a fight—against the gun’s weight, against the flinch her body desperately wanted, against the sheer, overwhelming violence of the act. Her arms ached. Her palms were sore. Sweat trickled down her spine.
“You’re anticipating,” he said, his voice calm amidst the storm. “You’re fighting the gun. You have to let it happen. It’s a partnership. You command, it obeys. But you have to trust it.” His thumbs rubbed over her knuckles, a brief, startling point of contact. “Again.”
She lost count. The world narrowed to the kick, the flash, the smell, the ache. The target remained mostly untouched, a few holes straying into the outer edges. Frustration boiled up, hot and sharp. She fired three rounds in quick succession, the reports blending into one long roar.
The gun clicked empty.
Silence rushed in, ringing and profound. Her ears buzzed. Her muscles trembled with a fine, constant vibration. She lowered her arms, the Beretta suddenly feeling like an anchor.
Enzo stepped back. He took the gun from her, ejected the empty magazine, and locked the slide open. “You’re trying to kill it with your mind. That doesn’t work.” He reloaded the magazine with swift, practiced movements. “You have to be here. In your hands. In your breath.” He handed it back. “One more magazine. Slow. One shot at a time. Make each one count.”
She raised the heavy pistol again, her arms screaming in protest. She blinked sweat from her eyes. Roots. Be a tree. She focused on the front sight, let the target go soft. She breathed in, her ribs expanding. She breathed out, and in the settling quiet of her body, she squeezed.
Crack.
A new hole appeared, high and right of the center mass.
She adjusted, a millimeter of wrist, a whisper of pressure. Breathe. Squeeze.
Crack.
Closer.
She forgot the ache. She forgot him standing behind her. She forgot everything but the alignment of three small pieces of metal and the steady, inevitable pressure of her finger. The gun was no longer a foreign object. It was a lever. A key.
Breathe. Squeeze.
Crack.
The hole punched through the black circle of the bullseye.
A sound escaped her—a sharp, startled exhale of pure triumph. She lowered the gun, staring at the target. The single, perfect hole seemed to pulse in her vision.
She felt him move before she saw him. He stepped in close, his body displacing the air around her. His hands came up, not to take the gun, but to frame her face, his thumbs rough on her jawline. He turned her head toward him. His eyes were dark, intense, a blue like the heart of a flame.
“See?” he said, his voice raw. “You can learn.”
And then his mouth was on hers.
This was nothing like the brutal, claiming kiss in the bathroom. This was hotter, deeper, fueled by shared adrenaline and a shocking, mutual respect. It tasted of gunpowder and sweat and that sharp, bright victory. He kissed her with a focused hunger that melted the last of the tension from her shoulders. One of his hands slid into her hair, cradling her skull; the other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him. The hard lines of his body met her curves, the soft silk of her dress a thin barrier against the worn cotton of his shirt.
She didn’t think. Her hands, still holding the empty, heavy Beretta, came up between them, trapped against his chest. She kissed him back, opening for him, meeting the demand of his tongue with a yield that felt like another kind of strength. The metallic taste was still there, but now it was theirs.
He walked her backward, never breaking the kiss, until her back met the cold, unforgiving concrete of the range wall. The shock of it made her gasp into his mouth. He broke away, his breath ragged, his forehead resting against hers. His eyes were closed. Up close, the damage to his nose was a landscape of pain and violence.
“This is a bad idea,” he muttered, his voice thick.
“I know,” she whispered back.
“You’re a liability. A complication.”
“Yes.”
He opened his eyes. The conflict in them was a storm. “I don’t share what’s mine.”
The declaration should have chilled her. Instead, a traitorous heat pooled low in her belly. “I’m not a thing to be owned, Enzo.”
“Aren’t you?” He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “You gave yourself to the role. The role is mine. So what does that make you?”
Before she could answer, before she could muster the lie of a protest, his mouth was on her again, more desperate now. The gun in her hands was forgotten. It clattered to the floor at their feet, a harsh sound on the concrete. His hands slid down her sides, over the silk, coming to rest on her hips. He hitched her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist instinctively, her heels digging into the small of his back. The position brought their bodies into an even more intimate alignment, the hard ridge of his arousal pressing against the core of her through their clothes.
He groaned, a low, pained sound, and rocked against her, the friction making her cry out. The cold wall scraped against her back, a counterpoint to the fevered heat building between them. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin there. “Is this what you wanted?” he breathed against her pulse. “When you asked me to teach you? This lesson?”
“I don’t know,” she gasped, her head falling back against the concrete. Her fingers were tangled in his dark hair, holding on as the world narrowed to this point of contact, this desperate, forbidden friction.
“Liar.” He kissed her throat, his lips scorching a path downward to where the neckline of the dress began. He stopped, his body rigid with restraint. His whole frame was trembling, with effort or desire, she couldn’t tell.
Slowly, deliberately, he lowered her until her feet found the floor. He stepped back, putting a foot of cold, electrified air between them. He was breathing hard, his shirt disheveled, his eyes blown black with want. He looked at her—lips swollen, dress twisted, hair a wild cascade of auburn around her flushed face—and a shadow of something like regret passed over his features.
He bent and picked up the fallen Beretta, his movements once again clipped and efficient. He cleared it, checked the chamber, and placed it back on the oak stand.
“We’re done for today,” he said, his back to her. His voice was all business, a forced calm. “Go upstairs. Third door on the left is a guest room. There will be clothes. Shower. Rest.”
“Enzo—”
“Now, Isabella.” The command was absolute, a steel door slamming down between the heat of a moment ago and the cold present.
She straightened her dress with trembling hands. Her body felt heavy, aching, unreal. She walked toward the heavy door on unsteady legs. As she pushed it open, she glanced back.
He hadn’t moved. He stood facing the target with the single, perfect hole in the bullseye, his head bowed, one hand braced against the oak stand as if holding the weight of the sky.
The heavy door clicked shut behind her, leaving only the hum of the lights and the smell of cordite. Marco materialized from the shadowed equipment alcove, his dark eyes scanning Enzo’s posture—the bowed head, the white-knuckled grip on the stand. He leaned against a concrete pillar, the silent question hanging in the air between them like gunsmoke: Have you fallen for her, boss?
Enzo turned, his face a mask of cold dismissal, but Marco saw the faint, bloody smear of her lipstick on his mouth. “She’s an asset,” Enzo stated, his voice gravel, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nothing more.”
Marco lifted a brow that meant ‘yeah right,’ his silence more damning than any retort. “Sure, boss,” he finally said, the two words dripping with a familiarity that bordered on insolence.
Enzo’s knuckles went white on the oak stand. “Report,” he said, the word cutting through the lingering smell of cordite.
Marco pushed off the pillar, his shoes silent on the concrete. “Castello’s boys are parked at the end of the access road. Two cars. They followed you from Primavera.” He watched Enzo’s shoulders tense. “They’re watching the gate. Testing your perimeter.”
“Let them watch.” Enzo finally turned, his face a carefully neutral mask. “What else?”
“The Rossi Gallery.” Marco’s gaze was steady, knowing. “Inspectors are scheduled for tomorrow morning. A surprise compliance audit. Banking irregularities.”
A cold stillness settled over Enzo. He let out a slow breath, the air hissing through his teeth. “He’s moving faster than I thought.” His blue eyes flicked toward the door Izzy had used. “He’s making it personal. Trying to rattle her.”
“It’ll work,” Marco said, stating it as simple fact. “She’s not built for this. Not really.”
“She just put a round through the ten-ring.” Enzo’s voice was quiet, almost proud.
“That’s target practice.” Marco’s tone was flat. “This is her life’s work. Her father’s name in the dirt. You think she’ll hold when they start pulling invoices?”
Enzo didn’t answer. He picked up the spent casing at his feet, rolling the warm brass between his fingers. “Call Franco at the licensing bureau. Have him delay the inspection. Indefinitely.”
“Cost?” Marco asked.
“A favor. We’ll owe him.” Enzo met his lieutenant’s eyes. “Do it.”