The gun was heavier than she expected.
Matte-black Glock 19, grip textured like sharkskin. Dante placed it in her palm in the private range beneath the penthouse, fingers curling hers around it until the weight felt like an extension of her own bone.
"Feet shoulder-width," he said, voice low against her ear. "Knees soft. Dominant hand high, support hand wrapped tight. Like you're holding my cock, Liliana, not asking permission."
Heat flashed through her. She adjusted her grip exactly the way he showed her.
The target hung twenty-five yards downrange: a standard silhouette. Except someone (Dante) had taped a photograph over the head. Her father's face stared back, grainy but unmistakable.
She froze.
Dante stepped behind her, chest to her back, and wrapped his arms around hers. His scent (cedar, gun oil, possession) flooded her senses.
"Breathe," he murmured. "Feel the hatred. Then decide what you want to do with it."
She raised the pistol. Arms trembled.
The first shot went wide, punching paper near the shoulder. The recoil jolted up her wrists and into her teeth.
Dante didn't flinch. "Again."
She fired eight more times. By the seventh round the grouping tightened around the center mass of the photograph. The eighth took out her father's left eye.
The slide locked back. Empty.
Silence rang louder than the gunfire.
Dante took the gun from her shaking hands, set it on the counter, and turned her to face him.
"Good girl," he said, and kissed her hard, tasting smoke and adrenaline.
When he pulled back, her pupils were blown wide.
"That felt…" She searched for the word.
"Like power," he finished.
She nodded, slow.
He smiled like a devil granting absolution.
"Then let's give you more."
An hour later she stood in the war room (a converted loft above the range, walls lined with screens and weapons that cost more than most houses). Six of Dante's capos sat around the steel table, faces carved from years of violence and loyalty.
They rose when Dante entered. Their eyes flicked to her (collar hidden beneath a black turtleneck, but the ring and the way she moved at his side told them everything).
Dante didn't bother with introductions.
"Liliana shot nine rounds today," he announced. "Eight in the kill zone. She's better than half of you were your first time."
A ripple of surprise. Respect, reluctant but real.
He pulled out a chair at the head of the table (his chair) and sat. Then he tugged her down onto his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world.
She stiffened for half a heartbeat, then settled, feeling every eye in the room track the movement.
Dante's hand rested possessively on her thigh beneath the table.
"Update," he said.
The reports came fast: a shipment of girls intercepted at the docks (Rossi loyalists trying to hit Dante where it hurt most), two soldiers missing, a traitor feeding information to what was left of her father's empire.
When the last man finished, Dante's fingers tightened on her leg.
"Liliana," he said calmly, "who do we kill first?"
Every head turned.
She felt the weight of their stares like physical blows. Three weeks ago she would have vomited. Now she leaned forward, elbows on the table, and met each gaze in turn.
"Marco Russo," she said, naming her father's former consigliere. "He's the one coordinating the retaliation. Cut off the head, the body dies."
Silence.
Then Dante's second, Vittorio, gave a low whistle. "She's not wrong."
Dante's lips brushed her ear. "Address?"
She rattled off the address of the brownstone in Brooklyn where Marco had hidden for years. The same brownstone where she'd had her sixteenth birthday party.
Dante nodded once. "Tonight. Liliana rides with me."
No one argued.
Back in the penthouse armory, he dressed her like he was suiting up for war: black tactical pants that hugged her legs, a fitted long-sleeve shirt, shoulder holster he buckled himself. The same Glock she'd fired earlier went into it, fully loaded.
He zipped a bulletproof vest over her chest, fingers lingering.
"If anyone aims at you," he said, voice lethal and soft, "you empty the magazine into their face and you do not stop until I tell you."
She swallowed. Nodded.
He kissed her once (hard, claiming) then handed her a black balaclava.
They moved at midnight.
Three SUVs, blacked out, no plates. She sat in the front passenger seat of the lead vehicle, Dante driving, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on her thigh like she was both weapon and treasure.
The brownstone was quiet when they arrived, windows dark. Dante's men fanned out.
She and Dante went in through the back.
Marco was in the kitchen, drinking espresso at the table like any other night.
He looked up when they stepped inside, and the cup slipped from his fingers, shattering.
"Liliana?" Shock, then horror as he saw Dante behind her, gun already raised.
She didn't speak. She drew her own weapon, safety off, and leveled it at the man who used to bounce her on his knee.
Dante didn't move. This was hers.
Marco found his voice. "Piccola, listen—"
She pulled the trigger.
The shot took him center mass. He staggered back, hit the cabinets, slid down leaving a red smear.
She walked forward until the muzzle pressed against his forehead.
"For every girl you sold," she whispered, "for every scream you ignored."
She fired again.
And again.
Until the slide locked back.
Only then did her hand start shaking.
Dante took the empty gun from her fingers, tucked it away, and pulled her into his arms right there in the blood-spattered kitchen.
She expected to feel horror.
Instead she felt light. Cleansed. Reborn.
He kissed her temple, her tears, her trembling mouth.
"Welcome to my world, wife," he murmured against her lips. "You just painted your soul the same color as mine."
She looked up at him, eyes shining with something that wasn't fear anymore.
"Take me home," she said.
He did.
And when he fucked her later (slow, worshipful, covered in gunpowder and someone else's blood), she wrapped her legs around him and whispered the words that sealed her damnation:
"I love you."
He buried his face in her neck and came inside her with her name on his lips like a prayer.