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Cursing myself, I held back my wandering fingers and steered her hips perpendicular to the long path with the paper target at the other end.
“Grip the gun. Pointer finger off the trigger and resting along the trigger guard. Here.” I fixed her finger into the correct position.
Then, with her hands clasped to the gun, I raised her hands and shoulders until the muzzle was pointed down the lane. Her body was coiled tightly, near trembling. I swore her bottom lip quivered, but I stopped myself before I let my attention fall to her mouth.
“You don’t look happy,” she commented.
“I wish Massimo would’ve taught you this,” I muttered.
“Not sure he would be very happy with you teaching me.” She shifted her hips in front of me, brushing the front of my pants.
Twisting my hips away, I gritted out, “No, he wouldn’t.”
Massimo wasn’t here and seeing how I was tripping over my own feet with his daughter, but I wasn’t sure that would be his main objection. While I didn’t want Adelina getting herself killed, he didn’t want to lose one of his plants.
“Information is power,” our Papà always said, and Massimo had learned that lesson well. just wanted to make sure
Adelina’s hands shook, and I placed mine against her forearm. The trembling only increased.
“Are you scared?” I didn’t addof me. Of course, it wasn’t me.
“I have a weapon of mass destruction in my hand.” There was my little drama queen.
“It’s a gun, not a nuclear bomb,” I said.
“Still—”
“Still,” I cut her off, “you’re neck deep in organized crime. The time to be scared is long since gone.”
Fear made her eyes wet, giving her a childlike look—the same big, brown-eyed look she’d given me, her uncle, all her life. Open and trusting, and I was a fucking bastard for the urges going on in my mind and body.
“You’re fine,” I said, more to myself than to her. I grabbed her eye and ear protection. “You won’t be able to hear me, so pay attention to my signals.”
She gave a tentative nod.
“When I move my thumb sideways, that means release the safety. Like this”—I moved it in the other direction—“you put the safety back on. Two thumbs up, and you can fire.”
“O-okay,” she said.
I strapped on the eye protection and popped on the headphones. She grimaced, and I pulled her hair out of the headphones.
Her silky locks tumbled around her shoulders, cascading down her back. Adelina flipped her gaze up to me, watching me openly, and I cleared my throat and backed away.
No one knew us here, but I couldn’t—wouldn’t do that to my niece.
But when I looked back at her, I lost all sense of blood relations. I was in fucking trouble.
I motioned for her to remove the safety, stepping away from her. Then, I put my goggles and earmuffs in place and gave her two thumbs up.
Adelina pulled the trigger once and then screamed.
She staggered back a step, flailing, the gun nearly pointed at herself. I ran to her side, looking for blood.
Nothing.
She just startled herself with the recoil.
I pulled her earmuffs away and said, “You’re okay. That’s why the stance is important. Now, try again.”
