Chapter 7 - The Gun in My Palm and the Lesson in Pulling the Trigger
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The basement of the Westchester estate was nothing like the polished marble and warm mahogany of the living quarters above.
It was an underground bunker constructed of reinforced concrete, industrial lighting, and soundproofed walls. At the far end of the subterranean complex lay a private shooting range, complete with digital target systems, ventilation fans humming steadily overhead, and rows of weapon racks containing everything from tactical shotguns to modified automatic rifles.
It was six o'clock on a Tuesday morning. The rest of the house was silent, but down here, the air smelled sharply of gun oil, burnt powder, and cold steel.
Damen stood beside an open wooden crate on the center shooting bench. He had shed his suit jacket, wearing only a fitted black henley with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, displaying the intricate black ink tracing the tendons of his arms.
"Pick it up," he said, gesturing toward a sleek, matte-black semi-automatic pistol resting on a rubber mat.
I looked at the weapon, hesitating. "I don't like guns, Damen. My father kept three in his study. He used to wave them around whenever he drank too much bourbon."
"Your father was a pathetic weakling who used weapons to compensate for his own inadequacy," Damen replied without looking away from me. "I don't want you to carry a gun to intimidate people, Clara. I want you to carry it because the men who want to hurt you will not stop for words, tears, or court orders."
He picked up the weapon, ejected the magazine with a fluid click, racked the slide twice to demonstrate the chamber was empty, and extended the grip toward me.
"A Sig Sauer P365," he said. "Nine millimeter. Compact, lightweight, nine rounds in the magazine. It fits in your handbag, the inner pocket of your winter coat, or tucked into the waistband of your trousers. Take it."
My hand trembled slightly as my fingers wrapped around the textured grip. The steel was surprisingly cool and heavy, feeling unnatural and alien in my palm.
Damen stepped behind me.
His sudden proximity made my pulse jump. His chest pressed lightly against my shoulder blades, radiating intense heat through my cotton shirt. He reached around my body, his large, rough hands covering mine on the gun. His fingers guided my index finger along the frame, well above the trigger guard.
"Thumb high," he murmured, his voice low and raspy right beside my ear. "Support hand wraps around the fingers here. Don't grip it like a bird you're trying to keep alive. Grip it like a tool that will keep you from being buried."
The scent of his skin—sandalwood, fresh laundry, and pure masculine power—surrounded me completely. For a second, my mind went entirely blank, hyper-aware of how his broad chest rose and fell against my back.
"Are you paying attention, Clara?" he whispered, his tone teasing yet razor-sharp.
"I am," I managed to say, clearing the tightness from my throat.
"Stance," he commanded gently, using the toe of his boot to nudge my left foot slightly forward and my right foot back. "Hips square to the target. Bend your knees just an inch. Good. Now look down the sights. See that green dot at the front? Line it up between the two rear notches."
Fifty feet down the range, a paper silhouette of a man hung from an overhead track.
Damen released my hands, stepping half a pace back to observe. He picked up an ear protection headset, placed it over my hair, and put on his own. Then he slapped a full nine-round magazine into the base of the gun and racked the slide back. The metallic *clack* of a round chambering echoed loudly in the concrete chamber.
"The safety is off," Damen said, his voice coming through the electronic earmuffs. "Raise the weapon, breathe out halfway, and squeeze. Don't jerk the trigger. Let the shot surprise you."
I raised the gun. The weight dragged at my wrists, but I locked my elbows slightly, centering the green dot directly on the center of the paper chest.
In my mind, the paper silhouette didn't stay a blank paper outline.
It shifted. It became the sneering face of Richard Hastings, reeking of expensive Scotch, raising his heavy leather belt in our Fifth Avenue apartment while my mother sobbed in the next room. It became Antonio Marcone, laughing in the Plaza ballroom, talking about snapping my bones like twigs.
A wave of pure, unfiltered rage—a feeling I had spent a lifetime suppressing beneath layers of polite submissiveness—surged through my veins like liquid fire.
I squeezed the trigger.
*BANG.*
The recoil snapped through my wrists, sending a shockwave up my arms. Downrange, the paper target tore open with a clean hole three inches to the left of the center circle.
I didn't lower the gun.
Without waiting for Damen’s command, I reset my stance, pulled the front sight back onto the paper silhouette's throat, and fired again.
*BANG.*
*BANG.*
*BANG.*
Shell casings clattered across the concrete floor, chiming like brass bells. Smoke curled from the muzzle, carrying the sharp tang of sulfur into the air. I emptied the entire nine-round magazine in less than seven seconds, each shot punching tighter and tighter clusters into the chest and head of the silhouette.
When the slide locked back on an empty chamber, I finally lowered my arms, my chest heaving, sweat beading along my hairline.
Silence crashed back into the basement.
I turned around slowly, expecting Damen to criticize my form, to tell me I was reckless or undisciplined.
Instead, Damen Rossi was staring at me with an expression I had never seen on him before. His dark eyes were wide, glowing with a raw, primal admiration that made my cheeks flush hot. A slow, dangerous smirk spread across his lips.
"Good God," he murmured, pulling down his earmuffs to hang around his neck. "Remind me never to make you truly angry, Mrs. Rossi."
A breathless laugh escaped my lips. "Did I pass the lesson?"
Damen walked forward, took the empty pistol from my fingers, and set it down on the bench. Then he reached out, caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger, and lifted my face until our eyes were locked.
"You didn't just pass," he murmured, his gaze dipping down to my parted lips for a heartbeat before rising back to my eyes. "You proved what I’ve suspected since the night you took off that wedding gown. You're not fragile, Clara. You never were. You just needed someone to stop handing you chains and give you steel instead."
My heart hammered against my ribs, not from fear, but from the sudden, overwhelming desire to close the distance between our mouths. Damen’s thumb stroked the line of my jaw, his touch feather-light against my skin.
He leaned in slowly, giving me every chance to pull away. I didn't move an inch.
Just as his lips were a breath away from mine, the heavy iron door of the shooting range clattered open.
Vincent appeared on the landing, his face pale and grim, holding an encrypted satellite phone in his hand.
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"Damen," Vincent said, ignoring the tension in the room. "The Hudson pier warehouse just went dark. We lost all four perimeter cameras, and the night watchman isn't answering his radio. Marcone’s men made their move."
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