A Reckoning in Blood

My phone rang, breaking the silence.

Jenny answered, her voice softening a little.

"Vivian? I'm on my way. You know I wouldn't miss your birthday party."

I found that bitterly ironic.

Jenny caught my expression and gave me a resigned look.

"Come on, stop putting on an act with those papers. If you actually wanted a divorce, you wouldn't have let me talk you out of it every other time.

"Know your place, Sherry. You're still the Donna of the Romano Family."

I said nothing, my mind drifting back to a high-risk arms shipment years ago.

I'd been ambushed en route. Bullets grazed my skin, and gunmen closed in from every direction.

I was pinned behind a crumbling wall, certain I was going to die.

Louis had broken through the crossfire with a rifle in hand, and Jenny followed him into the gunfire. Both were drenched in blood when they dragged me, badly wounded, out from among the dead.

Clutching my bleeding wounds, I swore to them both that I would spend the rest of my life protecting them.

But the memory shifted, and the first time I caught Louis cheating came into sharp focus.

Louis had his arms wrapped tightly around Vivian, his brow furrowed, snapping at me.

"Get out. You're scaring her.

"What are you crying about? She's not a threat to your position."

Jenny always showed up right on cue to smooth things over.

"Sherry, forgive him. He saved your life, remember?"

Numb with pain, I raised the loaded gun and started to aim it at myself.

But she broke down crying and wrenched the barrel toward her own chest.

"Sherry, I swear on my life, Louis will change! Don't do anything reckless. You're the only friend I have!"

Jenny's words smothered every impulse I had to fight back.

Time after time, she helped me hold on to Louis.

But he never changed. Not once.

I didn't want to forgive him, but Jenny kept dangling the past in front of me, telling me we'd find our way back to how things used to be.

There was a time when rival gang members came after me. One of them would step in front of me with a gun, while the other beat my attackers back.

And now those same two people were the ones twisting the knife in my heart, over and over.

So much for vows sworn in blood.

I forced my violently trembling hands still, straightened my spine, and walked out.

From now on, I could only rely on myself.

Back at the house, stacks of cash were piled on the coffee table.

This was Louis's usual move whenever I brought up divorce.

No apology. Just wads of money sent over the next day as compensation.

But this time, sitting right in the middle of all the cash, was an old handgun.

My fingertips brushed the gun, and a bone-deep chill ran through me.

I knew this gun all too well.

A crushing grief closed around my throat.

The chamber was loaded with the same type of bullet my father had used to take his own life.

Louis knew my deepest scars better than anyone.

And now he'd placed this in front of me on purpose, pressing exactly where it hurt the most.

I called Louis again and again. Every call went straight to voicemail.

He never picked up.

It had always been me waiting for him.

Not this time.

I grabbed the gun, the papers, and the car keys, and walked out the door.

I floored it the entire way.

I drove to the underground casino that Louis and I had built together over eight years.

Sex was being sold openly in every corner, and the halls reeked of liquor and cigarette smoke.

I hadn't set foot here since the last time I caught Louis cheating at the casino. I never imagined it could have deteriorated this much.

I stopped one of the casino workers I recognized.

"Where's Louis? What happened to this place?"

He scoffed, not even bothering to show respect to me, the woman who co-owned this casino.

"You don't know? Don Romano already gave this place to Ms. Hale as a birthday present."