Five Shots and I Was Done with the Don

Salvatore froze, his face full of exasperation.

"Julia, you're the Donna of this Family. You really think you can threaten me with this kind of childish stunt?"

He didn't think I'd do it.

The next second, I squeezed the trigger!

Click!

First shot. Empty chamber.

The smirk on Salvatore's face froze solid, and he instinctively pulled Caterina behind him.

That reflex drove into my chest like a shard of ice.

I pulled the trigger again, nearly out of my mind!

Click! Click! Click!

Four empty clicks. It came down to this.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and prepared to squeeze the trigger one last time...

But Salvatore lunged forward and clamped his hand over mine, wrenching the gun upward!

Bang!

The deafening shot exploded through the room. The bullet grazed the top of my head and buried itself in the ceiling.

Salvatore seized my wrist, his face terrifyingly dark.

"Julia, were you serious just now?

"You spend every day shooting and killing like a lunatic. Was wiping out the entire Santoro Family not enough? Do you want to throw your own life away too?

"When are you ever going to act normal!"

I raised my head and stared him down.

But wasn't he the one who knew best why I'd become this way?

After my parents died and my family fell, Salvatore didn't yet have his own power base.

Without our strongest protector, we became fugitives on the Santoro Family's hit list.

And to keep him safe, I went from a bride who could barely hold a gun to a beast who fought her way through hails of gunfire.

Now he was the one calling me savage.

I was about to speak when Caterina suddenly began trembling beside me, one hand clutching her belly, tears streaking down her deathly pale face.

"Salvatore... my stomach hurts so much... our baby..."

She twisted the fabric of her dress and collapsed to the floor.

Salvatore stiffened. He glanced at the gun on the ground, then at my blank expression, and the dark look on his face sharpened into something vicious.

"I see. You did that on purpose."

He let go of me. "You fired those shots to terrorize Caterina.

"Otherwise, with your aim, if you'd really wanted to die, you'd already be a corpse."

With that, Salvatore swept Caterina into his arms and looked at me with nothing but ice in his eyes.

"I never imagined jealousy could turn the Julia I once knew into something this vile.

"I'm warning you. If Caterina or the baby suffers so much as a scratch because of you, I will never forgive you."

He turned and walked out with Caterina in his arms, never once looking back.

I stood there alone, a needle-sharp pain blooming low in my belly.

I reached up and unpinned the silver crest from my chest, the insignia of the Rizzo Family's Donna, and suddenly laughed.

Salvatore, that bullet should have gone through my skull, but you stopped it.

This gamble was mine to win.

And now, it was time for me to go.