Chapter 5

Lillian fired her last shot. The bullet went somewhere only God knew.

She pouted and stamped her foot. Her thoughts plainly visible on her face.

Someone brought our targets back.

Mine was clean. Hers had a single perfect bullseye, dead center.

Victor froze and looked at me for a long moment.

Then he looked at Lillian. Something shifted in his face, the dawn of comprehension.

He smiled, pleased with himself, and made a leisurely production of speaking. "Claudia. Being too modest is also a kind of pride."

"Sometime," he made a little shooting gesture at me, his tone light, almost flirtatious, "I could teach you to shoot."

That was when Lillian noticed the bullseye on her own paper.

She tossed her gun aside and clapped her hands to her mouth, shrieking and jumping in place.

She ran over and grinned in my face. "I hit the bullseye, and you didn't hit a thing. Claudia, you lost this one. Completely."

She was shallow and ostentatious, utterly transparent to others.

The people around her were looking at her with open contempt, but she didn't notice.

Or maybe she did, and she didn't care.

In Victor's eyes, every part of her was beautiful and pure. With him standing between her and the world, she'd never had to face anything sharp.

I smiled, mild. "Congratulations. You won this round."

I'd taken a few steps when I heard her cooing voice behind me.

"Victor, I shoot better than her, and I'm smarter than her too. Right?"

I went stiff and stopped walking.

The memory came up out of nowhere.

What I'd been most proud of had never been my aim. It was my mind.

A Donna rarely needed to fire a gun. But she needed to be the sharpest read in the room, every time.

Every time the Family had trouble, I was the one who saw the heart of it. I built the strategy and handed it to Victor.

Every time, he listened. Every time, he won.

After, he'd sweep my bangs aside and press a kiss to my forehead.

"Claudia, you're a whole army by yourself."

The sun was sinking behind the horizon. The wind carried the cool of night.

Victor's voice, light as anything, reached me clearly.

"Lillian, you shoot better than her, and you're smarter, too."

"Claudia can't compare to you."

"You're number one in my heart."