Page 48 of Devil’s Gambit

BELLA

Sal's fingers dig into my waist through the red silk, each point of pressure a small violation. The fabric is so thin I can feel his skin temperature through it—fevered, wrong. His breath hits my neck in waves, wine and cigars and rotten underneath.

My body wants to recoil. Every cell screams to pull away, to run, to do anything but stand here letting him touch me.

But I force myself still. Force myself to be the statue he expects while behind us, the sounds of violence create their own rhythm—flesh meeting flesh, boots finding ribs, Dante's grunts of pain that he's trying so hard to swallow.

Another impact. Wet. Meaty. The sound a body makes when it's learning how to break.

"Bella—" Dante's voice cracks on my name. "Fucking look at me. Look at what you're?—"

Another hit cuts him off. I close my eyes, but that makes it worse. Makes me too aware of Sal's mouth moving against my throat, leaving wet marks like a slug's trail. His hands slide up from my waist, fingers spreading across my ribs.

Through the silk, I feel something else—hard and angular. The outline of the Colt presses against his hip. The gun. Four for Dante’s limbs. One for his skull. Sal’s script.

But tonight, I brought my own.

"Stop moving," Sal mutters against my skin. "You're too tense. Relax, Bella. Enjoy this."

His hand slides up to cup my breast through the dress, and that's when I whisper it.

"I want to shoot him."

Sal goes still. Completely still, like I've spoken a language he doesn't understand. His hand stays where it is, frozen mid-grope.

"What did you say?"

I turn in his arms, letting him see my face. I've arranged it carefully—not too eager, not too cold. The perfect temperature of controlled rage.

"I want to be the one who shoots him." I let my voice carry a hint of wine-slur from last night.

"This is my kill, Bella."

Behind him, I hear Dante spit. The sound of blood hitting linoleum.

"You can have the final shot." I press closer to Sal, hating every inch of contact but selling it with everything I have. "The kill shot. That's yours. But the rest... Sal, I need this. After all he did to me."

Sal's good eye searches my face. Without the other one, his expressions are harder to read. Half a face trying to convey whole thoughts. Is that suspicion narrowing his eye? Or arousal?

"You really want this?" His voice has gone soft, dangerous.

"More than I've ever wanted anything."

Behind us, Dante makes a sound—half laugh, half sob. I don't turn. Don't acknowledge him. Let him think what he needs to think for this to work.

Sal studies me for another eternal moment. The diner is so quiet I can hear everyone breathing—twenty guards, Dante, Sal, me. All of us share the same stale air.

"You try anything..." Sal starts.

"What would I try?" I gesture at the armed men surrounding us. "Where would I go? Twenty guns, Sal. Twenty of your men. I'm not stupid."

"No," he agrees slowly. "You're not stupid."

His hand moves to his pocket. The motion seems to take forever, like time has gone syrup thick. The gun emerges—that ancient Colt, a family heirloom of violence.

He places it in my palm, and the weight takes me by surprise. The metal is warm from being pressed against his body, and that warmth feels obscene somehow. Wrong.

I check the cylinder, trying to steady the trembling in my fingers. Five bullets catch the moonlight streaming through broken windows. Five promises of destruction.

"Four for his limbs," Sal says, voice thick with anticipation. "Make him suffer. Make him understand what it means to touch what's mine. Then the fifth..." He grins, and in the half-light, with half a face, he looks like something from a nightmare. "The fifth is mercy he doesn't deserve."

I step away from him, the gun solid in my grip. My heels sound too loud on the grimy linoleum—click, click, click. Like a countdown. And then I'm standing in front of Dante.

He goes completely still.

Those dark eyes that have seen me in every state—terrified, furious, desperate, climaxing—now fill with confusion. Like his brain can’t process what his eyes are showing him.

The silence stretches. I can hear my own heartbeat thundering with fear. Can hear his breathing, carefully controlled despite the pain he must be in. Can hear Sal shifting behind me, eager for the show to begin.

"Why did you come?"

He stares at me, and even beaten, on his knees with blood trailing from his split lip, he looks... magnificent. Power sits on him like a second skin. You could strip him naked, place him in chains, and he'd still be a king.

"So you can talk." His voice is rough, graveled with pain. "I was starting to think Sal cut out your tongue while I wasn't looking."

The words are meant to cut, and they do.

"You trusted me." I adjust my grip on the gun, hyperaware of every eye in the room watching us. "Walked in here without a gun. Without backup. Because you trusted me."

"Because I love you." The words come out raw, bleeding. "There's a difference."

"Impulsive."

He laughs, and it's the most broken sound I've ever heard from him. "You know what? Maybe this is how our story was always supposed to end. Maybe this is one of the sad romance novels. The hero dies because he's too fucking stupid to see the villain was sleeping in his bed the whole time."

"You're not a hero, Dante."

"No. I'm just a man who thought a locked door meant something. Who thought when you said you loved me—" He cuts himself off, shaking his head. "I should’ve listened to Marco. Would've saved us both a lot of trouble."

"I'm not sorry about the kicks."

"What?"

"The kicks. From the guards." I let the gun dip slightly, casual, like we're having a normal conversation. "Consider them payback for tying me up."

"Christ, Bella." For a moment, I see exhaustion replace the rage. "Stop pretending you feel anything and shoot me already."

"Would you both shut the fuck up?" Sal's voice cuts through the moment like a rusty blade. "This isn't couples therapy. And my dick’s getting impatient. Shoot him or I will!"

Something shifts in the air. A decision crystallizing.

I nod to the guards holding Dante.

"Let him go." My voice carries more authority than it should.

"What?" Sal's voice spikes. "What the fuck are you?—"

The guards release Dante. He staggers slightly and catches himself. His hands are free. His body is free. And I can feel him coiling, preparing to charge, to do something stupidly heroic.

Before he can move, I turn.

The gun swings in a smooth arc, away from Dante, toward?—

"What the fuck?" Sal's eye goes wide.

I don't think. Can't think. If I think, I'll hesitate, and hesitation will get us both killed.

My finger finds the trigger.

The sound is enormous in the enclosed space. It echoes off the walls, off the ceiling, and seems to go on forever.

The bullet takes Sal exactly where I aimed—his crotch.

For a moment, he just stands there, looking down at himself with an expression of complete incomprehension. Then the blood comes, and with it, the scream.

It's not human, that sound. It tears from his throat like something being born or dying or both. He drops, his hands going to the destroyed mess between his legs, blood already pooling beneath him.

"YOU FUCKING BITCH! YOU FUCKING?—"

Behind me, there’s Dante's sharp intake of breath. I feel rather than see him start to move.

"KILL THEM!" Sal's screaming at his men, voice breaking with pain and rage. "BOTH OF THEM! NOW!"

But before the men loyal to him can move, the ones on my side have pulled out their guns and pointed them at their heads. Now, they pull their triggers.

The dinner erupts in a cacophony of thunder and lightning. Bodies drop to the floor. Then, it’s over. Those left turn back to us, standing exactly where they were before, guns lowered.

Sal's eye swivels to me, and understanding dawns in it.

"You..." Blood bubbles from his mouth as he tries to crawl away from the massacre. "You planned this."

"You were right about one thing, Sal." I follow his crawling retreat, the gun steady in my hand. "I am cursed. Cursed to love my captor. To need my monster. To crave the thing that destroys me."

"You fucking—you fucking?—"

I shoot again. His left kneecap explodes in a burst of bone and blood.

The scream this time is weaker, his throat raw.

"But you were never my monster. Just a drunk who needed to hurt women to feel powerful."

Another shot hits his right kneecap.

He collapses completely, unable to crawl, unable to do anything but writhe in his own blood.

"You want to know the truth, Sal? I pitied you. Every time you hit me, every time you forced yourself on me, all I felt was pity. Because you were so fucking pathetic. So desperate to be feared when really you were just sad."

"I'll kill you," he gasps through the pain. "I'll fucking?—"

"Two bullets left." I stand over him, and he’s so small from this angle. Like roadkill. Like nothing. "One more chance, Sal. Say you're sorry."

"Fuck you!"

"Say you're sorry. For every bruise. For every night you took what wasn't yours to take."

"I'm not sorry!" Even dying, even destroyed, his hatred burns bright. "Everything I did, I wanted to do! Loved doing! You were mine to break!"

I aim at his head. The gun doesn't waver now. My hands are steady.

This is it. One trigger pull, and the man who terrorized me for years becomes nothing but meat cooling on dirty linoleum.

"You know what the funny thing is?" Sal laughs, blood painting his teeth red. "You still can't do it. Even now, even after everything, you can't kill me. Because deep down, you know I'm right. I own you, Bella. I'll always own you!"

My finger hovers over the trigger.

He's right there. Helpless. Dying from blood loss. All I have to do is?—

Why won't my finger move?

Why does the trigger feel like it weighs a thousand pounds?

My hand starts to shake. The gun wavers.

Then another hand covers mine. Cold. Steady. Familiar.

Dante doesn't say a word. He wraps his fingers around mine, and together, we pull the trigger.

The hole appears in Sal's forehead, small and neat.

Salvatore Calabrese stops existing between one heartbeat and the next. No grand final words. No dramatic death rattle. Just there, then not.