Page 122 of The Butcher's Wife

To my left, a porch light flicks on. Our crash woke up the neighborhood. We don’t have much time.

Instead of running toward Giulia’s front door, I race for the back. I know the family. I know their habits and their hobbies and their sins.

It’s a Saturday night, and Giulia has insomnia.

She’ll be in the garden.

My lungs burn, but I force myself to keep sprinting. The pain is a sweet reminder that I haven’t failed yet.

I’m alive.

I put on another burst of speed.

I have to finish this.

I can’t go back for Dom. I have to trust him. No one will hurt him—he’sDom.

My body is not my own—it’s a machine, the muscles of my thighs and arms working in perfect, practiced synchronicity to propel me forward like a freight train toward Giulia’s sprawling backyard.And when I see her guard walking the perimeter of her house—Tommy, the one who always ate my desserts and played cards with me—I don’t think. I pull out my gun, jerk to a stop, aim, and shoot.

He crumples to the ground in a soundless heap. I keeprunning until I meet the border of the dark green hedges that wrap around the perimeter of her yard. I force myself through a narrow gap between the branches and leaves. The wood claws at me as if obeying the will of their mistress, but tonight, my will is stronger. When I burst onto the other side, we see each other in the moonlight.

Giulia Chiarelli, matriarch of the Chiarelli mob, aims her gun directly at me.

She doesn’t hesitate.

But neither do I.

She cries out when my bullet tears through her shoulder—right where her bastard son shot my husband. Her gun goes flying.

Her bullet hits the plate armor of my bulletproof vest, and I don’t make a sound.

She crumbles to the ground, but she doesn’t waste a moment searching for her fallen gun in the dark grass.

I spot the dark gleam of metal first and sprint to kick it far away.

When I turn back to her, she’s grimacing at me, her bloody hand clutched to her shoulder and her knees in the dirt.

“I always told my son you were a dumb whore,” she spits at me, in English for once. She must be in unbelievable pain as she grasps the arm hanging loosely from its socket. Blood pours out between the fingertips of her left hand.

“Your son was a pedophile.”

The vicious look on her face is completely unrepentant.

“Your other son, he’s going to die by my husband’s hand. Tonight. Do you think my Butcher will be lenient with baby Marco?”

A new emotion flashes across her features—fear—although she smothers it with arrogance. “What do you want,fottutaputtana?”

This is the woman who’s haunted me for months, who’s responsible for the death of my sister, who raised her sons to be vile men.

Who attacked my brother, me, and my husband.

There’s no forgiveness for this woman.

When I raise the gun again, my round-faced, soft-spoken former mother-in-law chokes out a laugh. “I’m so happy your sister died first.”

I shoot.

I waste only one breath, staring down at her dead body. I shoot her three more times in the head and the chest like Dom taught me, and I run after my husband.