Page 122 of Villains Series

TWO YEARS AGO

MERIT ARMORY

IT was her birthday, and they had the whole place to themselves.

Marcella could have picked a restaurant, a museum, a movie theater—any place she wanted—and Marcus would have found a way to make it hers for the night. He’d been surprised when she’d chosen the gun range.

She’d always wanted to learn how to shoot.

Her heels clicked across the linoleum, the bright fluorescents glaring down on case after case of weapons.

Marcus laid a dozen handguns on the counter, and Marcella ran her hands over the different models. They reminded her of tarot cards. When she was young Marcella had gone to a carnival, snuck into a little tent to learn her fortune. An old woman—the perfect image of a mythological or mythic crone—had spread the cards, and told her not to think, just to reach for the one that reached for her.

She had drawn the Queen of Pentacles.

The fortune teller told her it symbolized ambition.

“Power,”

said the woman.

“belongs to those who take it.”

Marcella’s fingers closed around a sleek chrome Beretta.

“This one,”

she said with a smile.

Marcus took up a box of bullets and led her through into the shooting gallery.

He lifted a target—a full silhouette, head to toe, and marked by rings—and clipped it to the line. He hit a button, and the target skated away, five, ten, then fifteen meters before it stopped and hung suspended, waiting.

Marcus showed her how to load the magazine—it would take her months to manage without chipping a nail—and offered her the gun. It felt heavy in her hand. Lethal.

“What you’re holding,”

he said.

“is a weapon. It only has one purpose, and that’s to kill.”

Marcus turned Marcella to face the target, and wrapped himself around her like a coat, tracing the lines of her body with his own. His chest to her shoulders. His arms along her arms, hands shaping hers around the gun. She could feel his excitement pressing against her, but the gun range wasn’t just a kinky setting for a birthday fuck. There would be time for that, later, but first, she wanted to learn.

She leaned her head back against her husband’s shoulder. “Darling,”

she breathed.

“A little space.”

He retreated, and Marcella focused on the target, aimed, and fired.

The shot rang out across the concrete range. Her heart raced from the thrill. Her hands thrummed from the kickback.

On the paper target, a neat hole had been torn in the right shoulder.

“Not bad,”

said Marcus.

“if you’re shooting an amateur.”

He took the gun from her hand.

“The problem,”

he said, casually ejecting the magazine.

“is that most professionals wear vests.”

He checked the rounds.

“You shoot them in the chest, and you’re dead.”

He slid the ammo back in with a swift, violent motion. His hands moved over the gun with the same short, efficient strokes he so often used on her. A confidence born out of practice.

Marcus swung the gun up, sighted for an instant, and then fired two quick shots. His hand barely moved, but the distance between the bullets could be measured in feet, not inches. The first struck the target in the leg. The second burrowed a neat hole between the cutout’s eyes.

“Why bother with the first shot,”

she asked.

“if you know you can make the second?”

Her husband smiled.

“Because in my line of work, darling, the targets don’t stand still. And most of the time, they’re armed. Accuracy is much harder in the moment. The first shot throws the target off guard. The second is the kill.”

Marcella pursed her lips.

“Sounds messy.”

“Death is messy.”

She took back the gun, squared herself toward the target, and fired again. It tore the paper several inches to the right of the head.

“You missed,”

said Marcus, as if that wasn’t obvious.

Marcella rolled her neck, exhaled, and then emptied the rest of the clip into the paper target. Some of the shots went wide, but a few punctured the paper head and chest, stomach, and groin.

“There,”

she said, setting the gun down.

“I think he’s dead.”

A moment later, Marcus’s mouth was on hers, their shuffling feet scattering the spent cartridges as he took her up against the back wall. The sex was brief, and rough, her nails leaving lines beneath his shirt, but Marcella’s attention kept sliding past her husband to the ruined target, hanging like a shadow at his back.

Marcella didn’t shoot any more that night. But she went back to the range alone, week after week, until her aim was perfect.