Page 57 of Where Quiet Hearts Scream (Dark Hearts #3)

Serafina

“Have fun, baby.” Andreas plants one more sizzling kiss to my lips. “Try not to kill anyone.”

I’m about to leave him with a sarcastic quip but the squeals of my sisters reuniting in the parking lot drags my attention away.

“Have a good ‘meeting,’” I say, putting finger quotes around the word because I know they’re all heading to a bar for an hour. Then I blow him a kiss and skip toward my sisters.

“Everyone ready?” Trilby is wearing a face of forced optimism.

“Yes.” I smile and take her hand. “It’s going to be fine. And we’re going to learn some useful skills.”

I push the door open and we’re immediately hit by the smell of hot metal, precision and power. A dusty ceiling fan spins noisily but pointlessly above our heads. It’s the kind of place where bullet holes outnumber windows and the vending machine only works if a large shoulder is slammed against it.

“Hi. You must be the Castellano sisters. I’m Drake.”

An enormous, burly man who makes even my six foot five husband seem on the short side, greets us. He’s in possession of a long, thick beard, backward cap and an armful of vests.

“We’ll be over there.” He points to a steel door. “But before we go in, I need you to put these on.”

He hands each of us a vest. Mine fits perfectly but the others drown my sisters. Tess, the slightest of the four of us even looks a little comical—like a Barbie doll in a grown man’s overcoat.

“Ready?” the guy asks.

Trilby straightens and smiles with the apprehensive air of a woman who’s been manically Googling “how to shoot a guy but legally.”

“Alright, let’s get this over and done with,” Tess huffs. She looks the most lethal of all of us with her hair now pulled back into a severe ponytail and thick goggles making her feline eyes look otherworldly.

We follow Drake through the door and into a kind of viewing area overlooking several lanes with cardboard mannequins at the far end.

“I’m ready,” I shrug. “I watched six hours of YouTube tutorials and Top Gun 2 . I’m basically lethal.”

Tess narrows her eyes. “ Top Gun 2 is about planes, not guns. ”

Damn . “Okay, fine. But there’s a lot of… adrenalin.”

“Let’s just get used to feel of a pistol first,” Drake says, giving each of us a hand gun. Trilby lets hers dangle between two fingers like it might leak something toxic.

Bambi disappears behind Tess. “I’m not touching that. I told Allegra, I don’t have any intention of ever using one. Can’t I just scream at people? I can be very loud.”

“You know this is why we’re here,” I say, kindly. “It shouldn’t be a surprise.”

“Allegra told me we were going to brunch,” she whines. “This is not brunch.”

I mentally curse our aunt. She clearly said that to take the easier way out and leave the rest of us to deal with Bambi’s disgruntlement.

“This is brunch,” Drake deadpans. “For bad-asses. Now, I want you to hold it like this.”

Bambi reluctantly takes her hand gun and we all copy the way Drake is holding his.

I’m mildly alarmed at how natural this hunk of metal feels in my grip.

It’s a little less cumbersome than the M27 but I have a particular fondness for that one.

Perhaps fortunately for everyone, Andreas has locked it in a case and hidden the key.

Tess, having handled one of these before, is a natural, much to her feigned dismay. Trilby and Bambi need a little help from Drake .

“Okay, good. Now we’re going to load them up.” Drake demonstrates again how we’re to do this.

I watch him with an inexplicable level of curiosity. Trilby eyes the magazine in her hand. “I thought ‘magazine’ meant Vogue or Good Housekeeping , not something you jam into a death tube.”

“It still is,” Tess says, calmly sliding a magazine into her Glock with a click. “Just, this one delivers bullets instead of fashion and interior decorating tips.”

Bambi is staring at her gun like it’s a sleeping dragon. “It’s heavy,” she whispers. “What if it goes off by itself?”

“You still have the safety on,” Drake replies in a bored monotone. “Right, stand at one of these four posts. You each have a target. You click off the safety catch like this. Then hold the pistol this way, and pull back the trigger. It’s pretty simple. Let’s see how you do.”

Tess lifts her gun and fires three precise shots. Pop. Pop. Pop . Dead center. She even returns it to her shoulder and blows invisible smoke from the end of her barrel.

“Not bad,” Drake drawls.

I lift my pistol and fire three shots in rapid succession. The first hits somewhere near the target. The second lands wildly to the left. The third nicks the edge of the paper. I cast a guilty look in Drake’s direction.

“I think I’m better with a machine gun,” I say with a grimace.

Trilby closes her eyes, squeals through her teeth, and pulls the trigger. The bullet pings off the divider and somehow strikes the target two lanes over.

Drake blinks as if it’s only just occurred to him the immense challenge he’s agreed to take on. “You hit someone’s else’s paper,” he says in disbelief.

“Somewhere in the world, that’s a talent,” Tess says.

The metal door behind us creaks open and closed, but we’re all too absorbed in our training to notice.

Bambi, now visibly vibrating, lifts the pistol with shaking hands.

“I can do this,” she whispers, trying to channel something fierce. “I can?—”

The gun slips from her hand and clatters to the ground as she dives behind me for cover.

“It’s not going to bite you,” I laugh, helping her up.

Tess props one hand on her hip and twirls her gun around a finger before Drake clamps a hand over it.

“Pretend it’s that guy from school who stole your homework and got you accused of plagiarism,” she suggests.

Bambi’s lips curl.

“Or better yet,” Tess adds, in a scheming voice, “pretend it’s your new stepbrother. We all know how displeased you are about that situation.”

Bambi’s eyes darken, then she squares her shoulders and raises the gun with sudden clarity. Then she fires.

One bullet. Right in the heart.

We all freeze.

Even Drake stops chewing his gum. “Remind me not to join your family,” he mutters .

Tess folds her arms across her chest. “Wow, next time I need you to do something, I know exactly what to use as motivation.”

Bambi turns to face us, her cheeks flushed and hands trembling.

“I did it! ” she squeals. “Did you see that? I murdered that cardboard Di Santo!”

“You did great!” Trilby is about to hug her—which I’m pretty sure isn’t advised when two novices are holding guns with the safety catches off—but Bambi’s shocked expression stops her.

We all turn to see what’s made her mood take a sudden nosedive.

All our smiles drop, because standing by the door, looking as nonchalant and—it has to be said—darkly handsome as ever, is Nicolò. Our stepbrother.

We all stare at him, open-mouthed and on tenterhooks. Bambi just used him for target practice and murdered him outright with one single bullet. Is he offended?

He takes in our guilty expressions, then a glimmer infuses his eyes.

“I’m glad I could be of service,” he drawls, then opens the door and leaves.

“Don’t tell me,” Drake says, drawing us all back to the reason why we’re here. “He’s the stepbrother?”

I glance at Bambi who has blushed bright red. I wrap an arm around her shoulder. “He’ll get over it.”

“Right, let’s go again,” Drake barks.

Trilby steps up. “I’ll go first. ”

This time she hits her own paper and we all clap as if we’re at the opera. Tess goes next, cracking her knuckles before firing more bullseyes.

“You’ve been practicing,” I say, narrowing my eyes.

She doesn’t confirm or deny.

When it’s my turn, I lift my pistol and pull back the trigger. I manage to clip the edges again. “This gun just isn’t me,” I mutter, ignoring Trilby’s hiked brows.

Bambi steps up again and this time fires with a little more confidence but a little less precision. One of the lanes falls to darkness.

“It’s fine,” Drake shrugs. “We have more ceiling panels.”

Several rounds and two more ceiling panels later, Drake takes the guns from me and Bambi with a little too much haste. And just in time, the steel door opens again.

While none of us dare look up in case it’s another of Cristiano’s relatives, the air around us shifts, carrying the scent of expensive cologne and single malt whiskey.

I dart a glance to the three men, my gaze drawing instinctively to the man on the right.

I don’t care about appearances anymore. I close the gap, thread my arms around my husband’s neck and kiss him hotly on the lips.

When I pull free, his eyes survey the range and a smile pulls at his mouth. “So, this is where chaos reigns?”

Trilby bats her lids at Cristiano, then holsters her Glock, making his gaze burn . “We learned valuable skills. Also, we broke the ceiling.”

Cristiano digs his hand into a pocket then passes Drake a roll of fifties.

“And how did you do?” Benito looks at Tess like she’s the only woman in the room.

Tess passes her gun to Drake. “I was brilliant,” she replies, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth.

He swallows hard then grabs her hand. “We’ll see you at the diner,” he calls out, before dragging Tess through the door.

As they leave, Nicolò enters. He leans a shoulder against the wall and watches as we discuss our varied performances. I can feel Bambi squirm in embarrassment so I take hold of her hand.

“Same time next week?” Andreas says.

Drake sighs heavily. “Sure.”

Trilby reluctantly hands back her gun. “Do they make these in other colors?”

Cristiano rolls his eyes at Drake then says, “I’ll commission one for you. If you can manage to hit your target better.”

She shoots me a wink before heading out the door. “Well, that’s motivation.”

I’m about to follow but Bambi tugs me back.

“What’s up?” I ask. Her eyes are wild with alarm. “You okay?”

“Allegra is meeting us at the diner, so I don’t have a ride. I can’t sit in a car with him .” She flicks her eyes to Nicolò. “Please can I ride with you? ”

I think nothing of it. “Of course you can. Then you can tell me all about this plagiarism thing. Mainly, who this kid is and where he lives.”

She threads her arm through mine and shakes her head. “I’m not telling any of you. I know what your men are all like. I don’t want the poor guy—as much as I dislike him—ending up dead in a dumpster or at the bottom of the Hudson.”

“Fair enough,” I grin.

Then we follow Andreas out of the range, only one man walking behind.

One who wears nonchalance like a designer accessory, shoes that cost more than our house, and an expression that says he does not care for any of the four pretty sisters he just inherited.

Least of all the youngest.

The end.

Thank you so much for reading Where Quiet Hearts Scream - I hope you enjoyed it!