The Woman in the Back Room (Costa Family)

"We didn't know, man," one of them insisted, holding his hands up. "We just took a job. A job like any other job. We had no fucking idea the bitch belonged to some mob guy."

"That 'bitch' was the mother of my son," I said, surprised I could get the words out with how tight my jaw was.

I figured this part was going to be difficult for me. Taking a life. But all I could picture as I looked these two bastards was the way my son's face crumpled when I'd told him that his mother died. And all I felt was pure, undiluted rage.

"Which one of you is Junior?" Brio asked as the two men looked around with wild eyes.

"Him, man," the other one, Brian, said, jerking his chin toward his friend.

"Fucking traitor," Junior snapped, furious despite the situation.

He wouldn't live long enough to grow bitter about his friend ratting him out.

"Then he's yours," Brio said, waving his gun toward the man who'd pulled the trigger.

The other one, Brian, took that opportunity to attempt to get away through the door to the hall.

The bullet ripped through his skull before he could even get a hand on the knob.

Brio had been under strict instructions not to fuck around on this job. He hadn't been happy about it. The fucker likes to play around before killing someone.

"Scream and we will gag you and slice your digits off one by one," Brio warned Junior who'd sucked in a breath to do just that. "You're going to die tonight. Don't be a pussy about it," he added.

After that, he gave me a nod as he leaned down to grab the legs of Brian's corpse, dragging him a few feet to the side, out of the way of the door. "Shit man, you should have eaten some more salads," Brio grumbled, struggling a bit to move the dead weight. "Wouldn't have helped with the whole longevity thing, but woulda made my job easier," he mumbled, grunting as he shoved the man back against the wall to the kitchen.

"You," I said, moving closer toward the man who'd shot Brit, smelling piss, seeing the tears glistening in his eyes. I should have felt something then, I knew. Pity, or something of the like.

But all I saw was my son on his upcoming first Christmas morning without his mother, the way the holiday would never quite feel the same for him.

There was no pity in me in that moment.

"Get on your knees," I demanded, moving closer, sliding my finger to the trigger of the gun in my hand, finding it somehow almost lighter than it had felt when I'd pulled it out of its holster.

"Must be deaf along with stupid," Brio said, walking behind the man, kicking him in the back of the knee until he went down on it hard. "There we go," he said, giving me a nod as he moved out of the way.

I lifted the gun.

I pressed it against the forehead of my son's mother's murderer.

And I pulled the trigger.

Then I went home, kissed my son goodnight, and asked my woman out on a date.

Alessa - 2 weeks

I was a grown-ass woman who'd never been on a proper date before.

There was a part of me that wanted to consider that pathetic.

But there was another part of me that was kind of glad because I knew that Santi would blow any other attempts at a proper first date out of the park.

That was just the kind of man he was. He was good at planning, at putting in effort, in making sure things were to his exact specifications.

And because I knew he would put in the maximum amount of effort, I'd decided to put in some as well. Which meant I'd agreed to allowing Celeste to dress me since I had no idea where we were going, or what I should wear. I'd never really been someone to abide by dress codes. But for Santi, for this date he had planned, I wanted to do it right.

But that didn't mean I was willing to follow Celeste around town for hours trying on outfits. It meant I gave her free rein to buy me whatever she thought was appropriate, and leave it for me to put on after she took Avi to her house for a sleepover.

I figured if anyone knew how to dress, it was Celeste.

But maybe I should have given her some sort of input beforehand, because when I unzipped the black garment bag to dress after my shower, I was having second thoughts, wondering if maybe a pair of slacks and a simple black shirt would be appropriate instead.

Celeste had gone with a classic black dress, thank goodness. But that was where our similar tastes started and ended.

First of all, she'd gone with tight. And low-cut. While the hem wasn't short, the slit up the thigh certainly was.