Page 11 of Pretty Poison

“So you want me to take these jobs?” she asks, and I nod. “You–you want me to kill people? Are you mad? I can’t even bring myself to kill a spider. I’ll always try to remove it, unharmed. You want me to kill someone—people? Because you like the tickle it gives you in your balls? Nuh uh, not in a million years.”

“Oh, but you have no choice, Liana. You’ll be my wife before you know it, and bearing my name gives you a rather large bullseye on your head. Wouldn’t you rather know how to hold your own than die a rather gruesome and horrific death?”

She scoffs. “It’s bold of you to assume that I can’t defend myself.”

“It’s good that you can, but a little punch here and kick there won’t save you from a bullet that’ll reach you in milliseconds. You’ve heard the phrase ‘never bring a knife to a gunfight’; I can tell you the same goes for this, too. You never use your fists when your opponent has a weapon that would inflict more harm than a punch would. That’s stupid.”

Glancing over at Red, I give him a firm nod. In a flash, he unholsters his gun and points it directly at the back of Liana’shead. Her entire body turns rigid, almost as if she’s stuck to the spot. Her eyes radiate fear, and she swallows the lump in her throat.

“You see that?” I ask, rising to my feet and stalking toward her. “That’s how easy it is for someone to get the upper hand in a situation. That’s how easy it is to render you absolutely helpless. All Red has to do is pull the trigger and you’re dead. Do you want to die, Liana?”

“Yes,” she says with absolutely no hesitation. The look on her face says she means it in every sense of the word, and her eyes plead with me, almost as if she’s begging me to give the go-ahead for him to pull the trigger.

“Well, I’m afraid that’s not happening. Not now, at least. Down the line, it’s very possible, but right now, you’re still alive and kicking.” Her eye twitches and I hear the squeak of her teeth as they grind together. “Stop clenching your jaw, Liana; you’ll break your teeth.”

“You kill people for a living, Dario; my teeth are the least of my problems.”

“You’re stating facts there, little one, and you’re also being a dentist’s worst nightmare.” She smiles mockingly, her eyes narrowing. Getting back on topic, I add, “You have no say in this. You will do this one thing for me. I’m not asking for much.”

She scoffs, a faint laugh slipping from her lips. “You’re asking for everything.” Her voice is harsh and threatens to pierce my skin with each word. “You want me to marry you, an unnegotiable thing, and now you want me to give you the best part of me. You want me to discard everything I believe in to turn into a female version of you. I knew you loved yourself the moment I met you; I guess I didn’t grasp exactly how much until now.”

Red cocks his gun, one step closer to pulling the trigger. A warning for her attitude.

“If you think the best part of you is what you believe in, then you don’t hold the same high opinion of yourself the press and public do. Liana Moretti is much more than this, or so they say.”

“You’re getting your information about me from those vultures? They will take anything and make it a twisted story of their own design. They know nothing about me, only what I let them see, and whatever their mood is, reflects what they write about me.”

I exhale a weighted sigh, silently telling Red to lower his weapon with a flick of my eyes. “I’m not telling you to go out and kill someone tonight. Silas trained for years before his first mission. When I deem it fit, you’ll go out into the field with him. Until then, he’ll train you.”

“Oh, of course,” she says, her tone thick with sarcasm.

I see Red, his hand still on his weapon, and in an instant, he pulls it from the holster and aims it at the back of her head once more.

“Do it,” Liana taunts, her eyes trained on me, while her words are directed at Red. She twists around, the gun inches away from her face. “I know you want to, Red,” she says in a soft, inviting voice. “You’ve been holding it since I entered, desperate to fire it. Get it over with, would you?”

He says nothing, his eyes finding mine. They plead with me to let him pull the trigger, and I can’t deny him of something he is so desperate for.

“Make it quick,” I reply, walking back to my desk. “Try to limit the blood, would you? Mama just had the floors polished.”

Liana spins to face me as I sit down, disgust written on her features. “You need me. You wouldn’t lose a wife over something as small as whatever this argument is.”

“You’re not my wife, though, are you? No. You’ve done everything you can to get Kat to postpone it, too scared to talk to me yourself. You’re replaceable and eager to get out of my grasp, so why not let you go?”

“My father will kill you!” she spits, seething. “He’ll kill you if I ask him to.”

“Tell me, Liana,” I ask with a tilt of my head, “how exactly will you tell him with a bullet through the centre of your skull?” She opens her mouth to speak, then clamps it shut. “All your father would know is that an enemy infiltrated our compound and killed you, wounding myself and a few of my brothers. My parents were luckily away for a second honeymoon, so they were unharmed. You, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky. After all, you brought your fists to a gunfight. What an unfortunate end to a story that had barely begun. I’ll have your father by the balls and he won’t even know it. He will believe whatever I tell him because he longs to be in my good graces.”

“You’re a compulsive liar.”

“And what of it? In my line of work, if you don’t lie, there’s no point in leading. You need to be sharp and quick; telling a few white lies here and there does exactly that.”

Turning back to Red, she grabs his hands, directing his weapon to her forehead. “Do it,” she tempts again. “This is what you want more than him. Be selfish, pull the trigger. You’re a big boy; you can deal with the consequences later.”

“This won’t change anything, you know,” I add, sitting back in my chair to admire the scene unfolding. “You’ll die knowingyou amounted to nothing in life. You’ll die having lived your life through a camera lens, plastered on billboards and front pages of magazines, portrayed as the perfect daughter of Gabriel Moretti. We both know you’re far from that. Don’t we,little one.You’re just as bad as I am in terms of lying. So do it, Liana. Force Red’s hand, but just know that when I eventually die, I’ll make your life even more of a living hell in death than I have in life.”

Without hesitation, she forces Red’s finger, the sound of his empty weapon sounding through the air:click.Another two clicks, both of them making her flinch and she finally gives up, shoving Red’s hands away.

“What was this, a fucked-up test? Does it get you off to see me in pain?”

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