Luciana stares at their almost identical shots and readies herself for the second round.
They fire and hers is once again dead center. It’s his turn to glare at the results.
When the final round begins, they exchange weapons. She’s in her element, being one with the rifle. On her belly, Luciana adjusts the scope, inhaling deeply and letting her breath out slowly and controlled as she pulls the trigger. Mika does the same, but when the results are known, Luciana is the winner.
“We both hit the center,” he says, being a sore loser.
“Really? Let’s raise the stakes. An object in a living person’s hand. I pick…” She looks at my sister and I swear, murder is written in Mika’s eyes. Dahlia nods, excitement coloring her face.
“No,” Mika says through a clenched jaw.
My men stare riveted, their gazes moving from me to Luciana, most surely thinking I will put a stop to this.
“Stop telling me what I can and can’t do,” my sister scoffs.
“No,” I say as her brother. This will never happen.
She jabs a finger at me. “The same goes for you. And if Luciana succeeds, make it two hundred thousand.”
Dahlia hops in a golf cart and drives to the delineation mark. From her hand, a necklace materializes with a round golden coin.Did these two plan this?
“Luciana,” I warn.
She looks me dead in the eyes. “I never miss. I hit whatever the fuck I aim at,” she says while I remain still, unmoving and thinking she wasn’t only talking about the bet.
On her way to the stand, resistance meets her in the form of Mika’s unmoving posture. He’s one and a half heads taller and has a hundred pounds of pure muscle over her.
“Don’t. I will kill you,” he says so coldly that I wonder if they will ever get a chance to have a relationship as siblings. It’s like their mutual dislike only grows with each passing day.
She arches an unimpressed brow. “Move out of my way before I make you.”
I scrub a hand down my face, too fucking exhausted to play referee between them. “Mika, enough.”
The hard glare he casts my way is anything but friendly. No one will touch her or tell her what to do. Brother or no brother, she’s my hard limit. Cross that and you cross me.
He curls and uncurls his hands at his sides before he snatches his keys and drives over to my sister while I ask for binoculars. I can’t believe I trust Luciana like this, or my sister, who has let no one else near her in years.
“Luciana,” I say quietly so only she can hear me as she gets ready for the shot.
“I don’t kill the people I love. I don’t hurt them either.”
I think she shot me again while having the audacity to tell me that.
The bullet erupts, deafening as it cuts through the air and hits the coin dangling from the necklace my sister holds between her fingers. Dahlia doesn’t even flinch, grinning from ear to ear, looking at the caved in coin.What the fuck is happening to my sister?
Luciana stands up and brushes the grass from her clothes while my men glance from her to me with awed looks and respect.
My sister returns with a furious Mika, and she jumps out of the cart with him on her heels. The women clash together in a hug, giggling.
“Get to signing that check. We have shopping to do,” Luciana sasses him.
Mika takes out a check and signs it, then slaps it in her hand, muttering something to her. She huffs, nodding before taking off.
As Mika and I watch them leave, he says, “You invited the devil to the table, but she wanted the fucking kingdom. Something tells me what she wants, she’ll get.”
I know. I fucking know.
I am screwed, because I’ll stand by her side watching her take it. It’s her destiny to rule.