Page 73 of His Enemy's Daughter
Mauricio moves before Sabino’s hand fully drops, weapon appearing in his grip with the fluid grace of someone who’s survived by being faster than death. His first shot takes down the guard closest to me, the second catches another reaching for his gun.
Giordano drops and rolls despite bound hands, reaching one of the fallen guards and somehow getting his bindings cut on a blade strapped to the man’s ankle. He comes up armed, his shot taking down a third guard with precision that speaks of decades of practice.
I draw my own weapon and aim for a guard moving to flank Mauricio. My shot goes wide, but close enough that he dives for cover instead of firing.
“Stay behind me,” Mauricio orders, but I’m already moving, using the stone pillars for cover as chaos erupts around us.
Outside, the distinctive sound of automatic weapons fire indicates David’s men engaging Sabino’s reinforcements. The plan is working—contain the threat inside while preventing backup from entering. We just need to survive long enough for it to matter.
A guard appears from behind a pillar, weapon raised, and I don’t think. Just pull the trigger twice. He drops, and I feel nothing. No horror, no guilt. Just cold satisfaction that he’s one less threat between me and freedom.
“Regina, down!” Giordano’s shout makes me drop instinctively as a bullet passes through space I occupied seconds before. He returns fire, protecting me the way he always has.
The firefight lasts maybe two minutes but feels like hours. When the last guard falls—courtesy of Mauricio’s lethal precision—the church goes eerily quiet except for the distant sound of David’s men finishing their work outside.
Sabino stands at the altar alone now, weapon drawn but shaking, faced with three people who want him dead for very different reasons.
“You can’t do this.” His voice carries desperation wrapped in fading authority. “I’m Sabino Picarelli. I control the eastern territories. Kill me, and you’ll have every family from here to Sicily hunting you.”
“Your territories are contested.” Mauricio’s gun never wavers. “Your international connections are severed. Your accounts arefrozen. Your organization is being arrested from the bottom up by federal authorities. You’re already dead, Sabino. You just haven’t stopped moving yet.”
“Regina.” Sabino turns to me, and for the first time in twenty-eight years, I see fear in his eyes. “Daughter, please. I raised you. Everything I did was to protect you, to give you power—”
“You murdered my parents.” The words come out steady, factual. “Took me as insurance. Raised me as property. Used me as a bargaining chip. That’s not protection, Father. That’s imprisonment and weaponization.”
“I gave you everything!” His composure shatters completely, revealing the monster beneath. “And this is how you repay me? By betraying me? By destroying everything I built?”
“You built your empire on corpses, including that of my parents, and lies.” I raise my weapon and allow myself to feel its weight as it settles in my grip. “I’m just exposing the foundation for what it always was.”
“You won’t pull that trigger.” Sabino’s smile returns, cruel and confident. “You don’t have it in you. You’re soft, weak, too educated and civilized to become a killer—”
“She doesn’t have to.” Mauricio steps forward, his weapon aimed center mass. “I’ll do it. Just say the word, Regina.”
The offer hangs in the air, tempting in its simplicity. Let Mauricio carry this weight. Let him be the one who pulls the trigger, who ends the man who raised me.
But that’s the coward’s way. The victim’s choice.
And I’m done being either.
“No.” I move forward until I’m standing directly in front of Sabino, close enough to see the panic spreading across his features. “This one’s mine.”
“Regina, don’t.” Sabino’s voice cracks. “Please. I’m your father—”
“My father died when I was six months old.” My finger rests on the trigger, steady and sure. “You’re just the man who murdered him.”
“If you do this, you’ll never be free of it.” His last desperate play. “The guilt will haunt you. You’ll see my face every time you close your eyes—”
“I’ve seen your face every time I closed my eyes for twenty-eight years.” I meet his gaze directly, letting him see exactly how much I’m not his frightened daughter anymore. “At least now I’ll know you can’t hurt anyone else.”
“Regina—”
I pull the trigger twice. Center mass, just like I was taught. Clinical. Efficient. Final.
Sabino stumbles backward, shock and rage warring across his features as he realizes I actually did it. That the daughter he thought he controlled just became his executioner.
“You...” Blood bubbles on his lips. “You’ll... rot for this... both of you... cursed... damned...”
“Already was,” I say quietly, watching him collapse against the altar that’s probably seen too much blood to care about a little more. “This just means I’ll rot free instead of in your cage.”
