The Gangleader's Gem ✅

24

Her words caused a heaviness to settle on my chest and I found myself freezing in place. Kill him?

My hand trembled with the gun, my finger resting on the trigger. Could I kill this man? True he was a monster but who was I to take his life? I couldn't—I didn't want to kill anyone else.

I had killed Cromwell in self-defence and his death still haunted me. Could I kill this man knowing the weight that would rest on my soul? To kill another person, to take their life?

"That puttana couldn't kill a fucking fly!" the man laughed, spitting at my feet.

This caused me to jolt back into the present and I clenched my fist as he pulled at his restraints.

"Just let me kill her. Someone so weak shouldn't be allowed to live!"

His words angered me and I found myself raising the gun and aiming at him. I was not weak!

He chuckled as I aimed the gun at him, taunting me, daring me to shoot him. My anger was building at each word but I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger.

"I am growing bored, brat," Elia stated from behind me. "Kill the fucker already. He was the one to shoot your lover. He wanted him dead; he wants you dead. Deliver the same courtesy to him! Prove you are not weak!"

Her words caused me to press down a little on the trigger but then they began to sink in. I wouldn't be better than him if I sunk to his level, their level. If I killed him, I would prove myself weak for succumbing to their influence as I had been for years. This was wrong. No matter how much they deserved it... I couldn't kill...

The man's eyes hold mine and I see a flicker of fear in his eyes. Had he noticed the change in my mood? He had. He saw that I was not going to kill him and that scared him. He wanted to die.

In a move that shocked his guards, the man threw himself forward at me in anger...no desperation.

I pulled the trigger on reflex and two shots rang out.

The man fell to the ground, a bullet in his abdomen and one between his eyes. I spun around in shock and anger.

Elia stood behind me with her gun raised, a cold look on her face. "Take him out now!"

The men moved swiftly leaving us alone and I looked at her with fear, with disgust. My shot hit his abdomen, aiming to stop his advance. She killed him.

"All you had to do was kill him," she hissed, gun in her fist as she approached me. "He was craving it! Begging for it! You couldn't even put him out of his misery!"

Her gun rested against my forehead but I dared not move as her cold blue eyes regard me in disappointment. "Weak! Just like your slut of a mother! Giovanni keeps you around because you remind him of her but if I had my way I would paint these walls red with your blood!"

My gun rested in my hand but I refused to raise it against her, even in my current anger. My mother was no slut. She was my everything and she was taken away from me because of this life! The same one I have fallen into...

"Your usefulness will expired soon, brat and when it does. I will take pleasure in removing every remainder of that bitch from this earth starting with you!"

With that, she stormed out of the room leaving me to fall to my knees in mental exhaustion... next to the pool of blood.

***

The little girl beside me, curled into my side as she eyed the people around her in distrust.

Diana that was her name. I was tasked with watching her as we departed for Spain at Giovanni's command. They had no use for a member who was too weak to pull a trigger so they gave me a rookie job. Additionally, the fact that I was in charge of children of different age groups back in Spain so; I was the best person to babysit.