“We can’t do that,” I say to her. Alannah freezes and stares at me blankly. “Alannah, I need you to listen to me. This motherfucker put a contract on my head that resulted in an innocent man being killed while he was out to dinner. You and I barely made it out of Isle of Capri alive. He also shot my good friend, Tommy Caprio, in the back and put him in the fucking hospital. Tommy’s a made guy, too. And now, he’s broken into your house, tied you to a chair, and shot me in the fucking shoulder. There’s not a fucking chance in hell I’m gonna let this cock sucker walk outta here. It’s fucking over for him.”
Alannah keeps staring at me, and I know she’s thinking about the difference between right and wrong right now, but I need her to understand the depths of this situation. I need it more than she realizes.
I hear her breathing starting to pick up as I walk over to where I dropped my jacket and my guns, and I pull the nine millimeter with the silencer out of the holster. I chamber a round and walk over to Abram. His chest rises and falls as he breathes, and his eyes are still fluttering with life, fighting their way back to consciousness as I stand over him. He doesn’t even realize I hold his life in my hands right now. After all he’s done, it’s me who holds his life in my hands in the form of a nine millimeter pistol.
“Dominic, wait,” Alannah says, almost screaming it. She’s breathing hard, like she’s about to hyperventilate. “I don’t know how I feel about this.”
“How do you not? He forced his way into your house and tied you up, Alannah. You think if we send him to jail, he’s gonna just forget about it all? You think he doesn’t have people on the outside who’d be willing to force their way in here too? It wasn’t Abram who shot at us at Isle of Capri. It was some kid named Anthony who worked for him. He did it for five thousand dollars. That’s all it took was him offering some poor kid five thousand dollars, and the next thing you know, there’s bullets flying over our heads as we wait for our food. If we let him go, it’ll never be over. We’ll never be safe, and we can never go anywhere without looking over our shoulder. Not ever. So how do you feel about that?”
I can see the realization dawn on her. Her face tightens and her shoulders slump, because she knows it’s true. We can’t let him live.
Abram’s eyes start to flutter more, and I know he’s on the verge of waking up. We don’t have much time left. Something has to be done, but I’m trying to be patient for Alannah.
“Alannah, I know this is hard for you,” I continue. “But I gotta end this, and I gotta do it now.”
“I know,” she replies as a tear rolls down her cheek. “You’re right. We’ll never be safe if he lives, and after all he’s done . . . he deserves it. I can’t believe I just said that, but I know it’s true. He was going to kill me. He was going to kill both of us . . . he deserves it.”
Alannah looks me in the eye, her face blank and stiff, and she wipes a tear away. She glances down at Abram just as his eyes start to flicker open.
“Okay,” she mutters, almost in a whisper, then she turns on her heel and walks away. I watch her make her way down the hall and turn into her bedroom, where she slowly closes the door behind her.
Abram comes to just as her door latches, and I aim the weapon at his torso. I let his eyes focus on me and the gun before I do anything. I want him to know what’s about to happen. I want him to see it coming. So, I wait until it’s as clear as day.
When he sees me, he looks afraid at first, but he pushes it away and tries to toughen up.
“You’re not gonna do it,” he says. “If you were gonna do it, you would’ve done it already, motherfucker. You need one of your goons to do it for you.”
I let him finish, then I smile.
“You don’t know me very well, and I’d hate for you to get the wrong impression,