The gun is heavy in my arms—but I love the weight of it—the shock in everyone’s eyes when they see me holding it. The absolute power I have aiming it right between Anthony Fretolli’s shit-brown eyes.

My Scorpion EV03 machine gun. It’s slim, easy to hold, complete with three-round burst. They do a lot of damage when you want them to. It feels like I have the biggest dick in the room and all of a sudden the Fretolli crime family is too scared to be in the sword fight with me.

I got the gun from my Russian friends.

A quick moment of silence for Lev Jacov.

I heard he had a slight accident today while he sat in his car in the parking lot of some seedy diner right off Interstate 95. Poor guy. Overdosing on the drugs your own father sells to the neighborhood kids, that’s just poor judgment. Or maybe it was just poor judgment trusting the topless girl in the back seat telling you the special antacid she had would cure your cheesecake-induced heartburn so your dick could get hard enough she’d finally let you have her.

Okay, moment of silence is over.

“Run, Soph—” Corrado’s voice cracks over my name; long streaks of blood dripping from his lips make him choke on the last syllable. Even with his last few breaths he’s trying to save me, trying to get me away from the Big Bad Wolf.

They’re still looking at me in shock. All of them, even Corrado.

It had to be because of the ginormous machine gun in my trigger-happy freshly manicured fingers.

I flick my eyes over all of them. Tony. Enzo. Salvatore and Carlo. I can’t bear to look at Corrado. His mouth is set too grim—his eyes so swollen they can hardly open. Tony or one of his minions has hammered some metal stakes into the beams that run along the ceiling—rope dropping taut below them, tied in knots around Corey’s wrist. His body stretched out and dangling, clothes torn.

A soft amber light bleeds in from the dirty warehouse window, dusk settling in around us.

“What are you doing, beautiful?” Tony asks, smiling at my gun. “That’s a pretty impressive piece of machinery you got there.”

“Do you like it, Tony? I got it from the Jacovs. Bunch of fun guys, they are.” I’m still holding the gun on him, but Enzo—he’s pretty much the one with the least brain function in the crew, he goes to reach for whatever he keeps in the waistband of his pants. “Oh, Enzo, I wouldn’t if I were you. Just a bit of pressure from my finger and, well, you’re all standing so close, and this puppy sprays its bullets—I could take you out all at once.” I cock my head to the side and giggle. “Unless that’s what you want?”

“Enzo, don’t move,” Tony growls, his hands moving out to his side showing me he’s unarmed. “Felony, what are you doing? Don’t be stupid.”

“Maybe I should just start with a quick blast at dick-level?” I lower the gun to his groin and pretend to think about the possibilities.

“Okay, sweetheart. Why don’t you just tell me what it is you’re after?” Tony’s nose flares, and I’m just as giddy as a kid in a candy store without parents and an unlimited get-whatever-the-hell-you-want coupon. I like angry Tony.

But I like scared Tony even more.

“I want you to tell me a story,” I say with a smile.

“What kind of story? What do you mean?” Tony’s squinting at the gun and I’m tempted to blast the wall behind him so he doesn’t talk himself into believing I’m just holding some trumped-up water pistol.

“A story you never told anyone,” I say.

“What the fuck are you talking about? I’m getting tired of this—”

“So, you just want to die? Now?” I cut him off.

This stills everyone. Well, except for Corrado whose slumped, hanging body is something I’m starting to worry about.

“Sal, take Corrado down from there first of all. And Tony? I want you to tell me the infamous story about the Carnival Massacre.”

Sal looks over at Tony, but Tony is still squinting in my direction. Except now he’s not so much as looking at the gun, it’s starting to dawn on him he might be looking at something a little more terrifying.

Like a ghost.

“It was the San Gennaro Feast…” he murmurs, then shifts back on the heels of his feet like he’s been hit with something.

“I’m looking for the truth now, Tony.”

“They…they used to have the big one in the city, but our neighborhood…” he trails off, still trying to figure stuff out. I can see the wheels turning in his head.

“Get to the good part Tony, the part you like the best.” I step forward, barrel of the gun directly in front of him.

“There is no good part, kid. The entire Fretolli family was slaughtered that day,” he growls.

I take another step closer. “Everyone but you. You and Corrado.” I flash my eyes at Corrado who’s now propped up against one of the cement columns. His eyes are open a little more, and he’s listening intently to what’s happening in front of him.

I look back up to Tony, “Go ahead, keep on talking.” I’m gesturing with the gun, and Tony’s eyes widen every time I jostle it wildly. “Let me help. Okay. San Gennaro Feast. Your neighborhood. The whole family getting together, they’re never in the same place all together anymore, right? That day, though, that one day they were. That was your idea, that day, wasn’t it?”

“What the fuck are you getting at, kiddo?”

I sigh loudly. “They were all planning to meet for lunch at DeVito’s concession—best sausage and peppers in the world—isn’t that what you said.”

“Darling, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on…” His face pales, not quickly, it’s more like minute by minute it blanches whiter and whiter.

“The entire family was there. Fretolli, Acerbi, DeVito. All in one place. Except for Corey who was hell bent on playing that stupid ball-toss game because he wanted to win that huge stuffed unicorn for the girl he just kissed on the top of the Ferris wheel.” I smile at him, loving the look of the blood draining away from his face. “But you wouldn’t be paying attention to the kid not being there. Not when your goal was to use the bathroom when the hit was made.”

“Like I said, sweetheart, I don’t—”

“Beautiful. Sweetheart. Kiddo. Darling. Why don’t you use my real name, Tony?”

He stumbles back, just a foot or so, but enough. Enough to left me know he’s surprised and it’s not the best possible situation for him to be in.

“Should I introduce myself? It shouldn’t be hard to see it now, though, right? I look like my mother. You remember my mother, don’t you?”

A whimper rips out of Corey’s throat from where he sits on the floor. My heart breaks for him, for what he’s seeing right now, a dead girl living and breathing right in front of him.

“Say it, Tony.”

Tony shakes his head. He doesn’t want to believe me, but I see it in his eyes.

“Witness protection,” I smile. “You know, growing up in that sort of custody, wow. It gave me the drive, Tony. The drive to one day come back and see you.” I take another step closer, and the three men all step back at the same time. “I had a good time watching you all walking around the last few weeks, looking behind your shoulders, thinking about who was going to be knocked off next.”

“It can’t be,” he whispers.

“Oh, Tony, I wish it wasn’t. I wish I didn’t want to douche my mind clear of you and your greedy little fingers trying to claw your way into control of the family.”

“No, no, no.” Tony chants the words like a prayer.

“Well, let me formally introduce myself. Hello,” I wave the gun at him, “I’m Giana. Giana Acerbi. And I’m here, Tony, to take back control of my family business. And to repay you…”

“Repay me?”

“For ordering the hit on my family, Tony. On Corrado’s family.” I swallow back a wave of emotion. I can still see my mother sitting on the bench, teasing my father about shoving the sausage and pepper hero in his mouth like a gavone. I can still hear Corrado’s twin sisters asking for ice cream. And I can still feel the anticipation of waiting for Corrado to win me that beautiful, magical stuffed unicorn that literally saved his life.

Being all alone in that ambulance, because there were no adults left alive in my family to comfort me. Just Tony, who I heard, hours after the massacre and being questioned by the police, ate his own weight at Peter Luger’s Steak House in Brooklyn with a few of his friends.

The same friends that are standing next to him right now.

“Giana, no, no, sweetheart, that’s not what happened,” he whispers.

“But it is, because I was there and I remember.”

Tony stands straighter, shoulders back, puffing out his chest. “And what do you think, little girl? You think that Jacov and guys are going to help you? Why, just because you gave them a few lap dances? Sucked a few of their dicks?”

“I’m not worried about the Jacov family, Tony. They’re just as dead as you’re going to be.”

In a flash, he lunges at me. Just when my eyes are full of tears, like he planned it out, his grandiose last stand. But I don’t need to see him to feel the pure hate I have pouring out of my body toward him—all I need to feel is the release of this weight—the pure beautiful serving of vengeance.

Revenge is a very tricky thing to get right. It’s often a hot-blooded reaction to a hurt, a furious lashing out as a response to the person or thing that caused you pain. When I was thirteen, Tony Fretolli, my father’s best friend and right-hand man, murdered my family and everyone I ever loved. All at once, right in front of me.

The rage that filled me that day boiled in my veins for so long. I would never forgive and I sure as hell could never forget.

As the years passed, my thoughts on Tony’s retribution changed. I really, truly wanted to punish Anthony Fretolli, and the best thing was for me to pause and think on it, and then in a cold, calculating manner, determine how to return and recompense myself for the hurt he’s caused me.

Cold-blooded revenge is much more satisfying that hot-blooded. In this way I got to watch Tony as his businesses closed from unseen strange events. I observed him struggle with why all his associates left him. And I loved to see the way he looked over his shoulder in fear for weeks as someone killed off his guys one by one.

Until now.

Right this very minute, as he lunges at me and all I can do is laugh through my tears as all the vengeful thoughts assemble at the tip of my index finger and pull back, redecorating the drab gray walls of the warehouse with Tony’s blood and brains.

And I don’t take my finger off the trigger until Corrado and I are the only ones in the family left standing.