The basement smelled like mildew and blood.

  I stood at the edge of the room, heart a slow, steady drumbeat. The fluorescent light above buzzed faintly, casting everything in an ugly, pale glow. They were all there. The wife. The child. The man my father called an infestation. Tied to chairs bolted into the concrete. Mouths gagged but not enough to muffle the pleas.

  The woman’s eyes locked with mine, wide and wild. She tried to speak around the fabric stuffed between her teeth. Her body trembled, arms bruised where the ropes dug in. Her little boy, no older than seven, screamed behind his gag, tears streaking his dirty cheeks, legs kicking uselessly against the restraints.

  And the man. The mafia boss. Cold. Still. But I saw the twitch in his jaw. The flicker of fear in his eyes. Even monsters mourn. They just do it slower.

  My father’s presence pressed against my back like a shadow. He stepped forward, calm and proud, and offered me the pistol. Silver and sleek. The one he gave me for my fourteenth birthday.

  “Do it, sweetie,” he said, his voice soft as velvet. “Show me how strong you’ve become.”

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  I did not hesitate.

  The gun felt weightless in my hand.

  One shot. The wife’s head snapped back, blood splattering the floor like paint on canvas. Her body slumped, lifeless. The boy let out a muffled, animalistic cry, thrashing in his chair. It was not the first life I had taken. But it was the first that begged me not to.

  I aimed the barrel at his forehead.

  That was when I heard it. The sobbing.

  Not the boy. Him.

  The man who ordered the deaths of dozens. The man whose name inspired silence in dark rooms. He was crying. Crumbling. His chest heaving. Face twisted with grief.

  And before I could pull the trigger, my father’s hand closed over my wrist.

  “Leave him,” he said, eyes gleaming. “Let him rot in this pit with their ghosts. A quick death would be a mercy he does not deserve.”

  I lowered the gun.

  The boy still twitched, but I did not look at him again.

  We walked out in silence. Only the echo of our footsteps and the distant, breaking sobs behind us.

  At the top of the stairs, my father stopped me. He cupped my face in his gloved hand, kissed my forehead gently like he used to when I was small.

  “Good job, my beautiful, beautiful Rose.”

  I smiled. Blood still on my cheek.

  And I bloomed.