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I wish I could join them. I'm a very good shot.
I look at the man lying in the road that proves that and my heart skips a beat. What if I killed him?
"It is a good thing one of your daughters knows how to handle a gun," Don De Luca says. "Or they both might be dead right now."
My father doesn't answer. I hear a vehicle speeding towards us from the direction of our home. I don't want to turn away from the men in the street, but have to make sure it's our father coming toward us. Only I can't move.
"We see you," my father says, for once diminishing my stress, rather than adding to it. "We are almost there."
The sound of the approaching vehicle grows louder. Then the call drops and I hear not one, but multiple cars come to a stop, one after the other, their engines still running.
I hear doors open and soon after, men swarm past the car, checking on the fallen shooters. "This one's alive," a man shouts after checking the pulse on the man leaning against the SUV.
"Take him to the box," Don De Luca barks, the low gravel of his voice inciting a feeling of safety I do not examine.
Someone knocks gently on the window nearest Carlotta. "Stellina, open the door," my father calls coaxingly.
Still sobbing, Carlotta shakes her head. "What if there are more?"
"I will take you home where you will be safe."
"I'll never be safe," Carlotta says.
"Madonna Carlotta, open this door," my father says in a voice he never uses with my sister.
The door opens. "Papà," Carlotta cries.
"Come here, princess, Papà has you." Our father pulls Carlotta out of the car. I don't see it, but I feel the movement behind me. "Catalina put that damn gun down before you shoot someone."
I can't let go of the gun. I can't move at all.
Because I already shot someone, didn't I? I don't know if he's dead. I'm waiting for someone to check his pulse. No one does.
"For God's sake. Bring her back to the house," my father orders someone.
"Yes, sir," Marco, one of my father's men, says. "Miss Jilani, come with me." After a couple of seconds, he adds. "Please."
I hear a car pull away, tires rumbling over the gravel on the side of the road.
I don't move.
"Miss Jilani," Marco says, his tone strange.
"You have to check," I say.
"Check what?" Marco asks.
"His pulse. You have to see if he's dead."
"Who?" Marco asks. "Your father's men? They are both headed toward the hospital."
He doesn't mean a regular hospital. That's not how it works. The mafia has a private clinic here on Long Island and a fully functional hospital in the city. I wonder which one he means, but I don't ask.
"Him," I say, jerking the gun like a pointer toward the man I shot.
"Move," I hear. Then the sound of shuffling.
"You did well, Catalina." That's not Papà's voice. It is a voice that should not affect me, but it does.
