Chapter 52 Shot by Shot

Chapter 52 Shot by Shot
Lucia’s POV
I don’t speak much on the way there.
Dante is driving like he always does—calm, focused, like every movement has already been decided before he even makes it. The road outside stretches longer than I expect, and I find myself watching the scenery change slowly, trying to understand why we are going somewhere like this after everything that has been happening.
A shooting range.
Of all places.
It doesn’t feel random, though. Not with Dante. Nothing with him is ever random.
When we finally arrive, I notice it immediately—the quietness of the place. Not peaceful quiet. Controlled quiet. The kind that feels like sound is only allowed if it has permission.
Dante steps out first, and I follow him.
The moment I walk in, I see the setup: targets in the distance, equipment neatly arranged, everything precise, almost too clean. It feels like a place made for control.
For him.
“You still remember the basics,” Dante says as he walks ahead without looking back at me.
It’s not a question.
I follow him further inside. “I do.”
He stops near the table where the weapons are placed and finally turns slightly toward me. “Last time was physical training. Today is weapon handling.”
I nod once, even though I already know how to do this. I don’t say it though. I don’t feel the need to interrupt him.
He picks up one of the guns and checks it quickly before placing it down in front of me.
“Grip first,” he says. “No tension in your wrist. You don’t fight the recoil, you control it.”
I listen.
I take it. I aim. And I shoot.
The sound breaks the silence sharply, and for a moment everything is still again after it.
I lower the gun slightly and look forward. The bullet is already in the target.
Clean and direct. Not even slightly off.
There is a pause. A long one.
When I glance sideways, I catch the slight shift in Dante’s expression.
It’s subtle but it’s there.
“…You know how to shoot,” he says slowly.
I nod. “Yes.”
Another pause.
His eyes narrow slightly, not in anger, but in calculation. Like he is rewriting something in his head.
“Who taught you?”
The question comes out more direct than the others. I hesitate only a second.
“My father,” I say.
That answer seems to settle something in him.
His jaw tightens briefly before he exhales and looks away toward the range.
“That is the first useful thing I’ve heard about him,” he mutters.
I blink at him. “Excuse me?”
He doesn’t explain. He just picks up his own weapon and steps forward.
“Again,” he says. And this time, I notice he’s watching me differently now.
Not like someone teaching or like someone testing. Like someone realizing something mid-way through a game he thought he was already winning.
We start shooting again. One after another. Shot for shot. At first, I match him easily.Then I realize something I wasn’t paying attention to before.
He is adjusting.Not just shooting. Adjusting to me. And I am adjusting to him too.
At some point, I shoot again—and I know before I even look that it is better.
Perfect center. Cleaner than his.
Silence follows immediately.
This one feels heavier than the first.
When I turn slightly, I see it clearly now—Dante is staring at the target, then at me, then back at the target again like he is refusing to accept what just happened too quickly.
A faint, almost unreadable expression crosses his face.
Something closer to… surprise he doesn’t like showing.
“You’re better than you said,” he finally says.
I lower the gun slowly. “I didn’t say I wasn’t.”
That earns me the faintest reaction—something almost like a smirk, but not fully there.
“Who else taught you?” he asks again.
And this time, there is something sharper in it.
I tilt my head slightly. “Why does it matter?”
Then he answers without looking at me.
“Because I don’t like gaps in information.”
I almost smile at that. Almost. But I don’t.
Instead, I lift the gun again and aim forward.
“So what are you going to do about it?” I ask quietly.
And for the first time since we got here, Dante doesn’t answer immediately.
He just watches me. Like I’ve become something slightly harder to predict than he expected.
We keep shooting. But the air between us has changed now. It is no longer just training.
It feels like something quieter has started happening underneath it, something neither of us is naming out loud.
Dante adjusts his stance again beside me, but I notice it now in a way I didn’t before—he is not just correcting form anymore, he is watching how I move before I even move.
Like he is anticipating me. Like he is learning me.
I fire again. Another clean hit.
This time, I don’t even need to look at him to know he noticed.
“You don’t hesitate,” he says suddenly.
I lower the gun slightly. “Should I?”
“No,” he answers immediately, then pauses like he didn’t mean to respond that fast.
That makes me look at him.
Just for a second longer than I should.
His expression is controlled again, but something in his eyes is not fully settled anymore.
We reset. We shoot again. And again.
Shot after shot becomes something almost like a rhythm between us. Not conversation, not competition at first—but it slowly turns into both without either of us agreeing to it.
At some point, I realize something that makes me uncomfortable in a quiet way.
He is no longer teaching me. He is matching me. I fire. He fires.
I adjust.
He adjusts faster.
I step slightly to the side. He mirrors it without thinking. Like we are both trying to stay ahead of something neither of us is saying.
A sharp sound breaks through again as I hit another perfect shot, and this time I don’t need to look to feel it—
Dante is watching me too closely. Not just my aim.
Me.
“Focus,” he says, but his voice is lower now. Closer than before.
I reload slowly, my fingers steady. “I am focused.”
There is a short pause. Then I hear him step slightly closer behind me. Not touching. Not yet.
But close enough that I am suddenly very aware of the space I am occupying.
“Then why,” he says quietly, “are you shooting like you’re trying to prove something?”
That makes me stop for half a second. I don’t turn immediately. Because I can feel the question is not really about shooting anymore.
It is about me. I exhale lightly and lift the gun again.
“I’m not proving anything,” I say.
A beat.
Then I add, quieter:
“I’m just better than you thought I was.”
Silence. And in that silence, I hear him breathe out slowly behind me.
When I finally glance back at him, his eyes are already on me. And this time, there is no hiding it properly anymore. He is not just observing. He is reacting.
To me. To everything I do.
And I realize, with a strange tightening in my chest, that I am no longer just in a shooting range.
I am in a space where Dante is trying very hard not to show that I am affecting him.
And failing, just slightly.
Shot by shot.