Papa waited behind a semi-transparent black folding screen. There was a chair set on Tessa's side, and the message was clear: he did not wish for his only daughter to see him.

Mama had said that she knew Papa’s injuries had been severe, but he had refused to die. But Mama hadn’t seen him, and couldn’t prepare Tessa for the reality. He needed a machine to help him breathe. The small room was filled with the sound of machine and lungs straining in tandem.

“Tessa, my baby girl.” the shape on the far side of the screen rasped. “Please, sit.” Tessa sat: giving confession to Darth Vader. “Big Al told me you were beautiful. As beautiful as Mama.”

“You talked to him?” Tessa asked. Her lifetime’s worth of questions were swept away with that single stroke.

“He was here yesterday,” Papa said. “He came straight from your place. He told me he was going to shoot Mama and I should be resolved to it.”

“Why did you let him leave?” Tessa demanded, rising from her chair.

“He’s a guest, Tessa, not an inmate,” Papa replied. The shadowed hand moved again, commanding her to sit. Tessa stayed on her feet. “That makes it tricky. Also, I tried to reach him once before, outside. He’s resourceful. And brutal. My men came back in small pieces. He reminds me of me when I was young.” This last was said not as a compliment, but more as a deep thinker repeating particular conundrum that he had been puzzling over for some time.

“We have to stop him,” Tessa said. “I’ll stop him if you won’t.”

“No, Tessa,” Papa said. “He’s too good at what he does. More than that, he’s charmed – something looks out for him. The force is strong with him, as we used to say.” Tessa was so rattled by the reference, spoken by her own shrouded, unknown father, that she sat down to steady herself. “If we try to stop him and we fail, he’ll kill you.”

“I don’t care,” Tessa said. “I’ll die to kill the bastard who hurts Mama.”

“Mama said the same about you,” Papa said. “She called me yesterday. She has a plan. One that relies on you.”

“What do I need to do?” Tessa asked.

“Revenge your mother.”

“That doesn’t sound like stopping him.”

“We can’t stop him. It’s already done. When he came here yesterday, I offered him $200,000 to murder your mother. To do it quick, painless.”

“You BASTARD!” Tessa shouted, suddenly back on her feet.

“It was Mama’s idea,” Papa explained. “She told me, ‘Make it a job for him. Not personal.’ If it was personal, he might have taken his time with her. This way, it’s over for her quick.”

“That’s terrible,” Tessa said. She was shaking.

“The life of a killer is terrible,” Papa said. “If you allow one into your life, he brings that terror with him. The moment you danced with a killer, knowing what he was, you accepted whatever came after. Your mother knew this when she married me. That’s why she’s taking her misery now. If you follow her plan, your own misery may not come for at least as many years as she had. And those were good years,” he hissed. “I know, I was watching.”

Tessa swallowed it down, hating it. Papa was right: she had hung on Big Al’s arm, not questioning the guns she knew rode underneath his jacket. She never imagined they would be for anyone she loved. Only strangers.

“I said you would bring him the money,” Papa said.

It was in Tessa to protest again, but she kept quiet, and she listened.

“Al doesn’t trust you,” Papa said. “You have to deliver the money in a special way.”

“Tell me.” Tessa said.

Papa told her. Tessa listened, hating it, but knowing it would work.

If she had the nerve.

Papa read her thoughts “There are two things you must do to prepare,” Papa said. “The first is look at me. Look into my eyes. If you can do that for a full minute, you are strong enough for anything.”

Tessa looked. She recognized at once that it was more than the terrible things that others had done to him that made her Papa the hidden thing he was. His own acts had shaped him just as much. Papa hadn’t committed crimes, but atrocities; he wasn’t a criminal, but a monster. His inhuman strength of will had seeped into his flesh, corrupting it beyond what the knives, fists, and teeth of his enemies had been able to accomplish.

Is this what awaited Big Al? She knew then she was performing Big Al a mercy.

Tessa looked Papa in the eye. He was her father- a half of her whole, the wellspring of any darkness she had ever felt within herself, and the place she would have to search for the deeper darkness she would yet need.

She held her ground for a full minute. She did not waver, shake, or cry. Papa waved a hand, dismissing her. The same meek warden took her to another closed room, where she practiced the second thing. When she got it right, she was given the money to bring to Big Al.

The image of her Papa stayed with her. She was almost home before the asked the driver to pull over so she could retch.

The limousine brought her home, again without her directing the driver. Al’s oversized Cadillac filled the driveway. The limo dispended Tessa and sped off - the driver one less witness in whatever came next.

Tessa went into her own home, knowing that Mama was already gone. Sadness, fear, and regret fought for a place in her heart, but they would have to come later. Now, her entire focus was spoken for, wrapped up in the four seconds of action that lay ahead. She felt inside herself for the darkness she would need.

Al’s driver was waiting inside. He sat at the small kitchen table, a 9mm handgun resting on a placemat near his hand.

“Is that the money?” he asked, tilting his head towards the valise Tessa carried.

She nodded.

“Set it down, and step away.”

She did so. The driver stood up and approached the valise, carrying the gun with him. He took it back to the table. He leveled the gun at Tessa, and asked, “Is there anything you want to tell me before I open this?”

She shook her head.

He searched the valise, counted the money with a practiced hand. He checked for secret compartments, hidden knives, explosives, anything. When he was satisfied, he said, “Your mother is dead. It was quick. She never knew what hit her. She has been taken to a funeral home in the old neighborhood. Big Al is paying for the service, which will be respectful, which is more than she deserves.” He said all this with his small eyes fixed on Tessa’s own, reading her, looking for something that would give away her intentions. He saw nothing that concerned him. “Do you want to see him?’

Tessa nodded.

“Strip,” he said.

Tessa had expected this but she protested to put the driver off. He did not relent. "That’s the only way you are getting up those stairs,” he said. “Leave the underwear on if you like, but then I get to pat you down.”

Tessa stripped. The underwear came off. She’d never been naked in front of a man before and had wondered what kind of effect her nudity might have on the observer.

The driver drank her in. His eyes cataloged goosebumps, birthmarks, moles—every detail.

“Up you go,” he said, his cold expression ruined by his slightly parted lips.

Tessa climbed the stairs.

Big Al was in her room, sitting on her bed. He stood when he saw her coming. His coat was unbuttoned, and she could see he was wearing both guns. He really didn’t trust her. Was he perhaps even a little afraid of her?

No, not afraid. Big Al was careful, is all.

“It had to be done,” Al said. “She understood that even as she was putting everyone I cared about into prison.”

“I know, Tessa said.

Al looked at her. He did not offer to cover her up. He knew better than to leave her standing there naked, knew that he was being rude, but he also enjoyed part of this, and Tessa understood that she had been wrong about him. Big Al was a gentleman only to a point. He had weaknesses, and when those temptations were present, he was like anyone else. Tessa knew her own standards and knew she could never have settled for such a man.

This was getting easier.

“Can you understand?’ Al asked. “Can you see I did what needed to be done? I did it quick, out of respect for you. I took your father’s money, out of respect for him. I know he wants no favors done him.”

“I know,” Tessa said again.

Big Al stood there for another long minute. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

“I want you to hold me,” she said. “Like when we danced.”

Big Al shuddered. Had Tessa been clothed, he might not have been such a fool. But her nakedness was, despite all of his rigorous self-control, something he had dreamt of. And nothing seems so harmless as a naked girl.

“Show me,” Big Al said, his arms wide.

Before she left the prison, Papa had called a man into the conjugal visit room. The man was tall—almost as tall as Big Al himself. He wore two shoulder holsters, one under each arm. Tessa understood at once. “Show me,” the man said.

Tessa had moved to embrace the man, then to go for his guns. He caught her--gently.

“Al will pull you apart with his bare hands,” he said. Tessa looked up. It was an unremarkable face, yet wholly evil. She understood she was seeing another age of her father’s life: when he was no longer young but also not yet old—this was what he had been like when Mama had put him away - cold, untouchable. An unfeeling entity capable of anything, anything at all.

This was what lurked in Al’s breast, stronger than whatever love he claimed to feel for her.

This was what she was learning to kill.

Tessa ran to Al, pressed her face against his broad, strong chest. She looked down, hiding her eyes from his. She had seen everything he was feeling as she came forward: the lust, the disappointment.

Big Al had wanted her to be stronger, to hate him for what he had done, and because he thought she did not, he had lost all respect for her. Now she was little more to him than a thing to be played with.

His large, warm hands came down upon her naked shoulder, slid down her back. She put her own arms around him, hugged his chest, slid her hands up his powerful torso; let her small fingers slide into the left and right holsters.

Al felt it and began to move, but she had practiced this fifty times. She switched the safeties off, twisted the guns inward, and fired. The bullets tore into Al, crisscrossing on their way through his abdomen.

Al half-stepped, half-tumbled backward, leaving the guns in Tessa’s grip. Her fingers were numb and her wrists were on fire, but everything still worked. The guns spoke again—louder, this time, muzzles no longer stifled by Al’s body. The bullets hit him square but still, he did not go down. He gave Tessa the look that said ‘It will take more than that.’

She heard the driver on the stairs--when guns this big spoke, everyone heard. She had to move quickly, but she took the time to say, “Al, if I was half the girl you thought I was, would I let you get away with killing my Mama?”

Al’s expression changed—at once, he loved her again, and that love held him in place, giving Tessa time to work.

She turned and shot Big Al’s driver and bodyguard as he topped the stairs. The man was every bit as cruel as Big Al himself, but not nearly as big. Two rounds from the .44's blew through his chest and carried most of his rib cage with them as they exited.

Big Al went for Tessa. Four large bullets had left eight massive wounds, but he was still powerful, still quick. Tessa tried to move but Al folded her up in his arms, crushed her to him. She struggled against him, raising her head.

He covered her mouth with his, gave her the kiss he’d been holding back until their wedding night.

She felt it; all the passion he possessed, all the relief of at last finding a woman who was all that he had ever hoped for.

She turned the guns inward and shot him again, twice more.

She had never loved Al; it had been a game for her. She had always known, deep down, that he was weak.

Big Al died, then. The dark, hard light that burned in his killer’s eyes went out. He fell to the carpet, his huge frame robbed of the grace it had possessed in life.

Tessa dropped the guns atop Al’s body. She crossed to her window and peeked out through the curtains, mindful of her nakedness, and the blood that streaked her skin, marking her as a killer.

A limo waited, engine idling. Inside: an airline ticket, passport, cash, stock certificates, other gifts from Papa. Enough to begin a new life with an ocean instead of a river between her and New York. If she could get out in time.

The driver had cut her dress up when he searched it, looking for a reason to keep her from Al. She looked around for something to wear—the dress mama had given her lay across the back of the chair of her small writing desk. The last thing Mama had given her, the only store-bought dress she had ever owned.

Tessa sent up a hasty prayer for forgiveness as she slipped on the dress Mama had bought her in exchange for a promise not to marry Al.