I wanted to kill Ramon Acadia moments after I met him.

It was dusk, and my brother Aldo and I were dining al fresco at the Bellagio, enjoying the fountains. A very rare venture “out” for both of us. Acadia emerged from deep shadows slowly enveloping the candle-lit dining area.

“Signore D’Amore! A surprise to see you here. May I join you?”

Aldo D’Amore, who manages La Vacanza, is the titular head of the Chicago Mob’s operations in Vegas.

The tight smile on my brother’s face assured me this was no chance meeting. A moment later Acadia sat across from me.

Aldo said, “Corinne, meet Ramon Acadia from Chicago."

I knew who he was, our latest emissary. He smiled boldly as he kissed my hand.

Acadia was Hollywood-handsome and much too impressed with himself. Maybe forty, he was tall, trim and elegantly attired in a dark blue suit, black silk shirt, and no tie. His glossy black hair was combed straight back from a high forehead and slate-gray eyes glittered behind a thicket of black lashes.

Fortunately, Acadia stayed only through dessert. But I seethed because that gleaming smile and everything in his demeanor and subtle choice of words in my presence exuded sexism. 

A light breeze blowing through the taxi’s windows failed to cool my anger as Aldo and I rode back to La Vacanza. We said nothing until we reached the stairwell I’d take to my suite.

“The man’s disgusting. May I kill him?” I whispered.

A short laugh. “No, Corinne,” Aldo said. “Not yet. The man e necessario. He’s useful.”

“To you . . . maybe. I despise him.”

He nodded, then left me.
 ***

Three days later Aldo changed his mind.

We met in a small office in the sub-basement of the hotel only he and I knew about.

“Acadia is worse than you thought, Corinne. He’s a monster!”

I didn’t ask for details I’d never get. I merely said, “Posso ucciderlo?” 

“Yes.”
***

In the vast emptiness of Nevada’s desert, Acadia lay at my feet, his hands bound behind him. I took off the blindfold.

A puzzled look filled his eyes.

“A woman--?”  

I took off my balaclava. 

“D’Amore’s sister—?”

“You don’t remember my name?”

He gawked at his surroundings.

“In the city it’s Corinne. Out here . . . it’s La Tigre.”

“Why am I here?”

He's a monster!  Aldo’s words raged through my skull.

Was Acadia anything like those who had kidnapped me when I was fifteen? They’d repeatedly sodomized me and left me for dead in an alley where Aldo had found me.

It mattered not. Aldo condemned him.  La Tigre was merely following orders as she’d always done after Aldo found her kidnappers.

I took a .22 pistol from the pocket of my black leather skirt and pressed the barrel between those slate-gray eyes. I stared at him for a very long time.

“Don’t kill—“ he begged.

I smiled, then pulled the trigger.