Chapter 19: Hands

Silvio's POV

I did not decide to move.

I was at the foot of the table, and then I was across it.

The barrel was pointed at Claire's chest.

My uncle's finger was white on the trigger.

I had spent thirty-four years learning how to stay still when a gun came out.

I forgot every lesson of it.

I put my left hand over the muzzle and drove the gun up.

It went off beside my ear.

The crack filled the room, and plaster rained down from the ceiling in a soft white dust.

Somebody shouted.

The heat of the barrel burned straight through my palm, and I held on to it.

I held on with my other hand too, and I pulled.

My uncle was strong for sixty-one.

He hung on to the grip, and he spat in my face, and he said my father's name.

I put my knee on the table and my weight into his wrist.

The bones gave a little.

His fingers opened.

I had the gun.

He fell back into his chair with his hand held against his chest, and he looked up at me.

For one second, I saw what I was going to do.

I would put one round through his eyes, in front of fourteen men.

I would be sworn out of the chair by morning, and nobody at that table would say a word against it.

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