CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 42
Mary-Ann Rossi
He had been working strings to this corrupted, death-focused chess game all along. If they believed this news would incapacitate her, they would be disappointed. Raw and unbridled violence consumed Mary-Ann completely. The internal music coursed through her veins. Everything she had endured at their hands fueled the seething acid of pain, and she gladly accepted it.

"Now, our game is over, and now it's time to leave, my Flower." Vincent DeLuca looked at his friend, who had Sofia Rossi in his arms.

Maniacal laughter rolled up Mary-Ann's throat. "No, it's time for you to die, motherfuckers. Let's play."

They were about to find out she would no longer be the object of their games. Taking aim, she let loose her anger with a crooked grin plastered on her face. She was pretty good at shooting, but not good enough to risk her daughter. Instead, she took aim at Salvatore Greco. One less man to deal with.

As each blessed bullet pierced his chest, he bucked. Blood blossomed from each neat hole but didn't seem to affect him. Roaring like a mad elephant, he swelled, growing in bulk. Veins burst in his neck as he rushed before his horns had a chance to fully extend. His grotesque face informed them what they were: a beast.

The thud of his feet as he lunged across the Prospect Park Lake shredded the air. Pulling out a knife, Mary-Ann fired a few more shots into his body. He was not expecting her to fall so readily. The man may have fathered her, but he had no idea what she could do. His powerful physique was all muscle, but it also rendered him sluggish. Mary-Ann saw her chance.

Ducking away from the first punch, she plunged the blade into the exposed side to the hilt. Warm and wet, the blood's spurt was a welcome sensation. His other arm swept in her direction, but she was ready for it. pulling the knife free, she drew the length of its sharpness down the open length of his uncovered forearm, cutting open a ragged wound. Salvatore Greco screamed.

Her hand slick with the testimony of her own small victories, she darted under his flailing arm. He was a seasoned fighter, more super-juiced than any of the berserkers she had faced before, but clumsy nonetheless. As a tactician, he waged war, planning every detail from the safety of distance, having other people fight for him. He lacked the craft a warrior would have. Mary-Ann, on the other hand, had always been knee-deep in mortality.

The smell of burned flesh was an offensive odor as the sacred bullets incinerated within him, but still it did not stop him. Causing superficial injuries, she opened his back and wherever skin was otherwise exposed.

She was drunk on bloodlust. The hunger for revenge. She wanted to bring them to her own hell, to feed her hunger on their blood and cries for mercy. The very nature of her heightened higher in a purity of bloodlust, making her a hurricane of razor-sharp precision—a force of nature, sublime and lethal.

Spinning, Salvatore pushed out with brute strength, set on stopping her ferocious attack. Whirling in a wide spin, Mary-Ann skipped out of his reach.

"Try harder than that, if you can. I'm already fed up with this."

The music in her heart still swelled towards a luscious peak. Ffoamy spittle at the corner of his mouth, he growled. "You're a cocky woman."

A sudden gush of pain jolted through her ribs. Doubling over from the slash of his claws, the gun in her hand was knocked clear. Her agile movements only saved her from another pitiless fist. Skidding across the ice, a hiss escaped her as tender skin scraped the hard surface.

“I’ll cut out your tongue and use it to clean my boots when this is through.”

Flashing him the middle finger in return, Mary-Ann quickly scanned the room for Vincent DeLuca and her daughter. The man did not move. Face impassive, he continued to watch them battle. She hoped he was getting a sample of what would happen to him. After she had done with Salvatore, she would have the head of the Devil on a platter.

Clenching the grip she had on her knife, she circled Salvatore. She dared not underestimate him. Arrogance would be her death. Brushing aside ego with a detached coolness, she was prepared.

He sprinted forward in a burst of unnatural and unexpected haste. Wrapping his arms around her throat, he lifted her off the ground with ease.

Panic flared deep within her belly. Her eyes widened as she clawed at his arm. Squeezing hard, he crushed oxygen to her lungs. He was going to break her neck. She knew the silence that filled him. Pressing the tip of the knife under his chin, she tore a jagged hole in his skin. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she whirled around onto his back the moment he released her.

Blow after blow she pounded on his head with her elbow, using the edge of the blade to slash at the exposed nape of his neck, ripping it away like tenuous paper. There was no means of access to his vital organs without his retaliation. Blood dripped from the damage she had done as he writhed about and screamed, attempting to shake her off.

His hand rising, he grasped a clump of her hair. Closer, he drew with a strength of iron that even she could not withstand. Afoot, Mary-Ann wasn't prepared for the impact of hard surface against the small of her back. Out of breath and bruised, she hadn't time to refill lungs before scrambling off. She rolled over onto her side, gun within reaching distance. Seizing it, she stumbled up on trembling legs.

With a bestial roar, Salvatore Greco charged at her like a semi, and they both went flying off their feet. They collided onto the ice. Barrel pressed against his chest, she pulled the trigger. The bullet struck, ripping through his flesh and muscle just below the heart. Cracking was hard and instant, roaring through the twilight.

Realization came quickly, but too quickly. Falling through the opening they had created, she gulped at the biting bite of the cold depths. Panic-struggling, her frozen fingers were unable to get a grip on the smooth walls. A hand around her ankle tugged her down.

With one huge gasp, she was dragged down with Salvatore as he laid her beside him in his watery tomb. Her eyes locked on the surface above, she observed a figure looking down at them. Blanketed warm and safe, her baby was cradled in his arms. Emerald green eyes looked down at her mercilessly, cold to the bone.

Vincent DeLuca had his daughter.

No feeling crossed his handsome face as she sank deeper. He turned sharply and left. She shouted in anger, and her mouth was filled with water. She had been used. Left to die now that the man had achieved what he had wanted. Feelings oozed out of her. She had done her part, and he had finished his game.

Claws sank into her foot. Leaning her forehead forward, she kicked Salvatore with the other leg. A stream of red ran from the bullet wounds in his chest. Winter blue eyes flashed over hers for a moment. Hatred. It was unambiguously there, and in that moment, she knew it had to end now. They plummeted into the darkness together.

He clung to her in a death grip as they sped on their descent. This man was not going to die. He was a big thorn in her flesh. Pulling out a knife from the one in her back, she stabbed it into his evil heart without delay.

The melody of the song became a memory of a sweetly corrosive tune that dissolved into oblivion in her brain. The warmth spread out into her fingers. Bravery blazed out through layers of her flesh in a virtuous purpose to cleanse and purify. A jolt of shock passed over her as claws ripped her side open. Adrenaline masked the paralyzing injury.

Time and again, she drove, divine power exploding through her fingers, marking the blade with the force of her unraveling mind. Not her brother, but damaged just the same, killing the husk that had harbored him like this. She was there to protect him. She had to learn to convince herself that this was liberating him, if maybe, there was still some part of Anthony left.

The black rolled beneath him. He writhed, twitching as the remaining air left his lungs. Mary-Ann watched as his eyes went glassy and drained of life. Quietly, ghostly, he was gone from sight.

Her eyes skyward, she struggled against the pull that kept her pinned below. It was tugging her downward. Encircling her legs, pulling her into cold blackness. Her lungs crying for oxygen. The surface of the water shone above, calm and welcoming. She kicked her legs and fought with all her might, ribs screaming as blood loss left her contorted.

Inches off the surface, the water pulled her under. So tired now, her movements sluggish, heavy. She was fighting a losing fight. Drowning further down, legs weary, unable to hold her breath anymore, freezing water flooded her mouth.

She was going to die. Again.

This time, she knew there would be no going back. The discovery destroyed her oxygen-starved mind. She needed her baby. Sofia deserved a life with a mother. With her.

Lungs spasming, shaking as if they would explode, Mary-Ann called on the last ounce of energy. Blackness materialized in her line of sight. Quiet, quiet, it engulfed her.

Death.

They had met previously. It stood, waiting to embrace her in its bony, icy arms again. Her body would remain to float forever in this peaceful grave. She had placed her bet with the Devil, and now he had taken his toll. The last toll. Her life.

Abruptly, the sensation of being drawn upward registered. Surfacing with her head, she drew in a gagged gasp, water erupting from her mouth and nostrils. Red and black blotches swirled in her vision. She was wrapped into a pair of muscular arms.

Vincent DeLuca.

Mary-Ann did not miss the sob that wrung from him. He clamped over her so tightly she could not get her breath.

“It’s all right, Mary-Ann. I’ve got you. You’re safe, my brave one,” he crooned in the gentlest voice she had ever heard against her damp hair. “Your trials are finally over. Rest.”

She sagged into him with relief. Exhausted, she allowed herself to slip into sweet oblivion.