TILL D£ATH DO US APART
(The•Devil•I•Loved)
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Copyright © 2025
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★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
[Crimson Cave, Daybreak]Just like The Outfit preparation is peak in The House Of Esposito, the preparations here is high too.
Monika is busy remixing her poisons, sending the ones that’d be traps out of the cave to the forest, readjusting the vaults and bending the routes.
While he’s doing her part, her gangsters are busy with their preparatory moves too. The Cave breathed like a human, both with the preps and their anticipation.
When Monika got done with the poisons, she moved to the computer room, rechecking the systems.
There must be no mistakes.
She was still on her checking session when Hayden entered the room.
She didn’t have to look back before knowing someone entered, or before knowing it’s him.
“What do you want?” She asked, not even glancing back.
“This Outfit peeps are our enemies, but somehow…you know everything ongoing in their estate? How? Who’s your snitch?” He asked.
Monika’s eyes lifted, and her black nails stopped on top of the laptop button she’s pressing.
She looked back, sighing.
Hayden stood by the door, that inquisitive look etched to his face.
“You might have lost your memories, but you’re still the same, still as inquisitive as ever,” she muttered, not loud enough for him to hear.
“You said?” Hayden frowned.
“Of course I have my mole in their estate. I wouldn’t be Monika Crimson if I’m not always prepared for the worse,” she said, walking to him.
“Make it clear,” Hayden muttered, standing on business.
Monika smiled, touching his shoulder.
“I have a mole inside the clan, and she has been sending me news. I can’t exactly call her a mole inside, cos she’s not exactly inside, but she’s still a mole—my mole.” She said.
“You and your twisted words,” Hayden muttered.
She smiled again.
“Yunno what, Hayden? After all of these ends, and I eventually find my daughter, you’ll get an antidote to the weekly poison in your system. I want you for my daughter.”
“You have a daughter?” Hayden asked, and Monika gave him a nod, sitting on a desk before facing him again… Straight in the eyes.
“She’s probably somewhere I don’t even know. Maybe she didn’t see the box in her basket, cos if she did, Leo should be dead by now.” She said.
“I see…so you have a personal grudge against Leonardo?” Hayden sat too.
“Not him exactly. I have a grudge against his mother—Vera. She killed my husband, but I’m a greedy bîtch who’s not satisfied even after I killed Vera here. I want Leonardo gone too. He’s her treasure when she was alive, so he has to die…” Monika sighed.
“Deep,” Hayden nodded. “But I can’t wait to delve in.”
“I know, where are the others?” Monika stood.
“All ready!” Moo and Hayden replied by the door.
Monika and Hayden left the room, following them.
—
[House Of Esposito, Penthouse]Penny are Island are only one who’re not going for the mission here.
Penny sat in her massage chair, head slumped back, and Island is occasionally plopping red grapes into her mouth. She chewed with relish.
Inside Lissa’s room, Lissa is all dressed in her white gear, ready to take her leave.
They’re not waiting for nighttime this time. It’s now or never.
The mission is this afternoon, and as a slight ray of sunshine spilled out from under the January clouds, she sighed, staring at herself in the mirror, her sword in hand.
Emma entered the room, dressed like her Mistress too, just that she’s not carrying a sword.
“It’s time, Miss. Time to go finish what Sir Leo and Stanley started.” She said.
Lissa faced her.
“They’re all ready?” She said.
“Completely,” Emma replied, leading her out of the room.
—
[Estate Park]Seven cars of mobsters already left the estate, and more cars are still driving out one after the other.
There are no batches this time. No car groups. Just go with any car you find fitting, and function when you arrive at the forest.
The mission is straightforward; Locate Crimson Cave, eliminate the gangsters, take back the billions and capture Monika herself. Leonardo wants to kill her with his own hands.
Ginny’s fingers are shaking, so Tierney quickly held it down…
“Be calm, you’ll be in the helicopter yunno?” He said
She’d really be in the helicopter, flying over the forest and giving directions on the routes.
“I’m just scared, what if this mission flops? I don’t want my first mission to flop.” Ginny said.
“Shhh, put your mind at rest,” Ginny replied, giving her water.
Nino, Robert, Bobby and Stanley are together, and while Bobby is busy resetting his long gun, Stanley stared at him with loose eyes.
“Stop staring, your eyeballs might just fall off…” Bobby muttered, popping gum in his mouth.
“Am I alone, or you look really cute while arranging guns?” Stanley teased, and Bobby instantly pointed the gun at him, threatening.
Stanley chuckled.
Robert is flexing is muscles, and Nino is looking at Sandra who’s standing beside Bacardi by the second car.
“How’re you feeling, gee?” Robert suddenly asked beside him.
He took his eyes away from Sandra before talking…
“Can’t decide .” He said.
“You good?” Bacardi asked Sandra beside the second car.
“Yeah, just don’t know why Nino is staring back,” Sandra replied.
“And you don’t like it?” Bacardi teased.
“Sis!” Sandra frowned.
Bacardi laughed.
Robert saw Ivanna waiting alone beside another car, and he went to her unnoticed.
“I see the key in your necklace pendant is slightly scratched,” he said, staring at it.
Ivanna held the pendant immediately, covering it.
“Did you open the box in your basket finally? What’s inside it?” He asked.
None of them are aware she has opened the box countless times already, and this time, she feels slightly bad for lying to them all these while, but so far it doesn’t hurt them, it’s fine with her.
“Yeah, finally opened it.” She half-fessed.
“And it contains?” Robert asked curiously.
“A candy. It’s covered in molds though… should have opened it earlier.” She lied with a straight face.
“Candy? That’s strange. Here I was, expecting it to be a note from your real family as to why they dropped you in that river.” He hissed.
“Last night when we were drunk, I finally got the reason behind the start of this clan’s feud with Crimson Cave. Bacardi and Bobby got drunk, and they said a lot.” He said.
“Lots like?” She faced him.
“Violent Vera was killed by Monika, and that’s because Vera killed Monika’s husband called Santos. Apparently, Vera was obsessed with Santos, and she couldn’t take the fact that he chose Monika over her, so she killed him, and I heard she killed their newborn baby too!” Robert said.
Ivanna nodded.
“When Monika came to take revenge on Vera at marionette amusement park, only Sir Leo was present with Vera, and he has refused to say the name of Vera’s killer since then cos he claimed the revenge was for him alone to take, but guess what? The other siblings found out on their own. Why else would Sir Leo hate Monika that much and why would Monika hate him too. She killed Vera to avenge her husband Santos, so she must be wanting to kill Sir Leo too to avenge her newborn baby that was also killed.” Robert continued.
“I know…” Ivanna sighed.
Robert blinked, “You know the story?”
Ivanna looked at him, and her mind went back to last night.
[Last Night]
“He’s already trapped, mother. Now, he’s dying by my hands, tommorow.” Ivanna said, her eyes returning slowly to the note.
She turned the back of the paper where another note is written in blood.
• Monika Crimson, that’s your mother’s name. Never forget to find me in the future! Never forget! I swear I can’t live without you. Make sure you find me, baby.
The paper folded in Ivanna’s hands, and she looked up again.
The truth—this truth, has been living inside her since she opened this box at the age of 10, and since then, she has been keeping it in.
Each time she opens the box, she gets a reminder slash of it.
[Present Time]
“Hey! Iva!” Robert nudged her, noticing she hasn’t been responding.
Ivanna’s eyes went back to him…
“The child…. I mean Monika’s newborn baby, what if it’s not dead?” She said with a look of certainty.
“Now you’re acting weird…” Robert frowned, but he had to leave when Leonardo arrived.
“Ready? Joy?” He asked, and her smile brightened the afternoon.
“Born ready, babe.” She became.
In the presence of everyone including Lissa who’s now at the park, Leonardo kissed Ivanna’s forehead.
Lissa didn’t make a sound, and so is everyone else.
Well except Stanley who immediately stepped forward.
“I think today should be romance-free, please!” He said.
“Shut up,” Leonardo pushed him back, and Stanley staggered.
Ivanna grinned.
Leonardo tapped his bud, connected to all head of spies in the alliance countries.
The ten ally points have been completely breached.
“Now!” He ordered the spies, then he wore a new earbud on his left ear.
He led Ivanna and Stanley and Bobby into the same car with himself, and they drove out, following the first seven cars of mobsters.
Sandra, Nino, Bacardi and Robert and Tierney climbed up another car, and they drive off too.
Lissa and Emma didn’t share their car with anyone.
Ginny already went to the airfield to get on the helicopter.
In few minutes, the last set of mobsters left.
Then… Renata and Thaddeus emerged from the Padrino’s office.
They both got in the same car.
“Still don’t know what you’re going to Hydra forest to do…you can’t beat a fly…you’re weak!” Thaddeus mocked.
“Why not wait and see?” Renata replied, tucking her gun in her hostler before driving them out.
The estate feels empty with just the lowest of the low mobsters inside.
Padrino Marko sat imposingly inside his office, waiting for the right time to strike.
The day is finally here.
Vera—his immediate daughter didn’t give him problems. Even when she fell blindly in love with Santos, she knew how to restrain herself.
She was aware that he was gonna kill Santos if she continued chasing after him, so she left Santos, then angrily grabbed Anthony off his parents sheepfold.
She angrily got married to him… A weak man.
But even after she gave birth to Leonardo… even after Leonardo clocked one year, she was still spying on Santos.
Back then, Santos and his wife Monika had just birthed their baby girl, but that didn’t stop Vera from spying. She still spied on him cos she was still in love.
So… Marko had to use his wild card…his secret weapon… Renata.
He had to send her to go waste Santos and his wife and child.
Renata did the job, but that was her only imperfect job ever, cos she was only able to kill Santos.
But that was the point—Santos died.
That was enough to make Vera focus. She then directed her anger from Santos’s death to her first child.
Leonardo.
She gave him trainings too heavy for a child. Battered, broke and ruin him till he was irreparable.
She left him a brilliant legacy before Monika killed her at the park that day, but now… Leonardo is slipping away from the legacy?
And he’s not slipping for just anyone, but for Monika’s baby girl?
Marko grinned, tapping his desk.
Yeah…the flaw in Renata’s killing back then turned out to be a greater mistake than they thought.
Renata killed Santos and shot Monika on the chest, but she wasn’t able to get the newborn baby cos Monika already floated her in water.
As a persistent bî+ch that Monika is, she survived the chest gun wound.
Her Crimson family came to get her from that river, took care of her, and she got back on her feet to become a heartless woman who vented all her anger on poison making.
She took over Crimson Cave — her family gang home, and she has been running it since then.
But who would have thought her newborn baby from back then survived too?
Renata recognized her immediately she saw her on the night of the teaparty, and it’s cos of her key pendant necklace.
That day at the river house when she was chasing Monika in the emergency corridor after killing Santos, she had a glimpse of what she was doing…she saw the key pendant necklace she placed around the baby’s neck before she ran.
It has been in Renata’s photographic memory since then, and when she saw Ivanna at the teaparty, there was no mismatch..she knew it was her.
Monika’s daughter, here to undo Leonardo? Impossible.
Marko tapped his fingers on the desk again, his eyes unblinking under his glasses. He’s watching the time too.
But his wait was interrupted when his most trusted guard came in.
“Sir! There’s a problem!” He tendered the tab for Marko.
On the screen, there’s unending news across his alley point countries…
His allies got exposed just this morning. Evidences of money laundering, funds embezzlement, slush funds stacks…
Everything he’s holding against them has been exposed, and they’re all getting arrested one by fuckin one.
Marko dropped his walking cane on the table, sighing.
“Renata was right, I shouldn’t have underestimated Leo and his damn spies. He actually found the ten points this fast?”
There’s anger in his voice even as calm as is sounds.
“What do we do, sir? Now we’re left with Renata.” The guard asked.
“The plan. Kickstart the plan! Call the water prison staffs and tell them to open up! Also, call the national cops superintendent.” Marko ordered, folding his fists.
—
[Penthouse]Penny’s massaging session ended on the massage chair, and she brushed her hair back, getting on her feet.
Island took the plate of grapes to put away, and as she returned to the kitchen, she was secretly glaring at Penny.
Penny hasn’t risen from the chair when she received a call.
It’s from the construction site manager.
“I told you, I’ll be busy throughout today. Why are you ringing me!” She snapped crankily.
“There’s a problem ma’am! There’s a problem with the funds we retrieved from the estate vault!” The manager announced fast.
“What could that be?” Penny stood.
“I think the missing one billion from it was only a distraction, cos the real deal is the remaining money…I think…I think it got replaced!” The manager spoke shakily.
“Why are you taking like a fool! Tell me straight!!! What’s going on!!” Penny stood from the chair.
“Fake. The remaining cash is fake. All fake dollars!” The Manager dropped the bomb.
“What!!!!” Penny screamed, falling back on the massage chair.
Her arse feels like it’s not even there anymore. She feels like puking her grapes immediately.
“What did you…. just say?”
“Knowing the intense relationship between Sir Leo and Ivanna, I think it’s his handiwork. He probably took the real cash and replaced it with fake cos he knew the money belonged to the Cooper family. What if he’s revenging on her behalf?” The Manager panicked.
Penny stood, freezing.
“No…no it’s impossible. No!!!!”
—
[Hydra Forest, 1PM]The Outfit mobsters arrived about thirty minutes ago, and their journey into he wild land has already started….fast.
They didn’t walk, they ran.
The last piece of open land disappeared behind the mobsters as the trees swayed.
The trunks are thick and old, bark layered like unhealed scars.
Light from the sky thinned almost immediately, fractured into pale strands that barely reached the forest floor before being swallowed by leaves, moss, and shadow.
Leonardo’s movements slowed, he didn’t lift a hand, but the mobsters slowed with him—more than a hundred mobsters around him.
Their weapons stayed low but ready, their eyes scanned without panic.
Hydra Forest is dark and hostile, but fear is a luxury none of them could afford today.
Ivanna moved ahead of Leonardo, silent as a thought. Her boots barely disturbed the ground.
Her whip at her hip rested with a ominous coil, the dark leather gleaming faintly.
She looks unbothered—almost bored, but Leonardo knew better.
Ivanna was never careless, she’s probably listening to the forest the way predators listened to preys.
“This place wants us lost,” Stanley muttered under his breath.
Leonardo didn’t answer. He felt it too—the way sound bent and distance lied.
A tree that looked ten steps away took twenty steps before they got there. Footfalls echoed from directions that made no sense.
Looks like a maze that rearranged itself, as if it’s their first time here.
Monika has turned the geography of this place into a weapon.
Above them, Ginny’s helicopter cut a slow, patient circle beyond the canopy, unseen but loud.
Ginny sat strapped inside, her eyes flicking across numbers and angles that meant nothing to anyone else.
Ginny’s fingers danced lightly over a black tablet, recalculating every second as the forest tried to swallow the mathematical format.
“Shift one degree southeast,” she said into the mic, voice steady and clear.
“Ignore the structure ahead—it’s one of their decoys. You’ll meet five more like it.” She added.
Following her instructions, Leonardo led the mobsters forward.
The five structures came faster than expected. Upgraded versions, different from the ones they met the other time.
Monika is crazy!
The first structure looked like a stone outpost—old and solid, vines crawling up its sides like veins.
The second resembled a bunker, all concrete. Its entrance dark and inviting.
The third one mimicked a natural cave mouth so well that Bobby slowed, squinting in front of it.
“I commend Monika’s brains, convincing,” he said.
“That’s the point,” Nino replied.
They passed all five buildings without stopping, without stalling.
Ivanna’s gaze flicked left, then right. She felt a twist in the air.
Something shifted. No sounds, but the silence here feels drowning, feels suffocating, as if a trap is laying at wait for them to enter.
She looked at Leonardo, about to voice out her unease, and that was when they bursted out….
Insects.
They burst from hollowed tree bark, from leaf clusters, from places that had been quiet a beat earlier.
They’re tiny, winged, and shimmering wrong in the filtered light.
Their hum rose fast, renting the forest and beating the leaves. Loud and almost deafening like bees!
One of the insects brushed a mobster’s neck.
He slapped at it and cursed, then he staggered. It actually bit him!
He couldn’t hold himself steady.
He couldn’t fight it.
He fell dead!
“Poison!” Ivanna shouted, voice desperate.
Mobsters began dropping as the insects stung them.
They fell dead and folded like systems shutting down. Their muscles locked, breaths leaving their bodies too quickly.
Ivanna moved.
Her whip uncoiled from her hip in a blur, cracking through the air with a rippling sound like lightning.
She struck branches, tore through insect clusters, redirected the swarm with controlled violence.
Leather sang mercilessly, as though the whip itself hated what it touched.
“Cover your mouths!” she shouted.
Leonardo followed after her. He fired his gun upward, scattering the cluster of insects. They fell on the fallen leaves like sand.
A dart suddenly struck his shoulder from nowhere.
They’re around! Crimson Cave gangsters are around!
But he ignored it.
His eyes tracked Ivanna constantly, even as Bacardi dragged a coughing mobster backward to safety, her face pale beneath the dirt.
Ginny’s voice cut in sharply from the helicopter above. “The vault grid is beneath you. Spread out now.”
The forest answered Ginny before the mobsters could move.
The ground split open beneath some of the group of mobsters.
They were swallowed into the vault without a sound, and the vaults closed again instantly, leaving only silence from the mobsters.
Tierney was already kneeling beside the vault, his fingers probing a root cluster from the ground as he studied the vault formation carefully.
“They reset the mechanism,” he said, breaths fast.
He twisted the metals, pressed it, then listened to the responding sound.
The vault snapped open again.
He did it!
Outfit mobsters dropped into the vault deliberately, landing hard with their weapons raised.
They turned escape routes into traps, and gunshots echoed underground.
—
Inside the real Crimson Cave, Monika watched her feeds bloom and rearrange on her screens.
She’s watching everything from here through her forest cameras.
She leaned forward, lips curving faintly as she observed Leonardo’s movements and Ivanna’s precision.
She watched the way the Outfit mobsters adapted.
The forest was designed to kill outsiders slowly, but these ones learned too fast.
“So, this is love” Monika murmured, her dark eyes narrowing on Leonardo and Ivanna with interest.
Moo stood beside her, silently.
Monika glanced at her once, then turned back to the screens.
“Release the second wave, and send Hayden” she said, her gaze lingering on Ivanna longer than necessary.
The necklace on Ivanna’s neck is peeking out, and Monika is struggling to view it better.
Moo rushed out to carry out her orders, taking Bradshaw with herself.
—
[Forest]Ivanna felt the shift again before she understood it.
The air tightened, and something familiar and wrong pressed against her spine.
She turned, and Hayden stepped out of the fog. He looked thinner, edges sharpened by something cruel.
His eyes are hollowed—stripped of warmth, as if his memory got scooped out.
He lifted his gun professionally.
“Whip Huntress,” he said, testing the name like it carried weight.
Ivanna’s breaths left her…
“Hayden…”
He frowned. “You know me?”
“You were—” The word refused to form in Ivanna’s mouth.
History clogged her throat, heavily.
“Liar!” he snapped, his fingers tightening around the gun.
Ivanna’s whip flew forward.
The leather wrapped Hayden’s wrist, twisted, and tore the gun away from him in one brutal motion.
Hayden didn’t hesitate.
He slapped one violent kick into Ivanna’s face. His gunless state didn’t lower his strength. His kick transported Ivanna to the ground where she landed in the middle of the leaves and brown dirty snow, but not for long.
She shifted when Hayden’s kick came down to meet her, and the kick met the ground.
She wrapped her whip around his ankle, pulling him down.
She slammed her fist into his gut, another one unto his left eye.
Hayden was like a beast… like he didn’t feel it.
He pulled her head and smashed it into a tree, nearly cracking it.
As blood ran down her face, he laughed. “Been wanting to hear what it’s like to hear your scream since I heard about you! Too bad you don’t have a sound, bî+ch!!”
He pulled her head back again, then drove it back into the tree, but before he could hit it on the tree again, Ivanna’s resistance kicked in.
Her two legs shot up, gripping him by the waist. Her ankles received sprains, but she was still able to bring him down.
The former Hayden wouldn’t hurt her in the slightest, so she just knew Monika must have done something to him.
She must have tampered with him badly.
She slapped him in the face twice, then shoved his face in the tree too.
Blood bloomed on him too, and Leonardo jumped in.
SCENE CUT~
—
[Bobby’s Side]Gunfire roared cruelly.
Bradshaw and the remaining fleet of Crimson gangsters are everywhere, and they’re already in a heated fight with the Outfit mobsters.
Bobby slammed himself into a Crimson gangster at close range, knocking him down, only to be tackled from the side by another one.
Together, they rolled through snowy leaves until Stanley jumped into the clearing.
Using a stone, he crushed the head of that gangster, mixing his brains with dirty snow.
Blood splashed Bobby, but he breathed out heavily.
“You good?” Stanley asked.
“Ask me later,” Bobby panted. “I need to find Leo.”
Then he rushed off. Stanley followed him behind.
—
[Back to Leonardo’s Side]Leonardo’s stance reeked of lethality, eyes burning like coals at the sight of Hayden with Ivanna.
He should have ended this bastard back then in Britain.
But he spared him cos of reasons he doesn’t even know.
And now….
“End it,” he said quietly, his still yes on Hayden’s own.
Ivanna stared at Hayden’s face.
For a heartbeat, something flickered in his eyes—recognition clawed through the poison, but it didn’t last.
Moo appeared behind him, slammed a pipe on his already-bleeding head, and Hayden dropped.
“Hayden!” Ivanna called without realizing.
Leonardo looked at Ivanna, and grabbing that opportunity of distraction, Moo took Hayden away from that side.
“Hayden?” Leonardo repeated, still looking at Ivanna.
“This isn’t the right time, Nardo. Let’s finish this first.” She replied coldly.
“And what the hell is that tone!” Leonardo grabbed her by the forearm.
“Leonardo!” She yelled his full name as his hold stung.
“Leo watch out!” Stanley’s voice shattered from a distance, and that called the two of them back to their senses, but it was too late.
A gunshot echoed from Bradshaw on top of a tree.
It was coming for Leonardo, but Bobby was fast enough to cover him.
Bobby got hit in the stomach.
Both Leonardo and Ivanna’s eyes widened to their ends.
“The f+k! Bob!!!!!!” Leonardo yelled, his gun nearly falling off.
“Bobby!” Ivanna shouted too.
“Hell! Bob!” Stanley ran.
Bobby smiled sadly, slanting.
“Damn, I’ve been looking for opportunities to go meet Wendy in hell. Glad I got shot instead, my Leo…” He grunted.
As blood spilled out of his mouth, he went down.
“Bob!!!!” Tears beaded Leonardo’s eyes as he tendered his arms.
Bobby fell inside.
Ivanna and Stanley opened fire on the tree, and Bradshaw fell off with multiple bullets on his body.
Dead.
—
[Nino’s Side]From a distance, Nino moved like fury given shape, his blade flashing, disarming a Crimson gangster before slamming him into a tree.
The gangster attempted to stand, but Nino’s knife already sliced his throat before he could move.
Blood flowed, again.
But behind him, he didn’t see another one coming. The scream of agony from the gangsters that Bobby and Stanley are currently killing is much, so hus ears were filled.
He nearly got gashed from behind, but Sandra’s knees flew into the clearing from nowhere.
The knees knocked the Crimson gangster down, and she went down with him, taking Nino’s knife.
She stabbed the gangster’s ear, and blood was drooling from her face as she looked up at Nino..
Nino’s eyes are wide.
—
[Robert’s Side]Robert is here… With Bacardi.
Their blows and gunshots shared the same sound of danger. Bodies lay around them, still dropping and still counting.
They killed every Crimson gangster together. Bacardi mostly handled the lower bodies while Robert handled the upper ones.
But they killed the last two separately…one to one.
The bodies dropped, and that was when pain suddenly detonated violently across Robert’s back
He gasped and turned back, and his breaths turned cold when he saw Renata standing there with a knife.
And the knife…is inside Bacardi’s lower back. It’s completely inside her.
Clearly, the knife was meant for him, but Bacardi took it instead.
“Cardi!!!!” His scream rattled the forest, thunderous.
Bacardi hit the ground hard, soundlessly.
Robert dropped beside her, hands shaking and helpless.
Renata looked down at them, her expression seemed to be carved from something unbreakable.
“Hello, cute lil lovers!” she grinned hysterically, waving them with her bloodstained palms.
Bacardi’s blood. It’s all-over her face.
Robert looked up, with Bacardi still gasping for breaths in his arms.
“Aunt Renata… how could…”
“How could I?” Renata squatted beside them, still grinning.
“Think about it, is it really possible for father to have a weak child? Like the Madman of Calabria? A weak child? Y’all are so dumb, and dumb enough to bl+wj0b in the valley where his strongest backbone is! So f+kin dumb!” She laughed.
Bacardi smiled through blood in her mouth. “You’ll never own me—you and granddad. I love Robert, and…and nothing is changing—”
She gave up at that point, and Robert stood with a mad roar, following Renata.
“Good! You’re my target in the first place!” She laughed, following him too.
They met in the middle, clashing madly.
From the shadow of a tree, Thaddeus stood, watching with widely opened mouth and eyes.
“Renata?” He muttered.
—
[Lissa’s Side]The forest swallowed the sounds as Lissa cut through Crimson gagsters with calm accuracy.
Her sword flashed, and bodies dropped like poached animals.
Emma fought beside her flawlessly, striking where Lissa opened space.
They moved like a rehearsed storm, no words, only breath and timing.
One gangster charged wildly at them, and Emma ended him without hesitation.
When the last man fell, silence returned to them.
Lissa wiped her bloody blade and turned, anger sharpening her focus.
Now she can finally focus on who she came to this mission for.
Leonardo and Stanley.
“’I’m going to find them,” she said, already stepping away.
“They owe me blood, she added, voice deeply certain.
She expected Emma to follow behind her, but that was just her unrealistic expectation cos behind her…
Emma slowed, and her fingers tightened around something hidden.
The forest shifted, snowflakes dug hole below her feet.
Then…
Pain struck Lissa’s back as iron weight smashed into her spine.
She stumbled forward as a chained meteor hammer wrapped her arm.
Emma is holding the hammer.
A damn meteor hammer.
Emma yanked hard, sending her crashing to the ground.
“You taught me never to hesitate,” Emma said quietly.
Lissa turned, shocked, fury breaking through the pain.
“Have you lost your mind?” She demanded, eyes still wide.
Emma’s eyes were steady. “You took everything from me, and you somehow expect me to stay below your feet and pick up crumbs forever?”
“What!”
“What were you expecting? An obedient maid till death? You killed my family in one night all because I bought the only limited edition of bag from your favorite brand you power-drunk whore! You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this day! You have no idea!!!” Emma yelled at her face.
“You asked for this, bî+ch!” Lissa spranged up fast.
They charged at each other, colliding.
They fought without mercy—teacher against student, steel against chain.
Lissa pressed forward, wounded but deadly, forcing Emma back.
Emma adapted, circling, using distance and momentum.
“You killed my family to own me,” Emma grunted.
“You survived because of me,” Lissa snapped, striking again.
The chain caught Lissa’s leg unexpectedly, and she fell hard.
Emma didn’t pause when Lissa tried to rise. She picked the meteor hammer and struck Lissa’s wrist with it, and that sent Lissa’s sword flying.
The chain looped Lissa’s throat and pulled her against a tree.
“This ends tonight,” Emma whispered, pulling once more.
She dragged Lissa’s neck against the tree. At first, Lissa thought she was a match, so she struggled, flailed, scratched and pulled, but…
Death won.
Her struggle faded, her tongue stretched out of her mouth and her send falling at her sides lifelessly.
Emma released the chain and walked away, leaving silence behind.
—
[Minutes Later]The real entrance to the Cave finally revealed itself.
The stones slid aside as Ginny whispered coordinates that felt like spells to them from the helicopter.
The dark cave opened its mouth, and they went in.
Monika who’s in the computer room is now wide-eyed, shocked that they actually found her.
She threw off the nearest system to her and cackled, staring at the largest screen as Leonardo and Ivanna led the rest inside.
“Not bad!” She spat, rushing out.
Gunfire thundered through the cave, echoing and relentless.
Crimson gangsters fell back, overwhelmed.
Leonardo moved through it with insanity, driven by something deeper than command. The sound of Hayden’s name on Ivanna’s lips earlier is still resounding in his head.
But more than that, the state of Bobby’s health.
Stanley and five other mobsters had to rush Bobby out of the forest earlier, and gawd dammit if he doesn’t make it, he’s gonna lose it.
They located the cave warehouse vault fast, and Tierney opened the vault easily.
Inside, there are numerous money bags and drugs.
While some Outfit mobsters focused on carting the money bags, Nino and Sandra and the rest focused on killing the Crimson gangsters.
Ivanna and Leonardo focused on finding Monika.
Inside the warehouse, crates split open, money spilled like river.
Mobsters worked fast, shoving the stacks into bags. Another set of monsters led by Nino and Sandra cut down Crimson gangsters who’re trying to attack.
Ivanna and Leonardo broke away from the chaos, moving deeper into the cave where the air felt colder.
But the silence between them is much colder. Since Bobby got shot and taken away, none has spoken to each other. They carried their unspoken thoughts individually.
They were almost there when the tunnels forked.
A burst of gunfire happened, then the body of a gangster fell dead in front of them, and when Leonardo turned back, Ivanna was gone.
“Ivanna,” Leonardo called, but only the echo of his voice answered.
Then, footsteps approached, slow and deliberate.
Monika stepped into the light, her expression ghastly like her black flowing dress, her confidence raw.
“Finally, a proper one-on-one meeting,” she said calmly.
“You still have your mother’s eyes.” She added, hate simmering with resentment inside her.
Leonardo raised his gun, his hate matching hers, rage infusing in him.
“You killed her.” He spat.
Monika’s lips twitched. “Vera killed my husband first. Santos didn’t even get the chance to beg for his life. She killed him then she came for me… and my child.”
Leonardo’s jaw tightened. “You’re lying.”
“I ran, holding my newborn,” Monika continued, voice steady. ” Vera wanted us erased, but fate was kinder. I survived, but lost my baby to that river! Years later when you turned ten, I attacked your bi+chy mother at marionette park. You were there, remember? You shot me on the thigh. A boy trying to be a man.”
Leonardo remembered, vividly. But he didn’t swerve.
“I should’ve finished it,” he said. “I’m here to do that now.”
Monika’s hand slid toward the cave wall, her fingers hovering near a small, disguised switch.
It’s a poison switch that’d release mist into this place and also the liquid form from the ceiling sprinkler. Killing him completely is the target anyways, and there’s no way he’d escape it.
“Then, shall we both finish old stories today?” She smiled.
A faint hiss whispered through the stone as vents along the walls began to tremble, the poison mist waiting for a push.
Monika smiled. “One breath, Leonardo.” Her fingers stretched closer to the button.
“One breathe, and you join your mother.”
She raised her finger to the switch, and Leonardo stepped forward, his gun raised to Monika, but…
“Leonardo!” Ivanna’s voice suddenly rang from behind him.
Leonardo turned at the sound of his name, and a echoing gunshot cracked through the Cave immediately.
It was clean, loud.
Ivanna stood behind him, her arms steady as she fired the FN Five-seveN long gun at him, the recoil sharp against her palms.
Leonardo staggered, surprise freezing his face before shock hit him, then….tears… Hot tears fell off his two eyes to his chin…to his neck.
He looked down at his shot chest as blood spread through the white singlet, then he looked back up at Ivanna’s merciless face…
His mouth opened…
“Jo—”
He couldn’t finish it, cos she shot again. Same spot.
His own gun fell from him, and he crashed to his knees, tears still pouring out of his red eyes.
Ivanna still aimed the gun at him, her key pendant necklace dangling on her neck.
Monika’s eyes widened, sighting it.
“Daughter….”
TBC.
