Maria (Made Men 7)

While she had walked toward the rigged car out of ignorance, Dominic and Lucca both walked toward it to save her. The sole reason it had been Dominic’s body shielding her was because Lucca had been too far out of reach. What hurt the most, however, was that her baby brother didn’t have a soul to save him.

“Leo!” Maria yelled the name that she held most dear, with a pain she had never heard escape from her throat before.

Seeing that he tried to shield himself similar to the way Dominic shielded her, Leo slowly rose from the ashes like a phoenix.

Every bone, muscle, and tendon in her body relaxed, melting into the tensed, hard body that still held her as Leo turned, showing her his perfectly untouched profile. Somehow, by the grace of God Himself, the only thing she could see was the smudge of black dust on the right side of his face. Unfortunately, she didn’t have to look into the car to see her suit didn’t get off so lucky. Poor Jerry.

Leo’s face looked like he had seen the great, vast void as he finally turned to show the left side of his face that had been impaled by a piece of debris shooting into his eye.

“No!” Maria screamed, her cry echoing throughout all of Kansas City.

Shoving off the man who tried to hold her still, she ran, catching his precious body before it fell to the ground. She didn’t let him go, holding onto Leo tightly as they both collapsed to the littered fragments scattered across the black pavement.

Staring down at him, she saw that he was still conscious, staring back at her with one frightened deep blue eye. “I’ve got you,” she promised him with a shaky voice, wiping the tears that had fallen on his cheek. The only liquid to spill from the other eye socket was blood. “Everything will be all right,” Maria lied with a brave face that was only for him.

Each minute passing felt like an eternity in hell. The only thing giving away her terror that she had tried to hide from him was her violent shaking that got worse upon hearing the sirens’ approach.

Watching his remaining eye slowly close when the ambulance finally pulled up, she felt her own eyes burning, threatening to spill the tears that her psychotic brain had never allowed her to spill.

The arms pulling her back let the paramedics get to him. She only let Dominic hold her, because not only was she numb, but she didn’t trust herself not to get in the paramedic’s way.

Dominic held her tightly, trying to get her violent shakes under control while the ambulance pulled away. “Maria, I’m so sorry.”

Maria shoved him off her, pushing him back as she beat on his chest with all her force. “Don’t you dare act like you care or give a fuck about me after how you just talked to me.”

He stood there, letting her hit him as the tears fell upon her cheeks.

“Maria …,” Lucca called out sympathetically, trying to calm her down.

Suddenly, she stopped. “You pretending to care about Leo is an even bigger joke than Dominic.” Turning to face her brother, her voice cut him as cold as the tears she furiously wiped away. “You better find who did this to him and kill him before your men get smart enough to find out the boogieman is just a myth after all.”

Looking down at her flawed baby brother covered in a white sheet … if her heart hadn’t already been black, it was certainly dead now.

The beeps of the monitors was white noise; she’d grown so used to it after a week of being there, she didn’t even hear them anymore, much less care.

It turned out that that last image of her perfect baby brother … had been her last. The debris lodged itself in his left eye, taking his eye from him for life. He still looked almost perfect lying there sleeping; the only thing reminding her otherwise was the freshly applied white gauze and tape covering the wretched hole underneath.

Life before the boom drastically changed … after.

The ding of her cell phone had her spinning to grab the monogrammed LV duffle bag that she brought when she had first come in.

For the both of us.

Going back to Leo’s hospital bed, she leaned down to give him a kiss on the forehead before her heels hit the sterile white tiles as she left the room.

Her oldest brother was sitting outside the door in a waiting room chair. “You leaving?”

“Yes. You can go in there and sit with him now.”

Lucca reached into his pocket for his phone. “I’ll get Nero to come pick you up and take you home.”

“No.” Maria fiercely spoke the word that she had been dying to say for years. “You don’t get to protect me anymore.”