77

𝐌𝐚𝐟𝐢𝐚’𝐬 𝐍𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐬

Not lingering a second, John pivoted to bolt, but Antonio caught him by the arm and yanked him back.

“If you plan to come for me,” Antonio said calmly, breath grazing his cheek, “make sure I don’t survive it.”

John jerked against his grip, panic flashing hot and wild. “Let go of me. Bastard.”

A low chuckle answered him. “Oh, I will. Man”

He fisted a palm and struck John hard across the face.

The two grappled, bone meeting bone— John fell flat on the stony ground, tumbling over.

The underboss unleashed his demon potentials, he grabbed John by the shirt dragging him on the floor.

The next five minutes had John's nerves and skin recording the brutal trauma he was subjected to.

“Please — don't kill me”, he coughs and grasps at empty space with blood soaked eyes.

“It’s past that, my friend,” Antonio scowled, voice stripped of mercy as he picked up his blade.

John made one last desperate attempt of crawling away but he caught up with him, dragging him back before the fire.

“My mother won't survive my death” the dying man slurped, hoping to crack a layer of emotion in his oppressor's emotion. “I also have a sister too Ma—”

Slash!

The blade slashed out the remaining words before he could even complete it.

“You should have thought of them — before going against me” Antonio rumbled, watching the blood slurp out.

John yanked to the ground like a piece of trash, crimson washing the ground.

He tried to hold on, for the sake of the three women in his life but his esophagus was pretty open.

Watching him writhe in pain wasn't enough, Antonio crouched and lifted him mid-struggle, dumping him unceremoniously into the heart of the flames.

“Never cast away my mercy” he bellowed, throwing in the blade too.

“W..hat just happened!” An entity asked, emerging towards the chaos in soft and silent arrival.

Antonio villain's bravado evaporated immediately he beheld Liza walking up to him.

“Mother Liza—” His voice fractured as he tried to hide his blood soaked hand but it was already late.

She moved past him as if he were nothing and dropped to her knees before the flames.

“Willow.”

The sound of that familiar name forced Antonio's world to tilt.

John’s last words replayed.

>My mother… >I have a sister. The pieces locked into place with sickening clarity.

This wasn’t just a random victim. It was Liza’s son.

“What did you do to my Willow?” Her cry tore through the night like something wounded beyond repair.

She fell to her knees and clawed at the hot ash, fingers burning, eyes fixed on the flames as if they might spit her son back out whole.

“No… no, no, no…” Her voice cracks into fragments. “That’s not— this isn’t how this ends.”

Antonio couldn't hold himself back anymore, with stalled breaths he dropped beside her, catching her wrists before she burned herself. “Mother Liza—please—”

Her shoulders shook violently, grief folding her inward.

“My boy,” she sobbed, pressing her forehead to the ground, palms flattened in the dirt like she was begging the earth itself to give her son back. “My first breath… I always told you not to go anywhere without seeing me first.”

“Mother Liza ,” Antonio murmured again, barely audible. “That’s not— ”

Liza lifted and turned her head slowly. Her eyes met his.

“You took him" Her grief sharpened into fury, and in her eyes—there was no longer a mother.

Only destruction.

“You killed my Willow.” she went on, voice hollow now.

Antonio opened his mouth— but no sound came.

“I buried a husband to this mountain when Maya was still in the womb, now —my son”

Antonio’s jaw clenched hard and he quickly pried his hand away from her.

She rose on shaking legs and faced him, eyes wet but blazing with a fury older than law, older than blood debts

“And you,” she said, finally looking at him fully, “My very hands gave you life but you brought death as a payback.”

“I didn't mean to" he managed, avoiding eye contact.

She hissed and stepped closer, close enough that he could smell smoke and crushed herbs clinging to her clothes.

“You did not just kill my son,” she whispered.

“You broke the balance.”

Her hand lifted and he braced himself for her strike— but it didn't land, instead her curse did.

“May the thing you love most rot in your hands,” she said, voice steady as stone.

“May what you guard with blood slip through your fingers when you need it most— may what you love become your nemesis.”

The fire surged behind her —blue and violent as if reckoning.

“I curse you as a mother you will lose what you cherish— not partially, but completely.

Silence fell as she finished —Antonio couldn’t move.

For the first time in years… he didn’t feel untouchable— something really precious shifted deep in his chest.

Still caught in the moment of uncertainty.

His hands trembled, reaching at Liza —but stopping short, as though nature had drawn a boundary he was not allowed to cross. “Mother Liza!—"

A herd of shadows emerged and one whispered to him. “Let's go — the police are almost here”

Slowly, his eyes dragged over Liza one more time, then he turned and left with his men.

Within minutes of their departure, Breanna arrives at Sombra Azul square with full confidence.

“Time to close Blade Knuckles’ chapter,” she said, winking determinedly at Sophia. “Finally.”