Salvatore's command hung in the air, cold and sharp. "Make him quiet."
Rico didn't need to be told twice. A vicious grin split his face as he stepped forward, his boots crunching on spent shell casings. He wasn't going to kill him. This was about something else: erasure.
The first blow was a closed fist to Matt's jaw. His head snapped to the side, his vision exploding into white stars. The coppery warmth of fresh blood filled his mouth anew.
"Not so tough now, are you, leyenda?" Rico sneered, using the Spanish word for 'legend' like a curse.
He didn't stop. A hard kick to the ribs, aiming for the same spot he'd hit before. Matt's body jerked, a strangled gasp his only response. He couldn't even curl up properly anymore; his broken limbs wouldn't obey.
Through the haze of pain, Matt's one good eye found Salvatore's face. The Viper boss watched with the detached interest of a man watching a sporting event. Beside him, Luca Morano remained a statue, but his jaw was tight. Matt's words had planted a seed, and Luca's eyes were now fixed on Rico's brutal work, measuring the cruelty of his allies.
Rico leaned down, grabbing a handful of Matt's blood-matted hair, yanking his head up. "You got any more smart words for the boss?"
Matt's lips, swollen and split, moved. It was less than a whisper. Rico leaned in closer to hear. "I said... your breath... stinks of fear."
With a roar of fury, Rico drove his knee into Matt's face. There was a wet, crunching sound. The bridge of Matt's nose, already damaged, gave way completely. Blood poured in a sudden, dark river down his lips and chin, dripping onto the concrete in thick, rhythmic drops.
Salvatore finally raised his hand again. "That's enough, Rico. He gets the point."
Rico gave Matt's head a final, contemptuous shove against the concrete and stepped back, chest heaving.
Matt lay still, his breathing a wet, shallow rattle. The world was fading in and out, the orange firelight pulsing like a dying heart. Yet, as Salvatore took a step closer, the shadow he cast over Matt's face seemed to stir something deep within the ruined man.
With a Herculean effort that made the tendons in his neck stand out like cables, Matt forced his head up one more time. The front of his face was a mask of gore, his nose a ruined mess. But his eye, that single, burning blue eye, was still alive. It was fixed on Luca.
His voice was a ghost of a sound, barely more than a breath shaped into words, but it carried in the sudden silence. "See... Luca? They... enjoy it. Remember that... when it's your turn."
He then let his gaze drift back to Salvatore. A terrible, bloody smile stretched his broken lips. He spat a weak, bloody spray that barely cleared his own chin. It wasn't an insult anymore; it was a statement of principle. A final, physical refusal.
Salvatore's cool facade cracked completely. Annoyance turned to cold fury. The show was over. The mockery was done. Matt Marino, even as a broken pile of flesh and bone, had stolen the scene.
"Get him on his knees," Salvatore commanded, his voice low and dangerous.
Two Vipers rushed forward, hauling Matt's dead weight up. His legs dragged uselessly beneath him. They held him upright, his body sagging between them. He was a puppet with its strings cut.
Salvatore drew a sleek, pearl-handled pistol from his waistband. This was it. The final act.
But Matt's head lolled forward, then slowly rose again. His eye was half-closed, the light in it dimming, but still fixed on the two men before him. He wasn't looking at the gun. He was looking at them. He had taken their best, endured their worst, and now, he would force them to be his executioners. He would make this moment, his moment, haunt them forever.
He had lost the fight. But in these last seconds, he was winning the war.
Salvatore's pistol raised. "See you in hell."
Bang!
Matt's head jerked violently. Blood sprayed, the world spinning for one final moment. He crumpled to the street, lifeless; but the fire in his eyes, even in death, burned with the defiance of a king felled on his throne.
—
The silence after the storm was a living thing, thick and heavy. Brian, Kiel, and Shayla emerged from the skeletal shadows of the alleys, their weapons hanging loose in their grips. The sound of fighting had ceased, replaced by the distant wail of sirens, a promise of help that was too late, and the low, agonized groans of the wounded. Fires still danced in piles of wreckage, casting long, grotesque shadows that twisted and writhed over the field of the fallen.
They moved through the carnage like ghosts. Kiel's young chest heaved, not from exertion, but from the sheer, suffocating weight of the scene. His eyes, wide with a horror far beyond his sixteen years, scanned the faces of the dead; men who had taught him to fight, to swear, to be a man.
Then he saw him.
A dark shape on the cold concrete, surrounded by the men he had slain.
A choked sound escaped Shayla. She broke into a run, her boots slipping in blood, and fell to her knees beside Matt. Her hand, caked in grime and trembling violently, reached out. She didn't know where to touch him. There was no clean, unbroken place.
His body was a testament to his last stand. His face was a pulped and bloody mask, his nose crushed, one eye swollen shut. The other was half-open, a dull, clouded blue staring at nothing. Deep, ugly gashes crosshatched his arms and torso. The dark, wet stain of a fatal wound soaked the entire front of his shirt. One of his legs was bent at a sickening, impossible angle. He lay in a dark, sticky pool that reflected the orange firelight, a fallen king on a crimson shore.
Tears cut clean paths through the dirt and blood on Shayla's face. She didn't sob; the grief was too deep for sound. She simply knelt, her shoulders shaking, her trembling hand finally resting on his ruined chest, as if trying to feel the echo of the great heart that had beaten there.
"We'll finish this… for him," she whispered, her voice a frayed thread of sound, trembling with a sorrow so profound it seemed to still the air around them.
One by one, the remnants of the Nunca-caer family gang gathered. They were ghastly reflections of their boss. A man with a deep gash on his forehead had blood dripping steadily into his eye. Another clutched his stomach, his fingers trying to hold in his own insides. They were battered, bleeding, and broken, their faces etched with exhaustion and loss. They formed a silent, wounded circle around Matt's body, their heads bowed. They had not been able to save their king, but they would bear witness.
Brian moved to Kiel's side. He was bleeding from a cut on his lip, his knuckles were raw meat, and one of his eyes was already purpling into a bruise. He placed a firm, steadying hand on the boy's shoulder. Kiel flinched, but didn't pull away.
"The family…" Brian said, his voice a low, controlled rumble of rage and resolve. "Is still us. We survived. And we will come back for these motherfuckers." He said in controlled rage
Kiel finally looked down at his father. The weight of it all, the fallen comrades, the groans of the wounded, the sight of the man he secretly called father lying broken, pressed down on him. He was just a boy, human and mortal, but in that moment, the ghostly heir of a fallen dynasty stood on the precipice of his destiny. The legacy of Nunca-caer, which literally translates into "Never Fall," which appeared to have fallen, now rested on his young, trembling shoulders.
Somewhere in the night, the city of Kearny held its breath. A king had fallen. To the world, it seemed the Nunca-caer had fallen with him.