28

"Hey lover." Victoria said to Dante who was groaning on the floor.

"I'm shocked you're alive. I figured the other crazy bitch would tear you apart" Dante managed to whisper with a chuckle.

"For a second there, I was almost tempted to shoot you right in the chest. I guess it was right after then that I figured my love for you wasn't that strong because I did regret my action right after. It's every man for himself and I was stupid for letting my feelings cloud my reasoning when it came to you."

"You speak like you're capable of loving anyone." He laughed out loud as he spoke making himself chock on his laughter and start coughing. Victoria could feel her temper rising. "How can you claim to love a person when you don't even love yourself. Then again, for a person to love you, they'd have to be crazy. Even you realized how fucked up you are and that's why you rather wished to be someone else isn't it? Your desire to become the person of Late Mrs. Pierce."

Victoria had never thought of it that way and for once she understood the truth of the matter.

You have to love yourself before someone could love you

"Was it so hard to actually love me, or like me?" Dante was shocked at the gentleness of her voice. Since when did Victoria feel a thing.

Victoria crouched down and touched Dante's face as tears rolled down her cheeks.

"It was really all I ever wanted. I couldn't be loved by my own parents, not the man I wanted, not anyone. That's why I ruined Ruth, because I wanted somebody to understand me, I needed someone to understand how it felt to not be loved by anyone. That's the reason I was so angry when I saw that even in her state of ruin, she managed to find love. Because that made it clear that I was the only one who indeed was never going to be loved by anyone." She wiped her tears and stood to her feet, taking in her surroundings.

Dante was scared, he didn't know what to tell her. He had never seen her show so much vulnerability and he couldn't predict what her actions would be.

"Vicky" He called out to her in the name he knew she loved to be called by "As insane as you are, you weren't unloveable. I did like you, to an extent but I had my wife and I loved her more than anything. So don't think you were not capable of being loved, you probably just never met the person who would love you unconditionally."

"Right." He knew she found what she was looking for but it was hard to turn to see what it was so he remained in the position he was, waiting for her to come back.

Victoria returned with a heavy stone in her hands and went back to crouch by his side.

"I'll do one good thing before I die. I know that you won't be able to live without your dead wife and so I'll do the honors of killing you before I end my own life."

Dante was petrified, he had thought that his nice words would either make her leave him alone or better still, help him escape. He didn't know how to feel about having a stone smash him to death and so he closed his eyes and waited for the impact.

He felt the stone drop by his arm and flipping his eyes open, he saw Azure gripping a chunk of Victoria's hair with blood dripping by the side of her face.

This was a fucking battle of the craziest!!

He didn't even bother to move, he just lay there. He knew if Ruth won, she'd walk away and if Victoria won, he'd die.

He closed his eyes once more and shut out everything going on around him. He didn't care anymore, he only thought about all the things he'd ever done in his life. When he saw how successful his son had become, he felt proud. And next he felt guilty for feeling proud. He hoped that his other kids got to live an amazing life. He realized that he had a tear rolling down his cheek but nothing could make him open his eyes.

He prayed to die, he was tired of everything. He could feel himself loosing consciousness due to the excessive loss of blood. He felt disgusted at his own self, his breath becoming ragged.

AZURE had taken at least 20 seconds before she got back on her feet. She wasn't as agile as she usually would be but she fought the dizziness. When she arrived, she saw Victoria bent by Dante's side with a huge stone.

Stupid bitch, still thinking of another man when you should be saving yourself from what's to come. Azure thought as she approached them with wide strides.

She grabbed Victoria by her hair and pulled her to her feet. She knew quite well that most of the extension on St. Louis' hair had pulled out and if it were any other day, she would laugh at the situation.

She flung Victoria in such a manner that she hit her head on the wall. Azure followed her to the spot where she fell and took another fistful of her hair only to slam her back on the ground. Azure threw several punches as she only saw red.

She couldn't help the scream that left her when she felt herself get pulled off Victoria by some person, her back to his front.

"My love, this isn't you. You don't want to kill her because you'll never get over that fact so please just leave her be and come get checked by the medical team here."

Azure clawed at his skin, wanting to break free and end the prey, nothing seemed more appealing to her than ending the bloody woman.

Grabbing her by her arms, he turned her so that she looked at his eyes.

"I need you Azure, I promise that we'll do this together. You'll get the justice that you crave, she's not worth loosing the rest of your life for. You'll be branded a murderer and all the things that you've worked for with Madame Rose will be gone. Would you like that!"

He felt his heart break when he saw the furious tears roll down her cheeks. "She's ruined me, She's destroyed my whole life and I'm not going to be satisfied until I see the end of her."

"And you will, you will see the end of her. If you kill her off, she wins. She gets a quick death and ruins you completely in the end. You need to let the police do their job, if you get involved, it's gonna be bad." Grey noticed she had stopped struggling and was simply crying, her hysteric sobs filled the air. He took her in his arms and allowed her to cry on his shoulder while he muttered sweet nothings to her.

The medics placed the two bodies on their stretcher and performed the necessary first aid to preserve their lives.

Azure had also been attended to before she was taken to Grey's car to be with the girls. They said she seemed alright but if she felt dizzy again, even in the slightest manner, that she had to visit the hospital.

She sat there in the car, numb. She didn't think she could cry anymore, she stopped crying since the medics had started working on her.

When she arrived, she saw that Natalia was awake and was crying hysterically like they'd done anything to her. The shake on her arm caused her to abandon her thoughts and turn to the attention seeker, Natalia.

She was tempted to just yell at the girl to shut the fuck and leave her alone but she couldn't. She, more than anyone knew that no one could ever understand what's going through a persons mind and especially since Natalia had been previously kidnapped, she could understand that the current abduction probably triggered the past.

Nonetheless, she did not want to talk to anyone and so she opened the door and stepped out of the car after informing the two girls that she needed some space to herself.

She saw several ambulance vehicles and divisions of police and saw that the people inside the building were being brought out. She saw a lot of people on stretchers with a white cloth covering from their face downward and others with injuries.

The sight was too much for her and so she turned to a different direction to walk, only she was met with the face of one of her favorite people.

Madame Rose.

"My poor darling." Rose said with her arms stretched to embrace the broken girl.

Azure didn't waste a second before she ran towards Madame Rose. As she hugged her, she realized that she didn't need her boyfriend or friends at this moment. She wanted her mother and there was no one closer to this than the woman holding her right now. If she thought that she had no more tears, she was really in for a surprise because she broke down and cried like a child as she clung unto Madame Rose.

Madame Rose loved Azure like her daughters. She knew what was coming and it wasn't pretty. Azure had been through a lot and she appeared to have dealt with it perfectly well. She had no fears for people and could make as much friends as she could. She read every time she wasn't doing anything just so that she could be more informed. This, Madame Rose thought to be strange.

She had her theory that all of this was Azure's body fighting the events that happened but with this new experience, even herself was frightened for she didn't believe Azure would survive it.

"My poor darling." Madame Rose mentioned again as she stroked her back, fresh tears leaving her own eyes.