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Dante’s spine stiffened.

“What the fuck did you say?” he asked, his voice coming out low and gravelly. Myla could now see his true face. The demon that he hid from the public surfaced clearly when she mentioned his mother’s name.

“Hazel said—”

Dante was on Myla so fast she didn’t see him move. His large hands wrapped around her slender neck as if he were prepared to snap it in half. He had never put his hands on her before, but this physical attack was what she wanted. Myla didn’t mind. His attacking her first was the only way she could claim self-defense for what she was about to do.

Dante tried to squeeze the life out of her, but Myla was a gym girl. Strength training was a major part of her workout regimen, even though tussling with men was never something she had to do, she had the strength to do so. Getting Dante off her was no problem.

“Your deadbeat mama is on the way, Heaven,” Dante said through clenched teeth as he applied boa constrictor-type pressure to her neck. “Mommies on the waAAAHHH!!!!” Dante’s grip loosened as hot, searing pain spread through his body.

His blood-curdling scream filled the unfinished basement as Myla dug her thumb into Dante’s left eye with so much force that his eye ruptured. Urine ran down his legs as thick, viscous fluids poured from his ruined eye down his face. He rolled around on the floor clutching his eye as the pain threatened to send him to the upper room.

Inhaling deeply, Myla gulped in so much air her lungs burned. Stars danced around her eyes as she fought to regain control of her senses.

Dante howled in agony as pain no human was ever meant to feel consumed his entire body. The sound of laughter from Myla’s nearly crushed throat sounded so sinister that the hackles on the back of Dante’s neck rose. For the first time ever, Dante felt true fear. He was not operating at 100% and that terrified him. He could barely see Myla through his one remaining eye, but he could sense that he was in danger. Based on her laughter alone, Dante knew the psychologist who treated mental illness was gone. In her place was the remnants of a broken woman hell-bent on physically destroying every iota of his being.

“My eye! Myla, call an ambulance! I can’t see! Please, call an ambulance you crazy bitch!!” Dante screamed as he alternated between begging for help and hurling insults.

Gone was the confidence that he wore like a badge of honor. Fear seeped from his pores so heavily that Myla could taste it. At the sight of Dante, cowering in the corner, Myla let out a laugh so maniacal that Dante’s skin crawled. He wanted to run, but the pain was too intense to move.

“Terror looks good on you. You look like what I assumed your grandmother and brother looked like when you set them on fire. Have you ever heard of the twelve Laws of Karma?” Myla asked. She spoke with a smile on her face, though the smile did not reach her eyes.

At the mention of his deceased relatives, Dante regained a boost of energy. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, and he prepared to escape. Dante’s fight-or-flight senses kicked into overdrive, and he tried to run, but Myla refused to let him get away.

Grabbing the rusted can of paint from the dirt floor, Myla hurled it with such precision that if Satchel Paige were still around, he would’ve been proud.

“BULLSEYE!” Myla shouted as what felt like a half-empty paint can hit Dante directly in the middle of his back and knocked him down. He screamed in pain, but Myla simply laughed.

“If you didn’t know the twelve Laws of Karma, you could’ve just said you didn’t know. You didn’t have to try and run off like that,” Myla joked.

“Myla, please. I’m losing too much blood. Get me to a hospital! I’m sorry for what happened to Heaven. But my son needs me. If you can live with taking me away from my only child, then the devil here is you!” Dante blurted in pain and desperation.

Myla ignored him. He had never mentioned his son before, so that announcement would not sway her now. Besides Chancellor was a grown man and didn't even know that Dante was his father.

“Have you ever heard of the twelve Laws of Karma?” she asked, completely disregarding his request and focusing on the task of educating him on the twelve laws. “Law ten of the twelve Laws of Karma is the law of change. It says that history repeats itself until we learn the lessons that we need to change our path. On New Year’s Eve, you ran into me after running from the security guards because you were harassing your ex after you made her lose everything.

“Now, you’re trying to run out of my life after you’ve made me lose everything. Probably to run into another woman or chick with a dick and fuck theirs up too. You’ll never learn your lesson because you change partners, so you won’t have to change your behavior. Well, that ends tonight,” Myla said as she bent down next to Dante’s head.

“Whatever you plan to do, it won’t bring your dead daughter back.”

Myla recoiled. The dead daughter reference landed just as Dante knew it would. He laughed at the turmoil that covered her face.

“Take me to the hospital now or you’ll regret it! I will make you lose everything,” Dante said coldly. He smirked evilly at the devastation he saw on Myla’s face from his heartless words. His smile faltered when he saw that Myla smirked too.

“I’ve already lost everything; I might as well keep going since I have nothing left to lose. You ran out of my house so quickly that you left this,” Myla said as she held up the manicure kit that Dante used to lure her to his condemned residence six months ago.

Dante didn’t say anything because, truthfully, he had nothing to say. Myla laughed. This one little kit was the thing that helped her life go to hell.

“You called it a manicure kit, but to me these are torture tools.”

“Myla, please. I—”

Myla waved her hand to silence whatever it was that he was attempting to say. “They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Well, I guess you don’t need eyes because having a soul doesn’t apply to you,” Myla said as she plunged the small manicure scissors into Dante’s remaining eye.

A loud bellowing scream akin to Hell Hounds erupted from Dante's mouth as another round of searing pain spread through his body. Myla covered her ears as she watched him roll around the dirt floor in agony.

"Does that hurt? I didn't think a heathen like you felt pain with all the devastation and destruction that you were unleashing in people's lives. But don't worry, I have something to numb that pesky pain," Myla said as she pulled a capped needle from her back pocket.