Lady Reaper Reianne Rewritten [COMPLETED]

Chapter XXI: The Pot Calling the Kitten Back

I  ducked just in time to evade the assaulting fist of one of Hugo's men, or was that one of the rampaging gamblers? I couldn't tell anymore. It was a riot, literally. It was like a mosh pit during a BTS concert, if you replace the BTS, the songs, the girls, strobe lights, and over-all party atmosphere with burly men trying to punch the face off the other. 

I looked at the prone figure of Gab being hauled off by some of his colleagues. Before this chaos descended, he professed his feelings to me, and I sort of...panicked and smacked his head a little too hard than I intended. He fell unconscious shortly after that. Apparently, viewers liked to enjoy a long and fulfilling brawl which I did not deliver and felt cheated. Add to that all those gamblers who betted against me, the idiots that they were, and felt that I cheated. Of course, there were those who just like to punch people whenever an opportunity presented itself. Put these things together, and you got yourself a full-on riot.  

A hand grabbed me from behind and pushed my head down. I seized the offender by his clothes and shoved my knuckles to his face. I heard a familiar grunt, followed by a more familiar curse. 

"What the fuck, Reianne?" Michael's irritated voice competed against the screams and grunts all around me. 

"It's your fault for being within punching distance! This is your doing anyway!" I shouted back at him. I was about to nag Michael to death about the impropriety of spreading false rumors when I was suddenly lifted up by a strong pair of arms and hurled on the now-familiar shoulders like a sack of potatoes.  

"What the--put me down!" I protested.

"Talk later. We have to get away from here now," Gio said, as he strode past wrestling men with his long legs. 

"I said put me---"

"The police will arrive soon. If I put you down I might lose sight of you, and we'll never be able to get out of here in time."    

"Are you calling me a shorty?!" I yelled at him indignantly. 

"Actually, yes," Gio stated as a matter of fact. 

"Hnnn," I retorted, very articulately.    

After ten minutes of evading charging crazy people, we finally reached the outside and my feet mercifully touched the ground again. The cool crisp night air swept past my tiny frame, a welcome refreshment from the hot and humid testosterone-filled atmosphere inside the brawling fiasco. Michael was beside me and Gio in an instant, his face sporting some bruises but not enough to wipe that irritating mischievous grin off his face.

"Fuck you," I told him flatly.

"Language," Gio berated me. I gave him a stinky side-eye followed by my middle finger.

"You might want to rethink that," Gio said while giving me the most innocent smile he could muster. I rolled my eyes at him.

''I don't think we've been introduced properly,'' Gio addressed Michael who, I knew, was suppressing laughter for the sake of decorum.

''I'm Giovanne Markus Lee.'' Gio extended his hand to Michael, who took it.

''Michael Romero, Reianne told me who you are,' he quipped.

I could hear a very slight tinge of warning in his voice like he usually did when he was feeling protective of me and Marie. It annoyed me the first few times he did that, but now I just found it cute.  I stole a glance at Gio. The warning was not lost on him, but that slight upward twitching of the corner of his lips said that he just found said warning amusing.

The shouts inside the venue grew louder as the door burst wide open, followed by people punching one another. Bodies were thrown against nearby stalls that promptly collapsed from the force.