60. Blood

He hadn't wanted this to happen. He'd never even told her ... never even told her anything really.

That he wanted her to have his last name.

That he wanted to have the most beautiful French/Irish kids in all of Boston.

That ... all of his plans had her in them.

He hadn't told her any of this. And so Maxwell Kane was slumped against the concrete wall of a parking garage taking the last few shuddering breaths of what had been his life. His mad adventure of a life. And the blood was seeping through his white linen shirt, no matter how hard he pressed against the flow of red. His life was pooling in his hands and all he could think was. "I never told her."

An anonymous hit, a drive by. Something he'd never expected within his own territory. Brilliant in it's simplicity really, truly ballsy. Probably the Italians. It was the 14th right? Perfect, he'd be the second Valentine's day massacre. He began to cough and more crimson came bubbling up from his mouth and dribbling down his chin. His lungs must have been punctured.

There was so much blood everywhere, and he was never going to make it out of this dimly lit garage, not with a beating heart anyway. Max stopped trying to hold in it and let his hand drop his stomach, the blood lotus blossoming more quickly on his white shirt.

No time now, no time. His eyes were fluttering closed and his head lolling back. He was saying goodbye to the world it seemed, and he would never be able to tell her. Max grasped upon a thought and took it, letting his limp blood covered hand make unschooled lines on the dirty ground, "Babe," he managed before coughing overtook him and he had to pause.

"I" he added in an uncontrolled stroke, moving onto "lo-" before he was distracted by the screeching of tires and shouting. It was in the distance, but someone was calling his name. "v" he added. Didn't they see he was busy? He had something to finish, and then he was going to sleep for awhile.

Max was halfway through forming an "e" when Carmella spotted him in the far side of where they were currently searching, he was playing with the dirt or something, looking about ready to pass out from blood loss. "You idiot!" She yelled, running toward him while signaling the team to his location. When she reached him she dropped to her knees and ripped off her jacket pushing it against his gunshot wound. "Stay awake!" She ordered, frantic with concern and mixed emotions. She shouldn't care. She shouldn't care.

But she did.

Max looked up at her, his eyes hazy with confusion, reflecting a mind straddling two worlds, that of the living and the dead. And he grabbed her face with his hands and pulled her to him, and pressed his lips to hers in a rough gesture that knocked their heads together more than anything else. Carmella's face was now smeared with blood.

"I love you." He announced in a death wheeze, slumping against her chest.

Carmella thought that he had died, but slipped her fingers to his neck to check for a pulse. It was there, faint but there. "Get him to a hospital now! One of ours!" She added, commanding the Kane family like they were her own. In the scuffle of saving his life, removing him from the scene and hurrying away, Carmella never saw Max's first Valentine's to her.