"Fatale in the Rain"

A Sequel to "Like Raindrops"

By Joseph "Maniac" Cirillo III

Writer's Note: This story is based upon spoilers in the second Max Payne game as well as the first. Do not read any further if you want to keep secret what is in Max Payne 2. You've been warned…

I thought to myself how I could have let her die in that elevator. She was a beautiful woman, but while I was being released of my charges of a killing spree that would put me in the Guiness Book of World Records she was forever damned for my crimes. Not a minute went by when I didn't think of her. If she survived that gunshot, one could only imagine if she was thinking about me as well. Sometimes I felt that same bullet in my own head, and my thoughts of her flowed though those same dark recesses in my own mind.

Mona was back on her feet. It was months since she took a bullet for Max at the Aser plaza, but even though the wound had healed there was another wound inside her that would never heal. She had never met a man like Max before. He wasn't cold blooded like some would believe. Most people with nothing to lose would take their own lives, or be stopped if they tried to take the life of another. Not Max. She'd never admit it, not even to herself…but even though she saw Max for only a short time it left a mark on her and that mark was growing by the minute. She wanted to see him again badly. There was something about his recklessness. When she first saw him at Ragnarok where he killed Jack Lupino and about a dozen or so men armed with shotguns all alone.

It was impossible, she thought to herself. For one man to kill all those men and walk away unscarred, with only a supply of painkillers by his side. In battle, he was as if possessed by a demon. His body was a blur when the bullets started flying, he moved faster then anything she had ever seen before. It turned her on.

"On the asphalt…underneath," she was singing with her radio while she cleaned her guns out. No replicas for an assassin, she used desert Eagle point five-ohs modified to hold twelve rounds, the perfect weapon. If only she had Max's speed to go with this weapon, she would be invincible.

She sighed. It was unfair. She had a bullet in her head that still gave her nightmares. Every night she relived that gunshot in her dreams. She remembered every detail, the sterile hallway, the fanatical guards, and Max's expression when she fell in the elevator.

There was a ring on her phone, she picked it up.

"Hello Mona, dearest of all my friends. It is I, Vlad, your favorite Communist."

"Vlad, how's Max doing?"

"Is that all you can think about my dear? Since you're so interested, Max is being protected from up above by the prince of darkness himself. Do not worry about him, he will be acquitted and released within a week."

"It sounds too good to be true. What was his final body count anyway?"

"One-hundred-eighty-six. Random House is already asking for his autobiography. It's a shame he's being released so easily. I wanted an excuse to test that new Soviet-made anti-infantry tank I bought a few weeks ago."

"Would've paid money to see that." Mona changed her disposition. "Why did you call Vlad?"

"Ahh, finally we are to the point. There's this man, a senator. He's a member of the Inner Circle and they are afraid he's going to start talking in his old age."

"Alfred Woden?"

"No, Sebastian Gate."

"Big deal. Anybody could do that job. Why me?"

"Because you are the best my dear."

"The whole world thinks I'm dead Vlad, what's in it for me?"

"A million dollars cash, and I'll fix you up with your little Maxie-poo."

"Done." She hung up the phone. Someone like Sebastian Gate would be hard to get to. It would take months of planning for her to make that mark. But she had all the time in the world right now, and Max wasn't going anywhere…

To Be Continued…