20 - Maze

"I'm forever a child looking out my window at the night sky Thinking one day I'll touch the world with bare hands Even if it burns."

― Tracy K. Smith

I love the rawness of this ^

. . .

XERXES CREED

I got out of the car, buttoning my suit jacket. I climbed the giant porch of our mansion, not that we lived here much, and walked inside, passing through giant black double doors which were already open.

Giovanni smirked at me from where he was sitting on the couch with some naked woman kneeling by his feet with a gag in her mouth. He was on his laptop, not looking at the woman. Giovanni preferred slaves instead of subs, he had many. And to think my brothers and I could barely handle Olivia, and she was not even our sub.

"Where is Zavier?"

"Maze," Giovanni replied, standing up and walking towards the kitchen. His slave crawled behind him. I rolled my eyes. Did he have to do this at my mansion? I had planned on bringing Olivia here on the New Year, she would have liked the paintings on the walls. Instead, I spent my New Year drowning myself in alcohol and she spent it at some party dancing with James.

They danced, was all Harry, her bodyguard, had told me. That's it. Good to know she was having the time of her life with little boys. I felt like an idiot for telling her about that butterfly shit.

I doubted she knew just how much I thought of her.

I walked out of the mansion through the backdoor, into the large garden which had a giant rectangle in the middle of it, called the Maze.

Zavier was standing there, at the entrance of the maze, leaning against it. The maze was somewhere Zavier liked to play with his victims. He made them run in there,

promising freedom if they managed to get out from the other side. There was intense darkness inside the maze as it was covered. The large slabs of white marble which it was made of moved continuously, but the victim could never keep track. No one made it out alive.

"Did she call you?" I asked him. He turned around to look at me. He was dressed in shorts and a white sweatshirt which was half red. From the gym to the basement.

He shook his head. "Where's Ashton?"

"Library," I answered. He was at some library in Brooklyn where he once met Olivia. He liked that library and I knew he was wishing he'd run into Olivia there.

I heard screaming coming out of the maze.

"Dante is in there," Zavier said, smirking. "He wanted to play."

Dante could come out. We all could easily come out of the maze. It was simple, all you had to do was listen.

"Do you think we should call her?" He asked over the continuous screaming coming from the maze. Russians were taking a toll over Dante, it seemed.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

Should we?

. . .

"This is all we could find on Alexi." Edrick kept the file on the table. Edrick was the son of an underboss, wanting to take his father's place but we did not follow hierarchy like the Italians or the Russians. To get something you had to prove yourself to be worthy.

"Get out," Zavier said to Edrick. He walked out.

Ashton snatched the file away before I could get it. Sometimes I wanted to knock his teeth out.

"He's twenty-one, now."

"He's a child," Giovanni murmured, his knife twirling in his hands. He was sitting by the window wall on a chair with his brothers near him.

"He had a sister who died in the fire," Ashton continued. "We killed his sister, father, and everyone in his childhood house." He had a sister?

Everyone in the room looked equally surprised.

We had set their mansion on fire when we left, almost ten years back. Alexi had been there, just eleven years old or so. We didn't know of his sister. We had saved him. Left him at a safe place because he was just a child. If he was doing this, I would burn him alive.

"That's a shit ton motive," Zavier said from where he was sitting across from me, drinking from his glass. Zavier drinking was never a good sign.

I didn't need my office destroyed. Again.

"Is there a picture?" Dante asked. "We need to know how the fucker looks like."

Ashton took a photo out of the file and set it down on the desk. The Valentinos got their asses off their seats and walked closer to look at the picture.

It was just the face. He had a scar crawling up his neck, the scar had a tattoo of roses surrounding it. Curly black hair. Tanned. Green eyes. The picture was blurry, probably because it was taken from a distance. On the other side of his throat, I could see the Bratva tattoo.

I could see the resemblance between him and his father. Same eyes. Same jaw.

And their death was going to be the same, too.

We had spared him once. We were not going to make the same mistake twice.

There was a small hesitant knock on the door.

I looked at the monitor on my desk. Olivia was standing on the other side, wearing a giant black hoodie.

"Come in, Olivia."

The knob twisted and she entered, wide eyes looking at me and then to the others in the room, fear flashing in them when they fell on the Valentinos, especially Fabiano. She had been drunk at the party so her fear had been diminished, right now it was clear.

"Hello, Olivia," Dante smirked at her. Fucking bastard liked being feared. I did too. But she was the only one I never wanted scared of me.

I stood up and walked towards her. "Are you okay?" I asked because she looked like she had been crying.

"I-" she looked at the Valentinos and shifted closer to me. I wrapped an arm around her. "Guys."

"We are going," Giovanni said. Olivia shifted away from the door as Fabiano walked out.

Giovanni waved at her like you would at a child. My eyes narrowed. She was not a child. "Bye, Olivia."

She waved back. "B-bye!" Her voice was shaky. She was too scared of them. Giovanni grinned and walked out with Dante.

The door shut. Ashton picked Olivia up and crushed her against his chest.

. . .