Maniacs (Depraved Sinners 4)

What’s the point? There’s nothing here for me, only a life filled with tragedy. Giovanni is always going to win. Even if I somehow manage to get through this and end his miserable life.

I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be Gia’s little protégée, and I sure as hell don’t want to live a life with targets constantly on my back. I just want to find peace.

My lungs begin to ache as my body screams at me to resurface.

I’ve never felt so low, so hurt, so full of despair.

A little voice spears its way through my mind. The boys would be so mad at you right now. Look how weak you are, giving up on yourself, letting Giovanni win. They didn’t love you so you could lose the fight, lose everything that they worked for. Ten years in their prison castle and a lifetime of abuse just for you to give up on them now. I’m so ashamed of you. Are they not worthy of your fight? They saved you, they brought you back from the brink of death time and time again. Now it’s your turn to take everything they so carefully laid out for you. Take what you’re owed. You’re not this weak bitch. They made you stronger than this. Send them off with what they’re owed.

Fuck.

I push up out of the bathtub, my arms hooking over the edges as I gasp for air, my lungs straining for relief as their faces appear in my mind.

How could I have been so fucking stupid? I can’t give this up now. I have to push through. I have to make this right and somehow survive.

Fuck Gia. Fuck Zeke. And fuck Giovanni DeAngelis. That prick will die by my hand whether I have help or not. I have to get out of here. I have to find a way because that’s exactly what Roman, Levi, and Marcus would expect of me—no. That’s what they’d demand.

Though, if they’re rotting down in the deepest pits of hell, I can guarantee that they’re already too busy ruling over the other assholes down there to be bothered thinking about the bullshit life they endured up here on earth. They’d be right at home down there, even the devil himself would be kneeling to my men.

Reaching through the bottom of the ice bath, I release the drain and pull my aching body from the tub, stepping out onto the soft floor mat and grabbing the massive towel from the heated rack. I pull it around my freezing body, holding it tight as I dry off and promptly drop it back to the pristine tiles.

Strutting out into the bedroom, I pull open the walk-in closet’s big double doors and rifle through all my new clothes. There are so many things in here, shirts, leggings, jeans, summer dresses, gowns, not to mention the vast array of shoes, heels, and boots. I’ve never ventured further than the top two drawers—underwear, training crops, and workout tights … plus my Nikes. I have no need for all the other crap, and as much as I appreciate the thought, none of this shit is my style. My clothes are back in the DeAngelis mansion, and I won’t stop until I’m right back there, taking ownership of every last one of them.

In order to get out of here, it’s time to step up my game. I need to be strong. I need to be ready, but more than that, I need a fucking plan.

Despite not seeing Gia since my first day here, I still have no idea what her intentions are when it comes to Giovanni or his newborn son. She hasn’t given me any indication on whether she plans to help me, and so I have no choice but to assume she’s keeping quiet to avoid telling me no, simply because she doesn’t want to deal with the outburst that will follow.

Slipping out of my bedroom, I creep down the hallway and to the stairs. I don’t see anyone below, but that’s not unusual. Though, how would I really know? The only times I come up and down here is when I’m being dragged to the training room, apart from that, I’ve never bothered to search around.

The elevator for the training room is to the right of the stairs, so when I reach the bottom, I take off to the left instead. Gia gave me free rein of this place, as long as I play by her rules, so what could a little snooping hurt?

The home is bigger and nicer than Giovanni’s place, though I didn’t even think that was possible. Gia defied all odds when building this masterpiece. It has everything a woman could ever need. Two massive ballrooms, one of them the size of Giovanni’s, while the other is even bigger. There are formal and informal living rooms, meeting rooms, and three separate dining rooms … though room is probably the wrong term for them, they’re more like dining halls.

Everything is glossy, white marble, and I’m struck with the thought of the kind of place both Gia and Roman could build had they ever been given the chance to work together. Roman had an incredible eye for detail, and I’m sure in another life, he would have made an amazing architect. Gia, on the other hand, has the type of interior design skills that any homeowner would dream of. Every corner of every room has been meticulously thought out and flows perfectly from one space into the next.

I can’t imagine how much this place would have cost to build. It’s insane … but it’s also quiet. Too quiet.

When I was with the boys, I could always hear something, whether it be the sounds of the wolves racing through the long hallways, Marcus maniacally laughing as he thought up new ways to kill someone, or the heavy thumping of Levi’s drums through every corner of the home. Roman though, no one ever heard from him. When he made a noise, it was meant to be heard. He was always so broody, it made me wonder about the things that tormented his mind while he was alone.

The soft murmur of voices trail down a long hallway and I stand at the top of it, staring down as I bite my lip. The hallway is decorated with big doors on either side, all of them closed apart from the one at the very end. Something screams at me that this is Gia’s personal office, the space where she conducts all of her shady business deals and makes the kind of decisions that change people’s lives, sometimes for the better, but I’d be lying if I said the majority of those changes were good ones.

Curiosity flares through me, but do I really want to risk going down there and listening to a conversation that wasn’t meant for me? Especially a conversation that’s intended to be behind closed doors.

Hell to the motherfucking yes, I do.

Call me a fool, but I’m not going to get anywhere from shying away.

I sneak down the long hallway like some kind of ninja, feeling like the baddest bitch who ever lived. Only every breath I take makes me want to strangle myself. I’ve never tried to breathe so quietly before, but the more I do it, the louder it seems to get. What the fuck is wrong with me?

My heart thunders like it had a bad dose of crack, and as I move further down the hall, the tone of the voices becomes clear. There’s a female and a male, the woman clearly being Gia but the man … I don’t know, his voice is so low that I can’t quite make it out.

I haven’t spent enough time with any of Gia’s guards to really recognize their voices, but as I hear the name ‘DeAngelis’ murmured through the open door, I suck in a breath, straining to hear every last word.

“That’s not possible,” Gia says as my brows furrow, desperate to know what the fuck is going on and why they need to be talking business about the DeAngelis family. Has something happened? Are they preparing an attack on Giovanni? “Not even a whisper?”

“Nothing,” the man says, his tone suggesting that it’s possibly Zeke, though I could be wrong. “No one has heard a thing since the attack last week, at least where the brothers are concerned. Funeral arrangements have been made for Victor’s four sons.”

“But nothing for Giovanni’s?”