Maniacs (Depraved Sinners 4)

“Serves you right for walking away—”

“Uh-uh,” he says, wagging his fingers just as the elevator dings our arrival. He indicates for me to focus on the door while adjusting his stance. “No time for ‘I told you so’s’ in battle, my deadly little assassin.”

“Deadly little assassin?” I scoff as the door slowly begins to draw back. Surely he could come up with a name a little more … scary than that. I mean, I’m really rocking this whole slitting throats thing. If I’m going to get a serial killer name, I want it to be something cool.

“Well, mostly deadly assassin,” he teases, his eyes lighting with excitement at the thought of destroying the Moretti empire from within its very walls.

The door opens and Levi and I stand in silence, staring out at the empty hallway. “What the fuck?” he sighs. “Why aren’t people trying to kill us?”

There’s a hint of irritation and annoyance in his tone, sounding like an eight-year-old who just learned he has to share his ice cream with his baby sister. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, peeking out the elevator to the empty hallway beyond. “Were you hoping for an ambush?”

He shrugs his shoulders and presses his hand to my lower back, casually leading me out of the elevator as though we were in the lobby of a fancy five-star hotel, not in the heart of his enemy’s lair. We get all of three steps before we hear the shooting coming from outside and a grin tears across Levi’s face. “Guess our back up finally arrived.”

I scoff, shaking my head while letting out a sigh. “I told you they wouldn’t be able to get through the front door without causing a scene.”

As if on cue, an army of guards rush through the open foyer of the mega-mansion and if we were just a few steps ahead in the hallway, we would have been sprung for sure. “I suppose we should go and help them.”

“I mean, what’s the rush?” I murmur, a smile playing on my lips. “Marcus hasn’t killed anyone in like … weeks. He’s probably out there having the time of his life. If we go, we’re only taking away from his body count.”

Levi shakes his head and nods up toward the floor-to-ceiling front door across the foyer. “Quit stalling. Get your ass out the door and … fuck.”

Without warning, Levi throws his hand up and two loud shots echo through the hallway behind me. A sharp gasp tears from the back of my throat as I spin around to find two guards bleeding out on the ground, knives in their hands, barely a step behind us.

“Holy shit,” I breathe, realizing just how close I’d come to having a knife through my spine. “I guess I should thank you for that.”

“No shit,” he says, his voice in a hushed whisper just like mine. “I accept sexual favors in the form of blow jobs. Now, if you’re gonna deep throat that shit, I’ll let you right off the ho—”

The sight of six armed guards moving toward us from the foyer is enough to stop Levi mid-sentence. “Well, this just got a little more interesting,” he mutters, moving with me further into the foyer to meet them head on, rather than leaving us backed into the hallway.

The guards circle us from every angle as I hear the battle raging outside, gunshots screaming through the night as men scream for freedom. The boys must be doing well out there, which means there’s no reason why we shouldn’t do the same here. “Know what you’re doing?” Levi questions, putting us back-to-back, naturally choosing the side he believes would have the toughest opponents while leaving me to deal with the scraps.

A grin pulls at my face as I watch the three men who I’m about to slaughter. “Of course,” I tell him, not prepared to admit that I’m more interested in hearing more about this whole deep throating situation than what I’m about to face down. “I was trained by none other than DeAngelis royalty.”

And just like that, the guards storm toward us.

I’m not here to fuck around, so instead of bothering with this hand-to-hand combat bullshit, I raise my right hand and let off three shots directly in front of me. The guard in the center drops to the ground as the other two run at me from the side. I try to get off another shot but they’re too close and the gun is knocked right out of my hand and slides across the marble floor.

Frustration burns through my veins. I haven’t had any sleep and am really not in the mood to be fucked with, but if these guys are willing to dust off my skills, I’m more than happy to come to the party.

Knifed fists come hurtling toward my face, and I pull away, my back pressing up against Levi’s. His hand shoots out behind him, steadying my body without sparing me a single glance. I throw myself forward, one hand snapping down to my thigh, gripping the knife with a ferocity that I wasn’t prepared for.

My hand strikes out, curving a bloodied arc through the arm of the guard on the right before it continues its arc straight back, stabbing into the gut of the other. They both cry out in rage and my adrenaline spikes, a part of me wanting to deal with these guys before Levi gets through his. Though from what I can hear of the noises coming from behind me, Levi isn’t taking any prisoners.

I keep focus and lash out, preferring to be on the offense rather than stuck defending. Flying forward, my foot kicks out in a low sweep, giving the guard on my left a hard shove and knocking him back. He tumbles, but I don’t get a second to hesitate as the other on my right comes at me. His fist flies forward and he gets only a step closer when Levi’s hand curls into his hair from behind and yanks him back onto the tip of his knife, spearing him through the back of his spine and out the front of his throat. “Sorry, man. No hard feelings.”

Levi looks at me, a sickly-sweet smile spreading across his gorgeous face. “That makes two,” he says. “Maybe I’m gonna need a little something more than just a wicked round of deep throating.”

His eyes widen, and before I can even flinch away, his hand rises and a perfectly round bullet whooshes past my shoulder and plunges deep inside the skull of the last remaining guard. My head whips back to see the guard dropping to his knees before his body collapses with a heavy thump. “Oh, come on,” I groan, throwing my hands up in frustration. “I had that one.”

“Right,” he scoffs, hearing the guys’ fight outside starting to die down. “Come on, we should—”

A slow clap sounds through the big foyer and both our heads snap across the room to find Gia standing on the bottom step of the grand staircase with Zeke right by her side. A flicker of relief washes through me. I wasn’t sure Zeke had made it after being shot in the chest, but he looks more than fine to me. Perhaps he was wearing some kind of bulletproof vest or maybe the shot to his chest simply wasn’t as bad as I’d thought.

“Impressive,” Gia says, her eyes raking over Levi with disinterest before falling on me and slowly beginning to move toward us.

Levi crowds me, his big shoulder pushing in front of me in a half-assed attempt to protect me from the woman who wants my head on a stake.

“Your training is lacking,” Gia says. “You should have been able to take out those guards in half that time. I’m disappointed, but I suppose it’s a little late for training tips because you’re not going to live long enough for it to matter. You’ll never stand in my position, never be good enough. What a joke.” She lets out a sigh, hitting the bottom step and moving in even closer, her heels clicking against the expensive white marble. “You know, for a moment there, I considered allowing you to continue here, to become my heir and take over my empire, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that you were weak. You never had what it takes to rise up, never will.”