Maze

Maze
Angelo

One second.

That’s all it takes to lose sight of Tatiana.

One second she’s right behind me—then gunfire erupts, men come charging out of a room, and just like that, she’s gone.

A surge of dread hits me the moment I realize she’s no longer at my side, but there’s no time to panic. If I stop now, I’ll end up with a bullet—or several—lodged in my chest.

Dice and I press against the wall, ducking as bullets scream past us. Rominas pour out of the room, weapons raised—but somehow, we’re faster.

One. Two. Three. Four.

My shots hit their marks, and four bodies hit the ground before I even register how many there were to begin with. 

Dice handles another group of three, but we don’t have time to think about our next moves when footsteps on the stairs tell us that more men are coming. I don’t need to wait and see if they are ours or not. 

“We need to get out of this hallway. We’re easy targets here,” Dice snarls at me, already heading toward the door. I follow him, even though my entire body protests.

“I need to find Tatiana,” I hiss, locking the door behind us and taking in our surroundings. 

It’s a big room, but I only register the details in flashes. A poker table in the middle—stained, cluttered with cards and chips, chairs knocked over like whoever was playing ran fast. To the left, a bar packed with bottles—glass glinting under dim lights, some already shattered from stray bullets. Two large couches sit low to the ground, one flipped halfway over like it had been used for cover before. There’s a side door to the right—narrow, dark, maybe an exit. I don’t have time to study more. Just enough to clock potential cover, escape routes, and threats.

There’s a door to my right and I rack my brain, trying to remember where it leads.  I studied the blueprint for hours, but with fear threatening to eat me alive now, I can’t focus. 

Where is Tatiana? Did someone take her, or did she step away from me on purpose? She wouldn’t do that to me, though, would she? She promised me she’d stay close, no matter the situation.

A voice in the back of my mind whispers what I already know: if the roles were reversed—if I had the chance to take justice into my own hands for what was done to my family—I wouldn’t think twice. Promise or not, I’d go. Just like she did.

“Shit, she must’ve gone after him,” I mutter, mostly to myself. Dice is already moving toward the side door, not waiting for confirmation.

A deafening bang erupts behind me, yanking me back into the chaos. We’re still being hunted, and I don’t have the luxury of spiraling into what-ifs. I need to move. I need to get out of this room—and I need to reach Tatiana before Oleg does.

I’m right on Dice’s heels as he crosses through the side door, and we find ourselves in some kind of narrow tunnel, stretching toward another black door at the far end. This place is a fucking maze. Studying the blueprints was one thing—looking at lines and markings on paper, all neat and orderly—but being here, inside this goddamn labyrinth, is a whole different story. Every corner feels like it could lead to another trap, another dead end. My mind races, trying to piece together the layout, but nothing feels familiar. We’re blind, and we’re not alone.

Not to mention these motherfuckers come out of every corner, and it doesn’t help that they know this place like the backs of their hands and we don’t.

“They are fucking everywhere,” Dice mutters as he leads the way, his gun in hand and pointing ahead, prepared for another ambush.

I grunt in response, not able to give him an answer. I can’t stop thinking about where Tatiana might be. I can only hope she’s handling herself well enough until I get to her. I know she can do it, but it’s not her I don’t trust. It’s the Rominas. They don’t play fair, and the idea of losing her just like I lost Luca is overwhelming.  

I’ll never forgive myself if I lose her too.

I still can’t remember where this tunnel lets out—there’s too many overlapping corridors in this fucking mansion—but I don’t have time to ask either before Dice opens the door and we end up inside another shadowed room, lined with cabinets and crates. 

“This room looks like an old depository, but I don’t remember it being labeled on the blueprint,” I whisper to Dice. The walls here are even more narrow, and the ceiling is lower, and it smells like dust and mold here, making my nose itch.

“Goddamn, what the hell is this room for? It looks like no one’s been here for decades,” Dice murmurs with impatience.

“Looks like an escape route,” I grunt, eyeing the narrow walls and low ceiling. “I can’t remember where this leads to.”

“Maybe the blueprints were outdated?” Dice mutters, scanning the shadows ahead with his gun raised.

I shrug, the weight of uncertainty pressing down on me. “Maybe…” The truth is, nothing about this place feels predictable.

“Where the fuck do you think she went?” Dice asks, not bothering to look at me as he continues moving forward, his steps slow and cautious. “Do you think she was taken?”

“I—” My words are stuck in my throat as I watch his right hand move up, his fist clenched as he signals me to hold. 

A guard rounds the corner directly in front of us, armed to his teeth, but Dice is faster, dropping him with a clean shot to the chest. The man crashes backward, a loud thud echoing through the walls as his body collapses to the floor.

“You were saying…” Dice encourages me to continue, but the sound of the man’s body falling to the floor drew the attention of more.

Another Romina capo lunges from a hidden door close to me, bumping against me and catching me off guard. We crash down, my gun falls out of my hand and he elbows me in the jaw. I grunt, ignoring the pain, and throw a punch to his ribs. I look to the side, searching for my gun, which is just out of reach. Dice is fighting another guy down the hallway, so I’m on my own here.

Reaching for the knife strapped to my right thigh, I grab it, slamming it into the side of the guy’s neck. Hot blood spurts across my hand and arm, and I shove him off me, getting to my feet in an instant.

I head for the exit just as Dice shows up in the doorway, sweating, his face smeared with blood. We’re both breathing hard and my heart slams against my chest. But there’s no time to speak—the capos who’d been tracking us from the main house finally catch up, boots thundering down the corridor like a warning shot we can’t outrun.

There are only five of them. We bring two down right away with two shots in the head. Dice grabs the third one by the collar and slams him into a wall, stabbing him a couple of times. I shift my focus to the fourth, driving my knife behind his knee, then slashing his throat. I dive to the floor and grab my gun, rolling over and jumping up just in time to see that there’s only one of them left now.

He lifts his gun toward me, but I beat him to it.

However, the hollow click that follows makes my blood turn to ice. 

Fuck.

It’s empty.

I move to reload, darting to the side, but I’m too slow. The shot echoes through the dimly lit room, and pain erupts in my left arm, throwing me sideways against the wall.

Gritting my teeth, I don’t bother putting pressure on the wound, or even checking the extent of it. I need to reload my gun before this motherfucker finishes me off.

“I got you, man,” Dice murmurs before showing up beside me and filling the guy with holes.

I take a deep breath, finally clamping my hand over my wound, feeling blood soak through my fingers. “Fuck,” I hiss, standing straight and examining the hallway we’re in.

Dice moves forward to check on my arm, and I move my hand just slightly so he can examine it. “It doesn’t look too bad,” he tells me, shaking his head.

“It certainly hurts like it,” I wince, forcing the pain to the back of my head to finish reloading my  gun.

“You good to go?” he asks, looking me in the eyes.

I nod sharply, cocking the gun. “Yeah. We need to get to Tatiana. Do you think it’s safe for us to return from that tunnel? It’ll be faster that way. She might have gone to Oleg’s office.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. I think it’s worth a try,” Dice encourages, moving back to the dark room.

My vision blurs as I take a step forward, and lean against the wall once more to steady myself.

“Shit, man!” he hisses, returning to my side and holding me by my elbow. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“How the fuck can getting shot hurt this much? I don’t remember it hurting like this,” I mutter through clenched teeth.

“That’s because you fainted last time,” he jokes, chuckling but helping me get to my feet. “Now, take deep breaths and push it aside. Adrenaline will kick in, and you’ll forget about the pain for a while.”

Easier said than done, I want to retort. But I don’t, focusing on doing what he suggested instead and following him back to the tunnel.

Tatiana needs me.

My arm can hurt all it wants later, but for now, I need to make sure she is safe. 

That she is alive.