Page 72 of Little Rabbit

“Clear,” I whisper to Gia, who slips past me, and I quickly shut the door behind her.

“Fuck,” Gia whispers. I look at her sharply, and she grimaces. “We’re in the middle of the maze. Nico’s father built it, and it’s super intricate and hard to get out of. If we get lost in here, we might get caught.”

“We don’t have much of a choice,” I tell her as I urge her to move away from the wall of the house and deeper into the maze. “At least out here we have more spaces to hide. And then we just have to wait until this is all over, and Nico and Alessio come looking for us.”

Gia nods, and we hurry down a path in the maze. “I’ve never been this far in, so I don’t know where we’re going to end up. I’ve been in the parts closer to the front of the house. If we can figure out how to get to the raised part where the mausoleum is, then we’ll be close to an exit.”

“There has to be another exit in here. Probably closer to the back. Most mazes have an entrance and an exit, so we just need to find the exit and then hide out until someone finds us.”

“What about Sofia and Rori?” Gia asks, worried, as we take another turn through the maze and I see the intricate rose bushes lining each side. I really hope we don’t have to go through any of those, because that’s going to hurt like hell.

“They’re both strong and can handle themselves. And they have Hades. He’s not going to let anything happen to them. But we can’t worry about them, okay? We need to focus on staying alive.”

Gia nods, silent, but I can tell she’s struggling to stay calm. I don’t blame her, and I’m sure later I’m going to lose my shit, but right now, I can’t let anything happen to Gia. If something does, and I survive this, Nico will kill me, and I really don’t want to die today if I can help it.

We hurry deeper and deeper into the maze, making random turns until I curse when I realize we’ve ended right back at the house. Just then, a bloodied Rafaele and Lorenzo emerge from the hidden door in front of us.

Fuck!

32

ALESSIO

I kill the fucker coming down the hall at me, but I don’t stop moving as I continue to make my way outside with Nico. There are shouts, smoke, and bullets flying everywhere, but as I keep moving, I see more and more of Parisi and Giovanni’s soldiers falling. But the fact that I haven’t seen either of their leaders fills me with a grim worry. There is no way in hell that Rafaele isn’t here with his men.

So where the fuck is he?

Nico and I continue our way down the halls until we near the front door, where Dante is barking orders into his phone as he also fires expertly at any soldier that gets too close who isn’t obviously one of ours. When we reach him, he ends his call and tells us, “We’ve got them pushed back, and our men are handling them at the gates and on the grounds. Alessio, your men have mostly cleared the house. There are still some that haven’t been taken care of, but we’ll get them. The only things that have sustained damage are the front gates, a couple of cars they bombed, and the front door has taken some abuse, but is holding.”

“Good. Any sign of Rafaele or Giovanni?” Nico demands.

Dante shakes his head. “No. Neither man has been identified on the grounds.”

Every instinct inside me is screaming that something is wrong. “There is no way neither of them are here, or at least one of them and maybe one of Giovanni’s sons,” I say tightly. “Which means?—”

“Dante!” We round and see Sofia, Rori, and Hades’ blood-soaked muzzle rushing for us. Fear grips me when I realize that Gia and Sienna aren’t with them. “Tommaso managed to get access to the passageways, and he let in Rafaele Parisi and Lorenzo De Luca. I killed Tommaso, and we managed to wound Lorenzo, but he and Rafaele got away and went after Sienna and Gia before we could get to them. They took off in the tunnels, but we can’t find them,” Sofia tells us grimly. “We heard a shot and a man scream at one point when we tried to go after them, but Lorenzo managed to get away from us down one of the passageways and we lost him. We tried to search for them, but then we didn’t hear anyone anymore and we think they got out, but we don’t know where.”

“Fuck,” Dante hisses, pulling up his phone. “The men have the systems back up online. Just give me a second.” Nico and I say nothing as we wait, but both of us are tense. I want to run after Sienna now, to find her, but I force myself to stay still. There’s no point in running all over the fucking place. Finally, Dante says, “Got them. They exited into the garden at the back of the house. They got out and headed into the maze. Most of the fighting is toward the front so there shouldn’t be any men in there but…” Then he lets out another curse. “Fuck. The girls went the wrong way and went back toward the house instead of deeper in. And Rafaele and Lorenzo just stepped out of the same door they came out and saw them.”

“Let’s go,” Nico barks. “Dante, get Sofia and Rori?—”

“No, we’re coming too,” Rori interrupts, her face hard. “Hades can track them.”

“We’re wasting time arguing,” Sofia growls impatiently. She pulls another magazine from the small of her back and expertly changes her empty one out. “Now, let’s get out there.” Then she turns away, and I’m running behind her.

I send up a prayer that Sienna is safe, because if anything happens to her, I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep from burning this place to the fucking ground.

33

SIENNA

I bring my gun up quickly, firing at both of them, and then yell, “Run!” to Gia before we both sprint back into the maze. I hear angry yells, and then hear them running after us. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I curse.

“We need to find somewhere to hide,” Gia gasps. “If we keep running we’re going to tire ourselves out or get trapped in a dead end.”

“Why the fuck was this fucking thing built like this?”

“Nico said his mother built it, and his father used to use it to taunt and toy with him. He also said his father used to do the same thing with other people until he killed them,” Gia grits out as we take another turn. I try to find something around me to use as a mental marker, but the fucking walls all look the same. “He said that there are only a few ways out of it, but I don’t know how to figure it out.”

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