Going Mad For Maddox

CHAPTER ELEVEN

MADDOX

LIVING AMONGST CHAOS most of my life I have knack for recognizing something that will strike a paradox of pandemonium. I'm teetering the line of absolute mayhem right now and I can already feel my foot starting to slip from under me.

I scowl at Isabella who elegantly leaves the stage with a pleased expression. My eyes scan the room to see numerous stares pinpointed toward me.

Men are squaring their shoulders watching me as if I'm a creature who has just surfaced the earth and need to be weary of. While the women eye me with the same intensity a whore would if their highest paid customer has just arrived to their brothel.

I catch sight of Armando who still has that same young girl hanging from this arm except she's not the center of his attention anymore... I am.

The man who will soon have my hands wrapped around his throat smirks and then brings his right hand up to fucking salute me. That all too familiar burning sensation of wanting to see my next victims head on a stake alights a flame in my chest.

"We need to get out of here and meet Isabella." Ryat says to my right but I don't register his words. I'm too busy imagining what Martin's blood will look like dripping from the bullet shaped hole in his chest, "Maddox?"

Armando tilts his head and begins to watch me with a newfound curiosity. His bushy brows scrunch over his eyes almost like he can read the murderous thoughts that continue to overflow until all I see is red, red, red.

I wonder if he can see into the future and know how I'm going to use his blood as my paint and my pocket knife as my brush. He'll be my canvas and his lifeless body that I will mutilate will be my sadistic masterpiece.

"Maddox, are you listening to me?" My attention is pulled back to Ryat. "We need to get out of here right now."

I follow my best friend's lead and we instantly cross the wide space toward the back door until there's a crash in the background—as if someone had been thrown into a table.

A woman screams and that's when I hear the all too familiar sound of bullets being fired. I turn around to see Armando being rushed out of the ballroom by his many guards and the girl in the blue satin dress is face down on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood.

"Holy shit." Ryat has his hand on the doorknob but before he can fling it open I see the man who pulled the first trigger. He shouts something in Gaelic but before I have time to register what is happening the lights are cut and an impenetrable darkness is swept through.

The line I was teetering on earlier finally breaks through its last thread and my foot slips and falls into a hole of utter chaos. It reigns itself into the room as hundreds of people shout congesting the space with an uproar of havoc.

Another bullet is fired and the flash of light making this entire ordeal feel like some fucked up game of Russian roulette—having no clue if the next gun to go off will be the the one to send us to our early graves.

"You can yell at me later for this." Ryat grabs my arm with a colossal like grip and flings the door open. He keeps his hand enclosed around my forearm as we race through the darkened halls.

The screams fade in the distance the only sound being our heavy breathing and footsteps which echo off of the marble floors sounding like an ominous repeating tick of a clock. But to move quietly means to move slowly and that is something we cannot risk.