The Shadows

Chapter Forty-Four

One Year After the kidnapping...

Annabella's brothers had fallen apart since her kidnapping.

All of the underworld fears them ten times the amount they had before the incident. Yes, incident. If the brothers hear a whisper of what had happened, they would go on a rampage, killing until their inner beasts deemed themselves satisfied with the amount of blood they had shed.

Of course, in the back of each of their minds, they knew Annabella would not approve of their actions. These exact thoughts lead to many days where almost all of the infamous De Luca brothers could be found getting drunk in their clubs.

Paparazzi always seem to know when the brothers were going off the deep end, which happened too frequently. They always caught the worst sides of the boys and twisted it to make them seem like they were the scum of the earth.

Adriano, the cold stone brother. He showed his emotions more often, but it would more than likely be his anger. He could be found yelling at their maids for walking in his sister's room. He wanted to preserve everything that was in there just as it was.

Alessio, the doctor. He threw himself into surgeries and studied all types of injuries and perfecting how to fix them. He wanted to be able to fix his sister up if she needed it when they found her. The nurses would often have to call the security guards to forcefully take him home to rest. He would fight with all of his might to stay, forcing them to give him a sedative.

Antonio, the one who seemed to hate her. He would hide away in her room, crying. He grabbed her sweatshirts and hugged them close, wanting to be surrounded by her scent as much as possible.

Alessandro, the health nut. He would skip almost all meals. When he did eat, it was often Annabella's favorite foods. It gave him a sense of comfort that she was there with him.

Angelo, the teddy bear of the family. He became cold, just like Adriano. He never was kind to anyone anymore. The maids avoided him, afraid that he would snap at them for just looking his way.

Armani, poor Armani. HIs family completely ignored him, just focusing on Annabella.

They didn't even take a moment to question how Armani was doing with everything.

He wasn't doing well at all.

With his only support system gone, he was spiraling. Going back down into the rabbit hole of mental illnesses.

It was only a matter of time before he completely broke, succumbing to the endless waves of self doubt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been a year since Annabella was kidnapped from her hospital room.

Not much has changed, except the fact that dad has left them. He decided that having a missing child was too much for him to handle and took off. They don't know where he went, but Armani was sure it was to one of his many private islands that he owned.

Armani had no one anymore. The boys all ignored him, not even asking what he wanted for dinner anymore.

In the halls whenever they saw him, they just kept walking, acting like he was a ghost. Which, he guesses in some ways he was.

He had given up on the hope that they would care about him anymore.

Armani loved and missed her so much, but Annabella is all they cared about anymore.

It is always, "Have you found anything on where she might be?" and "I wonder if she is doing alright."

They never asked him those questions and he still lived with them, and honestly it's taking a major toll on his mental health.

Armani felt like he was drowning with no one to save him.

It's constant self doubt, questioning if it was his fault that she got kidnapped in the first place.

It's wanting to kill himself because if she isn't here, what did he have to live for? Obviously no one in his family wanted him there, or they would have made more of an effort to check up on him during this time.

He knew that they checked up on each other, he had even seen it happen. Once, Alessio was comforting Adriano while he finally broke. Armani had seen the others do the same thing, but no one was there for him.

He needed to get out, to be away from the broken household that was now the De Luca house.

The constant ignorance was giving him depression according to the therapist he had paid to, one keep his brothers from knowing about him seeing one, and two, so he could actually have one.

With the way that they react when any minor inconvenience happened, there was no telling what they would do if they found out. They would probably go on a rant about how he was showing weakness and that he needed to man up.

What they didn't learn from having Annabella around that Armani did was that showing emotions doesn't make you weak, it shows that you are stronger than the one who doesn't show any.

You have to have courage to show any type of emotion in a room full of mafia men, and Armani finally realized that.

When he came out of his spiraling thoughts, Armani realized that 15 minutes had passed with him just standing in the middle of his room. He quickly started to rush around his room, grabbing anything that he thought he would need on his journey or didn't want to leave behind in the grasps of his selfish brothers.

As he reached his closet to grab any clothes that he would need that weren't in his dresser, such as hoodies, Armani saw something behind his night stand, in the corner closest to his closet door. He walked closer to inspect that object that had caught his attention.

It was a bracelet, and not just any bracelet. It was the one Annabella had given to him almost a month before she was taken the first time. He thought that he had lost it, but it seemed as if she was sending him a sign that she was alright.

The thought almost caused him to break down right there, but he shook off the tears, knowing that he needed to hurry.

Running back to the closet, Armani grabbed a couple of hoodies and sweaters. As he ran back out to his window, ready to finally leave, he made the last second decision to go over to Annabella's room and see if there was anything that he might have wanted to keep with him.

Armani jogged across the hall and into her room once he had deemed it clear of anyone else. When he entered, he was hit with a wave of memories of all of the times they would spend in there just talking about the silliest of stuff, like who was the better looking sibling.

Shaking the memories away, he hurried around looking for anything significant that he would want to give back to her if he ever saw her again, which he now knew that he would. Deep down, he had this feeling that he would see her eventually, that she would come back to him.

Armani grabbed some of her sweaters, and even some of her books that he knew she enjoyed reading. Deciding that he had already spent way too much time there, he sprinted back to his room, chucking the stuff that he had grabbed into his bags and ran towards his window.

As he got ready to jump out, he heard footsteps and cursed to himself for taking too long. Armani turned around and started to make his way out of the window sill when his door opened.

"Armani! What are you doing?"

Knowing who had said that, he wasted no time jumping the rest of the way down as Angelo yelled after him, before taking off, probably going to find their brothers and tell them about his escape.

Armani hightailed his way towards the motorcycle that he had hidden a while ago, in case he ever wanted to leave this hell hole in a hurry.

Hopping onto the vehicle, he quickly started it, and made his final escape.

"Hello freedom."