Kidnapping the Assassin: The Mafia Don’s Fatal Mistake

The Apex and the Edge

Chapter 23

**[Elara]**

Time shattered into agonizing, slow-motion fragments. 

I saw the white hospital blanket snap violently in the rotor wash. I saw the tangle of clear plastic tubing ripping free from the portable oxygen tank. I saw my sister's pale, motionless face turned toward the sky as gravity laid its claim on her fragile body. 

The High Table didn't want leverage. They wanted me broken. They wanted the Viper to watch her only reason for living splatter against the concrete. 

I didn't scream. My throat sealed entirely, locking the terror inside my chest. 

I sprinted toward the edge of the helipad, dropping my rifle. The weapon clattered against the wet tarmac, useless. She was falling thirty feet away, out over the sloped glass awning that bordered the hospital roof. If she hit that glass, it would shred her. If she hit the pavement below, she would die instantly. 

I dove over the low parapet wall. 

I didn't think about my own landing. I didn't care about the physics of the drop. I threw my body horizontally into the freezing rain, stretching my arms out with desperate, blinding absolute need. 

My fingers brushed the damp wool of the blanket. 

I twisted my body mid-air, wrapping my arms fiercely around her tiny frame. I tucked her completely against my chest, shielding her skull with my shoulder, curling myself into a tight ball around her just as we hit the sloped architectural glass awning. 

The impact was catastrophic. 

Thick, tempered glass shattered under my back with the sound of a bomb detonating. A thousand jagged knives tore through my trench coat, biting deep into my skin. We slid violently down the slick, angled surface, gaining terrifying speed toward the sheer four-story drop to the parking lot below. 

I dug the heels of my combat boots into the metal framing of the awning, screaming as my joints threatened to dislocate. 

We stopped. 

I lay on the fractured glass, suspended fifty feet in the air. The icy wind howled around us. My back was a ruined, bleeding mess. My left shoulder felt completely paralyzed. 

But I could feel her. 

Lily’s chest was pressed flush against mine. Her heart, weak and thready, beat against my collarbone. She was breathing. 

A ragged, ugly sob tore its way out of my throat. I squeezed my eyes shut, burying my face in her damp blonde hair. "I’ve got you," I whispered into the storm. "I’ve got you, baby bird." 

*BOOM.* 

A massive explosion above me shook the fragile glass I was lying on. 

I turned my head, squinting up through the rain toward the roof. 

Cassian Rossi hadn't jumped after me. He knew I had caught her. The Don had turned his attention upward. 

Standing on the edge of the helipad, completely exposed to the storm, Cassian had retrieved my discarded assault rifle. But he wasn't firing at the High Table commander standing in the open doorway. 

He was aiming at the tail rotor. 

He dumped the entire magazine into the delicate, spinning mechanics of the helicopter's rear stabilizer. Sparks showered the sky. The metal shrieked as the bullets sheared the rotor blades completely off their axis. 

The massive black transport chopper instantly lost its stabilizing torque. It began to spin violently out of control, a mechanical death trap suspended in the air. 

The pilot panicked, trying to bank toward the lake, but physics had already written the ending. The chopper tilted sharply, the main rotor blades striking the heavy concrete elevator housing on the hospital roof. 

The blades shattered, sending lethal shrapnel flying across the tarmac. 

The helicopter crashed onto its side, slamming onto the helipad in a blinding fireball of jet fuel and twisted steel. The shockwave blew the rain backward, heating the freezing air instantly. 

I covered Lily with my body as burning debris rained down over the edge of the roof, hissing as it hit the wet glass around us. 

When I finally looked back up, the flames were illuminating the sky. 

Cassian stood at the edge of the roof, looking down at me. The fire cast a demonic, orange glow over his broad shoulders. He dropped the empty rifle, his chest heaving, his dark eyes searching the darkness until they locked onto mine. 

He saw that I was holding her. He saw that she was safe. 

He closed his eyes for a split second, his head dropping forward in absolute, total relief. 

"Don't move!" he shouted over the roar of the burning wreck. 

He disappeared from the edge. A minute later, a heavy firehose lowered past my face, dangling over the shattered awning. Cassian appeared again, anchoring the hose around a sturdy concrete pillar. 

"Tie it around your waist!" he yelled. "I'll pull you up!"

I didn't have the strength to tie a knot one-handed while holding Lily. 

"I can't!" I shouted back, my voice barely carrying over the wind. "My arm is shot! If I let her go, she slides!" 

Cassian didn't hesitate. He grabbed the hose with his good hand, wrapped it around his own waist, and stepped off the parapet wall. 

He rappelled down the slick, wet concrete wall until he reached the awning. He carefully navigated the shattered glass, his boots finding purchase on the metal framing until he was crouched right beside me. 

He didn't look at my bloody face. He looked at the girl in my arms. 

"Is this her?" he asked, his voice suddenly incredibly gentle, despite the chaos around us. 

"Yes," I breathed, my tears mixing with the rain. 

Cassian reached out. With his uninjured left arm, he carefully, firmly scooped Lily out of my grasp. He cradled her against his chest, tucking her head safely under his chin. 

"Grab my tactical vest," he ordered me, his dark eyes fierce and commanding. "Hold on tight. We're going up." 

I wrapped my good arm around his thick neck, burying my face into his shoulder. 

He climbed. With one useless, mangled hand, one arm holding my sister, and the Viper clinging to his back, Cassian Rossi hauled us up the slick wall of the hospital. His muscles screamed under the impossible strain, his jaw locked in agony, but he didn't stop until he threw us safely over the parapet wall onto the wet tarmac. 

We collapsed onto the roof, inches away from the burning wreckage of the High Table chopper. 

I rolled onto my back, staring up at the stormy sky, unable to move. 

Cassian knelt beside me, laying Lily gently on a dry patch of concrete. He pulled off his tactical vest and wrapped it around her to keep her warm. 

Then, he turned to me. 

He looked down at my face, wiping the wet, dark hair from my eyes. His thumb brushed over my cheek, tracing a cut I hadn't realized I had. 

The heat of the fire illuminated his face. The blank, empty mercenary stare was completely gone. 

"Elara," he whispered, his voice cracking, loaded with a terrifying amount of emotion. 

My heart stopped. 

"You remember," I choked out, reaching up to touch his face. 

Cassian closed his eyes, leaning into my palm. A single, silent tear slipped out, cutting a clean path through the soot and blood on his skin. 

"I remember everything, my queen," he murmured, opening his eyes to look at me with absolute, consuming devotion. "And I am going to kill every single person who tried to take you from me."