Kidnapping the Assassin: The Mafia Don’s Fatal Mistake

The Bleeding Shadow

Chapter 53

**[Elara]**

We didn't take the armored SUV. A massive vehicle with headlights would announce our arrival from a mile away. We took the tactical dirt bikes Cassian kept fueled for silent perimeter sweeps. 

The Tuscan night was pitch black, the moon hidden behind thick, rolling storm clouds. The wind whipped through the olive groves, carrying the heavy scent of impending rain and damp earth. 

I rode ahead of Cassian, navigating the treacherous, uneven terrain without headlights. The night-vision goggles over my eyes bathed the world in a stark, glowing green. I pushed the bike to its absolute limit, the engine letting out a low, muffled growl. 

The coordinates Nine’s beacon was broadcasting pinpointed an abandoned, centuries-old stone chapel perched on a steep hillside overlooking the valley. 

I cut the engine a quarter-mile out, letting the bike coast silently to a halt behind a dense thicket of cypress trees. Cassian stopped beside me, silently dismounting and racking the bolt of his suppressed assault rifle. 

"Thermal scan," Cassian whispered into the encrypted comms unit strapped to my ear. 

I tapped the side of my goggles, switching frequencies. 

The ruined stone chapel was a cold, dark blue mass against the hillside. But inside the crumbled nave, a faint, flickering orange heat signature was pulsing weakly against the stones. 

"One heat signature. Extremely weak," I reported, drawing the twin ceramic blades from the belt of my robe. The silk fabric whipped frantically around my legs in the rising wind. "No hostiles showing on thermal. If whoever hit him is still here, they’re wearing thermal-dampening gear."

"Or they left him to bleed," Cassian countered grimly, moving into a covering stance. "I'll take the high ground on the ridge. Move in. If a leaf twitches, I’m putting a round through it."

I nodded, slipping instantly into the shadows. 

The Viper didn't walk; she drifted. I moved across the dry grass, my bare feet making absolutely no sound as I approached the ruined archway of the chapel. The air inside smelled of wet stone, old moss, and the sharp, unmistakable copper stench of fresh arterial blood. 

I stepped through the archway, my blades raised, the green hue of my night-vision sweeping the rubble. 

He was slumped against the crumbling stone altar. 

Nine. 

He was thirty-two now, though the heavy scarring and gaunt angles of his face made him look older. He wore pitch-black tactical gear, perfectly blending into the dark. But the gear was shredded. His chest plate was cracked entirely in half, and a massive pool of dark blood saturated the dirt beneath him. 

I dropped to my knees beside him, ripping off my goggles. 

"Nine," I whispered fiercely, pressing two fingers hard against his carotid artery. 

His pulse was a frantic, terrifying flutter a dying bird trapped behind glass. 

His pale eyes fluttered open. They were glassy, entirely unfocused, staring up at the broken roof of the chapel. 

"Master..." he wheezed, a bloody bubble popping on his lips. 

"I'm here," I said, tearing the silk sash from my robe and pressing it violently against the massive laceration in his side. It wasn't a bullet wound. The edges of the cut were jagged and cauterized. 

My breath caught in my throat. I had seen wounds exactly like this before. Ten years ago, deep in the mountain of the Citadel. 

Electrified blades. 

"Cassian," I spoke sharply into my comms. "It’s a sword wound. The Praetorian Guard. They’re back."

*"Impossible,"* Cassian’s voice crackled instantly in my ear. *"The Emissary is dead. The Commission was eradicated."*

"The throne doesn't stay empty forever," I gritted out, applying brutal pressure to Nine’s side. 

Nine groaned in agony, his bloody hand reaching up to weakly grip my wrist. 

"Not... Praetorians," Nine gasped, coughing violently. The blood spilling from his lips was dark, almost black. "Worse."

"Who did this to you, Nine?" I demanded, leaning close to his face. "Who is hunting you?"

His pale eyes finally focused on my face. The absolute, unadulterated terror I saw in his gaze completely froze the blood in my veins. Nine was a boy who had executed cartel bosses without blinking. I had never seen him afraid. 

"They didn't come for me," Nine choked out, his grip on my wrist tightening with desperate, dying strength. "They used me... as a beacon. To draw you out."

A sharp, electric hum suddenly pierced the quiet of the chapel. 

It wasn't the heavy vibration of a Praetorian blade. It was a high-frequency, piercing whine that made the fillings in my teeth vibrate. 

"Elara, move!" Cassian roared over the comms. 

A sniper bullet cracked through the air. 

Cassian hadn't fired at the chapel. He had fired at the dense tree line directly above us. The heavy-caliber round struck something invisible in the darkness, sparking violently against thermal-dampened armor. 

Three shadows detached themselves from the stone ceiling of the chapel, dropping directly toward me. 

They weren't wearing red cloaks. They were clad entirely in vantablack, light-absorbing armor that rendered them completely invisible to the naked eye. Their faces were covered by smooth, featureless mirrored masks. 

In their hands, they held slender, vibrating monofilament whips weapons designed to slice through molecular bonds. Designed to slice through bone and steel without resistance. 

I threw myself backward, dragging Nine’s heavy body with me, just as a glowing whip sliced through the stone altar where we had been kneeling. The ancient rock sheared apart perfectly, collapsing into dust. 

"Cassian, they have monofilament!" I screamed, pulling Nine behind a collapsed pillar. 

*"I see them! Covering fire!"* 

The deafening roar of Cassian’s assault rifle shattered the night. A hail of bullets poured through the ruined roof of the chapel, striking the three invisible assassins. The rounds sparked against their armor, staggering them backward, but the vantablack plating absorbed the kinetic impact. 

They didn't fall. 

The lead assassin turned its featureless mirrored mask toward me. 

It didn't speak. It simply raised the glowing whip, the weapon humming with a lethal, hungry frequency. 

I looked down at Nine. He was unconscious, rapidly bleeding out on the dirt floor. I couldn't carry him out under fire, and my ceramic blades would shatter instantly against their armor. 

I was cornered. Unarmored. Outgunned. 

I stood up, stepping out from behind the pillar, placing myself entirely between the assassins and my dying ghost. 

I let out a slow, controlled breath, the terrified mother vanishing, the lethal architecture of the Viper locking perfectly into place. 

If they wanted to draw the Master out of the shadows, they had succeeded. 

And they were about to realize why the shadows belonged to me.