Kidnapping the Assassin: The Mafia Don’s Fatal Mistake

The Devil's Ransom

Chapter 64

*[Elara]*

When the mind encounters a trauma it cannot process, it fractures. It breaks reality into slow, agonizingly precise snapshots to prevent the heart from stopping entirely. 

*Snapshot one:* Lily’s terrified, tear-streaked face. Her blonde hair pulled violently tight in the massive, armored fist of the Praetorian guard. The brutal purple bruising already blooming across her cheek where she had been struck. 

*Snapshot two:* The humming, super-heated edge of the electrified blade held mere millimeters from her carotid artery. 

*Snapshot three:* The horrifying realization that the forty-nine ghosts I had sent into the Alps ten years ago hadn't killed the architects of the High Table. They had simply killed the decoys. 

I slowly lowered my submachine gun. 

Cassian stood beside me on the wind-whipped tarmac, his assault rifle still raised, his scarred hands gripping the weapon with a terrifying, white-knuckled intensity. He didn't lower his barrel, but he didn't fire. He was calculating the ballistics. Even if he scored a perfect headshot through the Praetorian’s mask, the dead-man's drop of that electrified blade would sever Lily's neck. 

"Drop the weapons, Don Rossi," a distorted, metallic voice boomed from the top of the ramp. 

The towering Praetorian holding Lily didn't speak. A second figure stepped out from the dark, cavernous belly of the cargo jet. 

He didn't wear a red cloak. He wore an impeccably tailored, double-breasted white suit. He held a gold-tipped walking cane. His face was entirely hidden behind a smooth, featureless mask of polished obsidian. 

"Or what?" Cassian growled, his voice a low, vibrating threat that easily cut through the whine of the jet engines. "You kill the only leverage you have? If she dies, you die. I will order my chopper to put a missile through your fuselage before you reach altitude."

"You misunderstand the nature of a hostage, Cassian," the man in the white suit chuckled. It was a smooth, cultured sound that made the hairs on my arms stand up. "We didn't take the surgeon to negotiate a ransom."

The man in the white suit stepped closer to the edge of the ramp, looking directly down at me. 

"We took her to summon the dog back to her master."

I stared at the obsidian mask. The way he stood. The cadence of his arrogant, aristocratic voice. 

It was impossible. I had watched him fall fifty feet into a burning inferno. I had seen the flames consume his body. 

"Arthur," I whispered, the name tearing out of my throat like shards of glass. 

The man in the white suit reached up, slowly unclasping the obsidian mask. He pulled it away, dropping it carelessly onto the metal ramp. 

The face underneath was a horrific map of devastation. The entire left side of his skull was a massive, jagged burn scar, the skin melted and fused, pulling his left eye downward into a permanent, monstrous sneer. He was missing his left ear entirely. 

But the right side of his face was untouched. The silver hair. The cruel, mocking smile. 

The Weaver had survived the fire. 

"Hello, Elara," Arthur smiled, his voice rasping slightly through damaged vocal cords. "I told you. I don't die easily. I simply adapt the architecture."

Cassian’s roar of pure, unadulterated fury was deafening. He didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger. 

The assault rifle barked violently. Three rounds tore through the space where Arthur’s chest had been. 

But Arthur wasn't there. 

A thick, transparent sheet of heavy ballistic glass had dropped from the ceiling of the cargo bay the exact millisecond Cassian fired, sealing the ramp from the outside. The bullets sparked and flattened harmlessly against the impenetrable barrier. 

"Cassian, stop!" I screamed, grabbing his arm as he prepared to empty the magazine into the glass. 

Behind the barrier, the Praetorian guard jerked Lily violently backward, the humming blade pressing hard enough against her throat to draw a thin line of blood. 

Lily let out a muffled, agonizing shriek behind her gag. 

"Don't!" I sobbed, dropping to my knees on the cold concrete of the tarmac, tossing my submachine gun away. I raised my empty hands, staring at the monster behind the glass. "Don't hurt her! Arthur, please!"

Arthur tapped his cane against the glass. He pressed a small intercom button on his lapel. 

*"A spectacular display of desperation, Viper,"* Arthur’s voice echoed through the external speakers of the jet. *"Ten years ago, you took my empire. You burned my face. You stole my ghosts. Now, the High Table is rebuilding. And we require our most lethal asset to resume her post."*

He looked down at me, his one good eye glittering with absolute malice. 

*"The terms are non-negotiable. You board this aircraft. Alone. Unarmed. You put the collar back around your neck, and you serve the Commission. If you refuse..."* 

Arthur gestured lazily toward the Praetorian holding my sister. 

*"...I will execute the surgeon right in front of you, and we will take off. We have surface-to-air countermeasures. Your helicopter cannot touch us."*

My mind fractured. The brutal, inescapable mathematics of the situation locked into place. 

If I fought, Lily died. If Cassian shot the glass, Lily died. 

The only variable that kept her breathing was my complete, unconditional surrender. 

I stood up slowly. 

Cassian grabbed my arm in a vice grip, spinning me around to face him. His obsidian eyes were wild, frantic, and entirely unraveled. 

"No," Cassian breathed, his voice breaking. "Elara, no. You are not getting on that plane."

"I have to," I whispered, tears streaming silently down my face. I reached up, pressing my palm against his scarred cheek. "He'll kill her, Cassian. He will kill her."

"We will find another way!" Cassian pleaded fiercely, pulling me flush against his tactical vest, burying his face in my hair. "I will call the Five Families. I will call the ghosts. We will tear the sky apart to find you. Don't go back into the dark, please."

"Take care of Leo," I sobbed into his chest, holding onto him with desperate, agonizing strength. "Tell him I love him. Tell him his mother was so incredibly proud of him."

I pulled away. I didn't look back. If I looked back at his broken face, I wouldn't have the strength to walk. 

I walked toward the cargo ramp. 

The heavy ballistic glass slowly hummed upward, rising just high enough for a person to duck underneath. 

I ducked under the glass, stepping into the belly of the jet. 

The instant my boots touched the metal grating, the glass slammed shut behind me, completely sealing me inside. 

"Good girl," Arthur sneered, his ruined face twisting into a hideous smile. He snapped his fingers. 

Two Praetorian guards stepped from the shadows. They grabbed my arms, hauling me to my knees, and slammed heavy steel cuffs around my wrists, locking them tightly behind my back. 

Arthur looked at the guard holding Lily. 

"Release the surgeon," Arthur commanded. 

The guard pulled the humming blade away from Lily’s throat and shoved her violently forward. 

Lily stumbled under the glass barrier, tumbling out onto the tarmac. She collapsed onto the concrete, coughing and sobbing, ripping the gag from her mouth. Cassian was there instantly, pulling her away from the exhaust wash of the jet engines, shielding her with his body. 

But Cassian didn't look at Lily. He looked at me through the heavy glass. 

His eyes were a storm of apocalyptic, world-ending rage. He slammed his scarred fists against the impenetrable glass, screaming my name over the roar of the turbines, completely unable to reach me. 

"Take off," Arthur ordered the pilots. 

The massive cargo jet lurched forward, the engines screaming as they spooled up to maximum thrust. The plane began to roll down the runway, gaining speed, leaving my husband and my sister shrinking into the distance on the floodlit tarmac. 

I knelt on the cold metal floor, shackled and surrounded by monsters, as the plane violently lifted into the dark, starless sky. 

The Viper was back in the cage.