Kidnapping the Assassin: The Mafia Don’s Fatal Mistake

The Ghost Awakens

Chapter 24

**[Cassian]**

The human mind is a terrifying vault. 

When the Corsicans dragged me out of the river, they hit me with enough electroconvulsive therapy to shatter the lock. They didn't erase me; they just scrambled the files. They convinced me the violence inside me was a tool they owned, that my instincts were the product of a street dog raised in the gutters of Marseille. 

But when I saw Elara throw herself off the edge of that roof, the vault didn't just unlock. The doors blew off their hinges. 

Memories flooded my brain with the violent force of a tsunami. The smell of her hair when I pinned her in the basement. The taste of her blood on my lips during the Kiss of Truth. The exact, paralyzing terror I felt when the neurotoxin flooded her chamber in the Gauntlet. 

I remembered the throne. I remembered the crown. 

I looked down at the woman bleeding on the wet concrete. My wife. She looked incredibly small right now, stripped of the terrifying armor of the Viper. Her trench coat was shredded, the white silk underneath stained a dark, horrifying crimson from the glass. 

I slipped my arms under her, ignoring the screaming agony in my right hand. 

"Don't," she hissed, her face contorting in pain. "My back..."

"I know," I murmured, my voice steady despite the rage boiling in my blood. "I'm not going to carry you. I just need to stop the bleeding."

I pulled off my white t-shirt, ripping the cheap cotton into thick strips with my teeth. The rain lashed against my bare chest, washing away the soot, revealing the dark ink of the Rossi crown on my pectoral muscle. 

I rolled her onto her side with agonizing care. I packed the torn fabric tightly into the deepest cuts along her spine, applying brutal pressure to stem the arterial flow. 

She let out a sharp, choked gasp, burying her face into my knee. Her hand shot out, her fingers wrapping around my wrist in a vice grip. 

"I'm sorry," I whispered, leaning down to press my lips against her wet temple. "I know it hurts. I'm sorry."

"Cassian," she breathed, her voice trembling. "They unplugged her oxygen. She can't breathe on her own."

I looked over at Lily. The frail girl lay wrapped in my tactical vest, her chest barely rising. The storm was too loud to hear her breathing, but the blue tint creeping onto her lips told me everything I needed to know. The High Table hadn't just used her as bait; they had signed her death warrant the second they tore her off the machines. 

I stood up, the rain slicking my bare skin. 

I walked over to the burning wreckage of the High Table helicopter. The heat was blistering, melting the soles of my boots. The metal frame of the side door was warped, pinned open. 

Inside the crushed cabin, a single body lay pinned beneath the twisted metal of the co-pilot's seat. 

The Arbiter's commander. The man who had dropped Lily. 

He wasn't dead. He was trapped, coughing up blood, his tactical gear scorched from the flames. He looked up at me through the smoke, his eyes widening in pure, animalistic terror. 

"Help me," he wheezed, extending a trembling, burned hand. 

I stepped into the wreckage. I didn't reach for his hand. 

I reached down, grabbed the thick collar of his tactical vest, and dragged his broken body out from under the metal with one violent heave. He screamed as his fractured ribs ground together. 

I threw him onto the wet tarmac, right beside the parapet wall. 

"Where is the emergency med-kit?" I demanded, my voice dropping to a terrifying, gravelly register. "The choppers carry portable oxygen. Where is it?"

The commander coughed, spitting a glob of blood onto my boots. "Burned," he gasped, a cruel, dying smile touching his lips. "It was in the back. Your wife's little pet... is going to suffocate."

I didn't blink. I didn't yell. 

I drew my Sig Sauer. I aimed at his left kneecap and pulled the trigger. 

The gunshot was muffled by the storm, but his shriek pierced straight through it. He writhed on the concrete, clutching his shattered leg. 

"I'm going to ask you one more time," I said calmly, stepping closer. I leveled the barrel at his right knee. "Where is the portable oxygen?"

"They" he choked on his own blood, the bravado entirely gone. "They didn't bring it on the chopper. They left it in the stairwell. Third floor."

I stared down at him. The man who had casually dropped a comatose child off a roof to break the woman I loved. 

"Thank you," I murmured. 

I aimed the pistol at the center of his forehead and fired. 

I turned my back on his corpse, sprinting toward the heavy metal door we had broken down earlier. I tore down the stairs, taking them four at a time, ignoring the burning ache in my lungs. 

I hit the third-floor landing. Sitting entirely abandoned near the fire extinguisher was a heavy, yellow medical bag. The high-pressure O2 canister was strapped inside, complete with a fresh intubation mask. 

I grabbed the bag by the strap, throwing it over my shoulder, and sprinted back up the stairs. 

I burst onto the roof. 

Elara was kneeling over her sister, trying desperately to perform CPR with one working arm. She was crying. The Viper, the woman who had executed cartel bosses without blinking, was sobbing openly, pressing her lips to Lily’s blue cheek. 

I dropped to my knees beside them, tearing open the yellow bag. 

I pulled out the mask, attaching the hose to the regulator. I cranked the valve open. The hiss of pure, pressurized oxygen cut through the sound of the rain. 

I pressed the mask over Lily's small face. 

"Breathe, kid," I ordered softly. 

For ten agonizing seconds, nothing happened. Elara gripped my forearm, her nails digging half-moons into my skin. 

Then, Lily's chest hitched. 

A sharp, rattling gasp echoed inside the plastic mask. Her frail body arched off the concrete, desperately pulling the rich oxygen into her starving lungs. A second breath followed. Then a third, evening out into a steady, mechanized rhythm. The terrifying blue tint around her mouth slowly began to fade. 

Elara collapsed forward, burying her face into my chest. Her shoulders shook with violent, silent sobs. 

I wrapped my good arm around her, pulling her onto my lap. I buried my face in her wet, dark hair, holding her so tightly I was afraid I might break her. 

"She's okay," I whispered against her ear, rocking her slightly. "I've got her. I've got you both." 

Elara pulled back slightly, looking up at me. Her gray eyes were completely raw, stripped of all defenses. 

"You came back," she breathed, her hand resting over the Rossi crown tattooed on my chest. "You really came back to me."

"I never left," I promised, pressing a fierce, desperate kiss to her forehead. "Not in my heart. Never."

The heavy metal door of the roof access clanged open. 

Matteo, the Capo, stumbled onto the roof, clutching his bleeding shoulder. He was followed by five surviving Rossi soldiers, all of them heavily armed and looking completely battered. 

Matteo froze. 

He stared at the burning wreckage. He stared at Elara, covered in blood. And then, his eyes locked onto me. 

He had watched the ambulance sink into the river a year ago. He had mourned me. 

"Don Cassian," Matteo whispered, dropping his assault rifle. It clattered against the tarmac. The hardened mafia soldier dropped to his knees in the puddles, tears mixing with the rain on his scarred face. "You're alive."

The other soldiers immediately followed, sinking to their knees, bowing their heads toward the man they thought was a ghost. 

I looked over the kneeling men, then looked down at the woman in my arms. 

"Matteo," I called out, my voice commanding the storm. 

The Capo snapped his head up. "Yes, Boss."

"Call the private airstrip," I ordered, my eyes turning cold as I looked past him, toward the dark horizon where the High Table’s global headquarters lay hidden. "Tell them to prep the med-bay on the jet for my sister-in-law."

Matteo nodded frantically, pulling his radio. "And then where do we fly, Don Rossi? Back to Marseille?"

I helped Elara to her feet, supporting her weight against my side. I looked down at the bloody, broken mess the High Table had made of my family. 

"No," I said, a dark, terrifying smile curving my lips. "We're flying to Rome. Call the Five Families. Tell them the king is back from the dead. And tell them we are going to war."