Kidnapping the Assassin: The Mafia Don’s Fatal Mistake

The Judas Protocol

Chapter 15

[Elara]

"I need a medic! Now!"

My voice ripped through the cavernous quiet of the cathedral, raw and unrecognizable. The commanding presence of the Donna vanished, replaced by the frantic, entirely human terror of a woman watching the man she loved slip into the dark.

The spell over the kneeling soldiers broke instantly.

A man in a charcoal suit sprinted down the aisle, barking orders into a lapel mic. He was young, viciously scarred across the jaw, and moved with a frantic urgency that mirrored my own. Vincenzo. Cassian’s underboss. The man Cassian trusted more than his own shadow.

"Get the armored trauma rig to the east loading doors!" Enzo roared at the men, sliding to his knees beside me in the elevator car. His eyes locked onto Cassian’s ash-gray face, and for a second, raw grief fractured his hardened expression. "Christ, Cass... hang on, brother."

Enzo didn't hesitate. He hooked his arms under Cassian’s shoulders. Two other Capos grabbed his legs. They hoisted his massive, limp frame, carrying him out of the cage like a fallen god.

I followed closely, my bloody hands shaking, leaving a trail of red across the holy marble floor.

The east doors burst open. A heavily modified, matte-black ambulance idled in the pouring rain. Enzo and the Capos shoved Cassian’s body onto the metal gurney inside. A syndicate trauma surgeon was already tearing open a crash cart.

"Get in," Enzo ordered, grabbing my elbow and hauling me up into the back of the rig.

He slammed the heavy doors shut, plunging us into the harsh, sterile white glare of the overhead LEDs. The rig lurched forward, tires screaming against the wet asphalt as we tore away from the cathedral.

"Heart rate is four beats a minute," the surgeon shouted over the wail of the siren, slapping defibrillator pads onto Cassian’s bare, tattooed chest. "The toxin is crystalizing in his alveoli. I need to push a massive dose of epinephrine straight into his heart, or he’s gone in three minutes."

"Do it," I commanded, bracing my hand against the steel wall as the ambulance took a violent turn.

I looked down at Cassian. His lips were blue. The bruising on his shoulder from the shotgun blast had spread, creeping across his collarbone like a dark rot. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to take the needle and do it myself, but my hands wouldn't stop violently trembling.

The surgeon pulled a massive syringe from a sterile pack, the needle impossibly long. He uncapped it, aiming for the center of Cassian’s chest.

Crack.

The sound was deafening in the enclosed space.

Hot, wet copper sprayed across my face.

The surgeon’s eyes rolled back into his head. A neat, black hole had blossomed directly between his eyebrows. He crumpled to the floor, the life-saving syringe clattering uselessly under the metal gurney.

My ears rang. Cordite stung the back of my throat.

Time slowed to a terrifying crawl. I turned my head.

Enzo stood at the rear doors of the rig. The grief on his face was completely gone. In its place was a cold, calculating emptiness. His suppressed Glock was aimed directly at my chest.

"Nothing personal, Viper," the underboss murmured, his finger tightening on the trigger. "But Marco was right about one thing. Cassian is weak. He traded the greatest syndicate in the world for a piece of tail. The Commission needs a real king."

He fired.

I didn't think. The Viper took over. I threw my body backward, crashing over Cassian’s chest just as the bullet tore through the air where my heart had been a millisecond prior. The round punched into the steel wall behind me, sparking violently.

I didn't have my rifle. I didn't have my sidearm. I had exactly one weapon left.

I kicked upward from the floor. My heavy, iron-tipped combat boot connected squarely with Enzo’s wrist. Bone snapped loudly. He barked in pain, the gun spinning out of his hand, but he was a street brawler. Before I could recover my footing, he lunged.

His massive hands wrapped around my throat, slamming the back of my head against the metal wall of the rig.

White lights exploded behind my eyes. Oxygen cut off instantly.

"You're a glitch in the system, Elara," Enzo snarled, spit flying onto my cheek as his thumbs crushed my windpipe. "You and Cassian both. I’m just cleaning up the mess."

My vision blurred. I couldn't breathe. My right hand the one with the mangled, relocated thumb flailed blindly over the medical tray. My fingers bumped cold metal.

The surgeon's scalpel.

I grabbed the tiny, razor-sharp handle. I didn't aim. I just drove it upward with every ounce of dying strength I had left.

The blade sank deep into the soft meat beneath Enzo’s armpit, severing the axillary artery.

He shrieked, his grip instantly slackening as hot blood poured down his side. I gasped for air, shoving him backward.

But as Enzo stumbled, he hit the heavy reinforced partition separating the cab from the back of the ambulance. He hit the intercom button, shouting to his driver.

"Bail! Drive it off the bridge and bail!"

Through the small glass window, I saw the driver slam the steering wheel hard to the right. The heavy armored rig violently swerved. The driver threw open his door and tucked into a roll, tumbling out onto the slick, rainy asphalt.

We were doing eighty miles an hour.

I looked out the back window. The steel guardrail of the suspension bridge was rushing toward us at a catastrophic speed.

Below it lay a hundred-foot drop into the freezing, black waters of the harbor.

I dove across the shaking cabin, throwing my arms tightly over Cassian’s unconscious body. I buried my face in his neck, closing my eyes.

The rig tore through the steel barrier like paper.

Gravity vanished.