Kidnapping the Assassin: The Mafia Don’s Fatal Mistake

The River’s Tithe

Chapter 16

[Elara]

The impact felt like hitting a concrete wall.

The front end of the rig struck the surface of the harbor, instantly crushing the cab. The steel chassis shrieked, buckling inward as momentum flipped the massive vehicle end over end. My shoulder slammed into the metal gurney, pain radiating down my spine. The overhead lights shorted out in a shower of blue sparks, plunging the cabin into absolute, suffocating darkness.

Then came the roar of the water.

Freezing, oily river water violently exploded through the shattered back windows. It hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. The temperature was paralyzing.

The rig was sinking fast, the heavy armor plating dragging it straight down toward the muddy abyss.

Move.

I pushed through the disorienting black water, my hands blindly searching the submerged cabin. My fingers brushed the gurney. The heavy nylon restraints used for crash-transport were still strapped across Cassian’s chest.

"Cassian!" I screamed, a cascade of bubbles escaping my lips.

The water level was already at my chest and rising with terrifying speed. I fumbled with the thick plastic buckles. My fingers were going numb. The cold bit into my skin like thousands of tiny needles.

Click. The top buckle gave way.

I moved to the bottom one, my lungs starting to burn. The water swallowed my shoulders, rising to my chin. The rig groaned, the nose dipping downward as it slipped deeper beneath the surface.

Suddenly, a heavy hand clamped around my ankle.

I kicked out wildly, thrashing in the dark water. Enzo. He was bleeding out, drowning, and in his final moments of terrified panic, he was trying to drag me down with him.

His grip was like a steel vice. He yanked hard, pulling me under.

The black, freezing water rushed into my nose. I twisted my body, driving the heel of my unpinned boot directly down into his face. I felt his nose shatter under the iron tip. His grip loosened just enough for me to tear my leg free.

I surged upward, breaking the surface of the tiny air pocket left at the ceiling of the rig. I gasped, swallowing oily water, choking violently.

I had ten seconds before the pocket disappeared entirely.

I reached down, plunging my hands back into the freezing water to find Cassian’s second buckle. The chassis shifted, groaning under the immense water pressure. A twisted beam of steel collapsed inward, pinning the lower half of the gurney completely.

Panic, primal and absolute, seized my chest.

I pulled at his shoulders. I wrapped my arms around his cold, heavy torso, planting my boots against the wall and pulling with strength I didn't know a human body could possess.

He didn't budge. The metal beam had him trapped.

"No," I sobbed into the dark, my tears instantly washing away in the river water. "No, no, no. Cassian, please!"

I dove under the water, my eyes burning in the toxic murk, trying to find leverage to lift the beam. It was easily a thousand pounds of reinforced steel. My fingers bled as I clawed uselessly against the metal.

My lungs screamed for oxygen. The burning turned to a sharp, agonizing pressure behind my eyes.

Through the murky darkness, something brushed my cheek.

Fingers.

Cassian’s hand found my face. The shock of the freezing water must have triggered a microscopic surge of adrenaline in his dying brain.

His dark eyes fluttered open. Even in the gloom, I could see the broken blood vessels, the haunting gray pallor of his skin. He was looking at me.

He didn't thrash. He didn't panic.

He just stared at me with a devastating, heartbreaking calm.

His large, calloused thumb weakly brushed my cheek one final time. Then, he flattened his palm against my chest.

And he pushed me away.

It wasn't a hard push, but in the weightlessness of the water, it drifted me backward, away from the trapped gurney. He was telling me to go. He was choosing the river so I could choose to live.

Live for Lily. That was the unspoken command in his fading eyes.

His hand went slack, drifting lazily into the dark water. His eyes slid shut.

The last pocket of air vanished. The rig was completely submerged, plunging violently toward the riverbed.

A silent, agonizing scream ripped through the water as I watched the darkness swallow him whole. My heart tore. It didn't just break—it shattered into jagged, bleeding shards that carved out the last remaining piece of my humanity.

I kicked my legs, abandoning the gurney, abandoning the man who had laid down his empire for me. I swam through the shattered back window, fighting the agonizing pressure, fighting the current that tried to drag me down with him.

Up. Up into the freezing void.

My head broke the surface of the river.

I sucked in a massive, ragged breath, the freezing rain violently lashing my face. I treaded water in the pitch black, spinning around frantically, searching the roiling surface of the harbor.

Nothing. Just wreckage, oil, and the relentless, pounding storm.

I dragged myself toward the muddy bank of the river, my muscles failing, my blood turning to ice. I collapsed into the freezing mud, coughing up river water and bile.

I lay there for a long time. The rain washed the mud and Cassian’s blood off my skin.

When I finally pushed myself up onto my hands and knees, the woman who had walked into the cathedral was gone. The sister who just wanted to pay hospital bills was dead.

I looked back at the black river, my chest completely hollowed out. There was no warmth left. There was no fear.

Enzo had wanted to clean up a mess. Instead, he had unleashed a plague.

I pulled my dripping hair out of my face, my eyes locking onto the distant, glowing skyline of the city that had just taken my husband.

The Don was dead.

Long live the Viper.