Kidnapping the Assassin: The Mafia Don’s Fatal Mistake

The Weight of a Dead King

Chapter 13

[Elara]

Dead weight is entirely different from unconscious weight. It pulls at the earth with a finality that physics alone can’t explain.

Cassian slipped through my arms, his broad shoulders hitting the damp stone floor of the maintenance tunnel with a hollow thud. The sound echoed in the claustrophobic dark. I scrambled over his chest, my knees scraping against the rough rock.

"Cassian." My voice was a ruined, toxic rasp. I slapped his face. Once. Twice. The skin was already cooling, losing that impossible, radiating heat that had kept me grounded since he pulled me into his basement.

I pressed two fingers hard into the groove of his neck, right beneath the sharp line of his jaw.

Nothing.

Not a flutter. Not a thready push of blood. Just the terrifying, absolute stillness of a stopped heart.

The neurotoxin had done its work. It weaponized the nervous system, suffocating the brain while leaving the lungs gasping for air that couldn't be processed. He breathed it in so I wouldn't have to. He traded his empire, his oxygen, and his future for a woman who had spent the last two days planning how to abandon him.

I locked my hands together, placing the heel of my palm directly over the dark, sprawling tattoo on his chest. The ink of his crown was smeared with his own blood from his torn shoulder.

I thrust my weight down. Ribs groaned under the pressure.

"Don't do this," I whispered, pumping his chest. One. Two. Three. "I didn't agree to this. You don't get to die for me, Rossi."

Four. Five. Six.

My knuckles slipped on the slick fabric of his ruined suit. I adjusted my grip, locking my elbows, throwing my entire upper body into the compressions.

"Breathe," I ordered.

Silence.

"Breathe, you stubborn son of a bitch."

Ten minutes passed. Maybe twenty. Time fractured in that tunnel, breaking down into the agonizing rhythm of my hands slamming into his chest. My own lungs burned. The residual gas in my system made my vision swim with black spots, but I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

If I stopped, it meant he was gone. It meant the only person in this godforsaken world who looked at the monster inside me and called it a queen was rotting on a cavern floor.

My arms finally gave out. The muscles in my shoulders seized, and I collapsed forward, my forehead resting against the chilling skin of his collarbone.

A ragged, ugly sound tore out of my throat. It wasn't a sob. It was the sound of a tether snapping. For five years, I had kept my humanity locked in a tight, airless box to pay for my sister's medical bills. Cassian had pried it open with calloused hands and a terrifyingly gentle smile. Now, he was dead.

I slowly sat back on my heels.

The heavy iron door at the end of the tunnel groaned.

I didn't turn around. I kept my eyes on Cassian’s pale face.

Heavy, tactical boots crunched against the loose gravel. Three sets. Marco hadn't just sent enforcers to ensure the gas worked. He sent a cleanup crew to dispose of the bodies.

"Over here," a muffled voice echoed. The speaker was wearing a respirator. "Target down. The Don is with her. Looks like a double casualty."

"Put a bullet in their heads anyway. Marco wants photo confirmation."

I reached down, my fingers wrapping around the handle of the ceramic blade strapped to my ankle.

The grief vanished. It didn't fade or lessen; it calcified. It hardened into a suffocating, blinding sheet of pure, unadulterated violence. The assassin who killed for money died on the floor next to Cassian Rossi. The thing that stood up in her place didn't want a paycheck.

I turned around.

The lead enforcer raised his suppressed rifle, the flashlight attachment blinding me. He hesitated for a fraction of a second when he saw I was on my feet.

That microsecond cost him his life.

I closed the distance before his finger could compress the trigger. I grabbed the hot barrel of his rifle, jerking it upward as it fired harmlessly into the ceiling. With my other hand, I drove the ceramic blade under the seal of his respirator, sinking it to the hilt into his throat.

He gurgled, dropping the gun. I didn't let him fall. I used his body as a fleshy shield.

The other two men opened fire. Bullets chewed through their comrade's kevlar vest, wet impacts thudding into his spine. I unholstered the dead man’s sidearm from his hip, stepped out from behind his slumping corpse, and fired twice.

One shot took the second man in the kneecap. As he dropped, screaming, my next shot took the top of his head off.

The third man scrambled backward, his boots slipping on the slick stones. He fumbled with a radio strapped to his chest rig.

"Viper is alive! I repeat, the asset is—"

I threw the empty handgun. The heavy steel frame caught him square in the bridge of his nose, shattering bone. He stumbled, completely disoriented. I was on him before he hit the wall. I swept his legs out, pinning him to the floor with my knee planted firmly on his windpipe.

He clawed at my leg, his eyes bulging above his mask.

I leaned down, ripping the radio off his tactical vest. I pressed the transmission button.

The line crackled. Marco's voice came through, distorted and dripping with impatience. "Report. Do you have the bodies?"

I looked down at the enforcer suffocating under my weight. I twisted my knee, crushing his larynx. His hands fell away, lifeless.

I lifted the radio to my mouth. I didn't yell. I didn't scream. My voice was a dead, hollow whisper that promised absolute ruin.

"I'm coming up, Marco. And I'm