Page 136 of Assassin's Obsession

Relief floods me when I manage to get the end of the shower rod to sit on the eave. Despite the hours of throwing balls for Mars with Cookie, my aim is not that great. If I had to toss it javelin style, I would probably miss and make enough racket to expose my escape attempt.

But this way, I just have to shove and the wood acts like a needle guiding the rope over the eave. It takes me longer than I'd like to catch the rod with the hanger hook, but eventually I do and I’m able to pull it back to me.

After removing the stick from the end of my makeshift rope, I tie it around the other part of the rope. Then I reattach the stick. It could still come in handy as a weapon.

Hoping for the best, I swing out on the rope and flip upside down to see what's below my room.

Light blazes from a window that looks into some kind of office. An older man is sitting at a desk facing the window. He's not looking up, but that could change any second.

Okay. Plan B.

Wrapping the rope around my knee, I flip back upward and quickly shimmy up the rope instead of down. Once I can reach the exposed beam under the eave, I climb onto it on my belly and check out the rest of the house on this side.

There's no light coming from the window on the first floor at the other end of the house. Of course, it's going to be as far away from me as possible.

Untying the rope, I draw it upward, looping it over my arm until I can scoot along the beam to the other end. Once I get it tied back onto the beam, the stick at the bottom of the rope, I shimmy down, remove the stick and proceed with the second part of my plan.

Running toward the forest as fast as my dancer's legs will carry me.

Chapter 37

ANGELO

As soon as I end the call with Perla, Miceli whistles. "Candi's right. Your mom is the one swimming in the bonkers end of the gene pool."

I had the call on speaker phone so Severu and Miceli could hear what Perla wanted. They heard Candi call me beloved too.

That's the only part of the phone call that means anything to me.

I'm not leaving my soul in Perla's clutches long enough for any harm to come to her.

"Se rat kay k ap manje kay." Derian intones.

Severu asks, "What does that mean?"

"It's the house rat that eats the house." Derian gives me a look of commiseration. "Your mother is one foul house rat."

"She's not from my house." Not anymore.

"She's a rat though," Miceli says with disgust.

While trying to convince me that I should kill Severu and make it look like a rival faction did it, Perla kept harping on the importance of family.

Too bad for her, I don't consider her or my grandfather family. Because I'm fucking loyal to family.

"It's time to deal with Don Messino," Severu grits out.

"The final step is already in place," I assure my boss.

And if my mother wasn't the catalyst for it, she would die tonight.

Thirty minutes out from our target, we pull on our masks. I dig in the weapons go bag I brought with me. We keep one in the hidden compartment of all the work SUVs. This one is from the SUV Derian drove into Manhattan earlier today.

I pull out two extra skull masks. Every weapons go bag for my team has them.

"Here, put these on." I hand the nitrile masks to Severu and Miceli. They're imprinted with skulls like ours, but are disposable. "The skull pattern prevents facial recognition from nodal points."

"That's why your team wear skull masks?" Miceli asks.

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