Page 139 of Assassin's Obsession

Saying the words is harder than I expect. I don't want to leave her. But I don't want her to watch me become Death either.

"No." Her tough exterior cracks, letting the trauma she's experienced bleed through. "I don't want to be away from you."

"Amate, you cannot participate in this fight."

"No, duh. But can't I just go and be off to the side somewhere?" she asks in that pleading tone I hate to hear from her lips.

The fact that in her fear and stress, she wants to be near me does things to the heart I never thought I had before her, but I shake my head. "Too risky."

Candi takes a deep breath and lets it out. Twice.

"Okay." Releasing me, she steps back. "I know this is the way this has to go down. I'll be fine. "

I have never been in a situation where what I knew I should do is so at war with what I want to do. I want to stay with her and make her feel safe, but for her to genuinely be safe, she needs to go with Derian.

Fury at the situation my mother has caused rolls through me. I pull Candi to me, pull my mask up above my mouth and kiss her like she's my world. Because she is.

"Stay safe," she whispers and steps back. "Which one of your Death lookalikes is Derian?"

"Me." Derian puts his hand up. "I'm wounded you didn't recognize my manly stance."

"We'll talk about your dip into toxic masculinity when we're out of the way," she sasses and lets Derian lead her away.

I lift my fist. "Now, we hunt."

I'm running toward my first target as I make the sign to move.

The battle goes quickly. Too quickly to sate my fury and bloodlust. I kill two men in the forest and four of the mafiasoldiers left to guard the house. Blood soaks my clothes and my knife drips with it.

"All targets down or accounted for," Derian's voice sounds over the com units.

He's back at the original recon point with Candi and monitoring with the heat signature scanner.

"Order a cleanup and disposal crew." None of thesestronzosare making it back to Italy for burial.

Miceli handled the four civilians, leaving them drugged with Special-K and in their beds at the guardhouse. They'll wake up tomorrow with little or no memory of today.

All sixteen of the mafia soldiers are dead, including the one stationed outside my mother's bedroom. I left her inside, none the wiser.

"Wait ten minutes and then bring Candi to the house." By then we'll be done doing what needs to be done.

Chapter 38

ANGELO

Don Barone hasn't moved from where Candi saw him last. He's still sitting in the office, drinking a glass of wine and listening to fucking opera.

"That's pretty cliché," I judge, stepping into the room.

He jumps to his feet. "How did you get in here? You know you aren't getting out alive," he threatens. "I have twenty men guarding this place."

"Yeah. It felt like overkill, eight of us against only twenty of them." Miceli sidles up to stand beside me. "I only got to kill two."

"Stop complaining." Severu walks past both of us to face Don Barone. "You got to play drug-the-security-guards and get them to fall in their own beds."

"What can I say? I like a challenge."

"Who are you people? If it's money you want—"

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