Page 140 of Assassin's Obsession

I don't let the bastard finish his sentence, punching him so hard, his head snaps back and his body goes with it. Don Barone collapses to the ground, knocked out.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Miceli bitches.

Severu prods Don Barone with his booted foot. "Wake up,stronzo. You don't want to miss the finale, considering you've got a starring role."

The Sicilian don groans.

"Have they found her?" Perla stops two feet into the room, her eyes going wide with fear.

She spins to run right back out, but Miceli is already blocking the doorway behind her.

"Who are you?" she demands with more arrogance than bravado.

I laugh, the sound hollow and without humor. "Don't you recognize your son?"

"Take that silly mask off, Angelo. Don't think this little display changes anything." She waves toward my mask and the other two men wearing skulls for faces. "Even if you find Candi before our men, she's at risk until you kill Severu De Luca."

I don't take off my mask, but Severu takes his off. "That is not going to happen."

Grabbing Don Barone by the scruff of his neck, he lifts him and shakes him until the other man groggily says, "Whaaa… "

"Stop that! You can't treat a don that way."

"Looks like I can," Severu says sardonically.

"I am the daughter of the Sicilian godfather. That is his son-in-law. You don't dare do anything to us."

Severu's eyes go glacially cool. "You thought you could come into my territory and conspire to have me assassinated, but believe I can't do anything to youin my own fucking territory?"

Perla's mouth opens and closes without a single word coming out.

Unamused by the tableau, I ask her, "Where is your phone?"

"In the bedroom." She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at me. "The least you can do is take that macabre thing off your head."

"The least I can do isnotkill you. Get your fucking phone. Miceli will go with you."

"Don't try to run," Miceli warns. "You won't like the consequences."

"I know your mother and how she raised you," Perla scoffed.

"She taught me to respect women, but you're a rat and my father taught me to exterminate those."

Perla tilts her chin, like she's above the threat, but her nervous breathing shows she took him seriously.

They're back in a couple of minutes, Miceli looking disgruntled. "She walked right by a door to the outside and didn't even try to open it. I mean, Candi climbed out a second-story window to escape."

"My mother is not in the same league asmia amate."

Miceli peels off his mask and tucks it into his pocket, then shakes the sweaty hair away from his forehead. "I'm rethinking wanting one of my own."

I shrug. "You get used to it."

With a shake of his head for our byplay, Severu orders my mom to make a video call to my grandfather.

Glaring with impotent defiance, Perla swipes across the screen. I move next to her so I can watch to make sure she's doing what Severu tells her to. But she taps her number one contact and hits video call.

It rings four times before Don Messino answers.

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