Page 161 of Assassin's Obsession

Every situation reads differently to the person experiencing it.

I didn't believe it because Candi and I see things in the same way if not for the same reasons.

It's weird, but it works.

"Don't you?" she sneers. "You think I won't go to the cops after this? Tell them what you did?"

"What exactly did I do?" I ask. There are so many things.

"I hear things working at the club."

"This is new." Salvatore pushes himself off the stainless steel wall with torture implements on it. "She hasn't said a word about knowing things before now."

Nina's gaze slides to him. "I know you own the club and that you're a mafia capo."

"You sound like you think that's some big secret." Salvatore pulls out his phone and taps the screen.

The tune for Candy Crush plays as he slides his finger over the screen.

"It is!" Nina glares. "You don't want the cops knowing the mafia owns the place."

"You mean the cops on our payroll, or the cops not on our payroll?" I ask.

"Right. This isn't a movie," she derides. "You don't have cops on your payroll."

"In a movie I'd spare you to show my humanity. In real life, I'm Death and today I end yours."

She gasps and stares up at me. "You can't kill me. I'm a woman. Everybody knows you have rules."

Ignoring her claim to know my rules, which do not apply in her favor, I ask, "Did you know Perla's plans for Candi when she bribed you to help them?"

Showing intelligence for the first time since I came into The Box, she refuses to answer. Because she knows the truth isnotgoing to set her free.

"She did not. She didn't even know what they drugged the wine with," Salvatore says, his fury at Nina's actions bleeding into his voice. "For all she knew, it was poison, not a knockout drug."

"You did know Salvatore owned the club though."

Nina nods, clearly not as proud of that fact now as she was a minute ago.

"So, you knew you sold information on how to access one of the mafia's properties to our enemies?" That would be an offense punishable by death in our world.

That she facilitated Candi's kidnapping only guarantees her demise at my hands.

When Salvatore questioned her earlier, Nina admitted that Gino showed her an access panel to a hallway that runs between Pitiful Princess and the business next to it. There's a stairway that leads to a passage that eventually connects up with one of New York's underground tunnels.

After looking into the history of the building, we learned that back in the thirties, the same man owned both business sites and ran an illegal gambling den in the back of both. We've got people checking the walls in the dressing room for access to the other backroom.

I don't know how Gino knew about the panel in the office and I never will, because he's dead and gone.

"How was I supposed to know they weren't your friends?" Nina asks truculently. "They're mafia too, right?"

"The fact they bribed you to give drugged wine to my wife and Death's woman should have been a big fucking clue," Salvatore bites out.

Nina's mouth twists into a pout. "They didn't tell me the wine was drugged."

"You lied to get Candi and Bianca to drink it. You knew." I pull out my knife and start flipping it over my knuckles.

Death is ready to claim another soul.

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