Page 137 of Assassin's Obsession

I nod.

"Huh. I thought it was because everyone calls you Death."

Derian pulls on his mask. "Scares the hell out of targets and that's always a plus."

"I'm keeping this one," Miceli informs me.

I shake my head. "It's disposable. I'll have one made for you like ours."

"Cool."

Severu shakes his head. "If I didn't know any better, I'd believe you two were the ones that shared genes."

"That's why Angelo is our brother. He fits."

Severu grunts, but he doesn't deny it.

This is the family I am loyal to. My family by choice, the De Lucas. My team who are also my brothers in arms. My soul, Candi, and the mom and sister she brought into my life. Not the fucking Messinos.

I never fit with them and I never will.

Perla tried to tell me that killing Severu wouldn't come back on me. That my grandfather would make me a don.

But the sickly old man isn't a kingmaker anymore. And even if he was, he wouldn't be making me one. He'd sacrifice me for his plans, not put me in the center of them.

The pilot kills the lights ten klicks out. When he reaches the clearing a klick away from the house, he drops altitude and hovers.

There's no way to mask the sound of a helicopter out here, so our only option is to do the drop far enough out it won't draw too much attention. Once it flies overhead on the way to the municipal airport, with the lights back on, our helicopter will be unremarkable.

Putting on low profile night vision goggles that slide right over the skull eye sockets on our masks, eight of us prepare to rappel down two ropes hanging off the side of the helicopter. One of my men will stay onboard to pull the ropes in before the pilot takes the bird back up to altitude and turns back on the lights.

I go first, landing with a soft thud, my knees bent for impact. Seven more thumps follow, Severu, Miceli and my team landing around me in quick succession.

As one, we jog toward the target property.

I slow to a stop and put my fist up to indicate we are 100 yards out. The rest of the team takes up a wedge formation behind me. Derian drops to one knee and holds up the heat signature scanner to read the location of bodies on the property.

I take the moment to check Candi's location app. Her dot is moving, but not fast enough to be in a car.

Are they moving her from the house to a more secure location? There's a small guardhouse on the property where the security team in charge of protecting the property stay full-time. Maybe it has a basement.

Perhaps the sound of the helicopter made them wary but why not move her to the saferoom inside the house? It's a given there's a panic room there somewhere. However, Candi's not in it if she's moving.

"Two in the guardhouse," Derian says quietly. "One moving through the forest." He sucks in a breath.

"What is it?"

"There's a mass exiting the back of the house."

I don't ask for numbers. It's impossible to distinguish between heat signatures when they're close together.

"They're fanning out and running this way. I count six heat signatures."

Derian's update makes my gut clench. Candi escaped and she's being chased.

"The single runner is not a scout," I inform everyone quietly over the com units. "It's Candi."

"Roger that," is repeated back to me five times.

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