Page 143 of Assassin's Obsession

My cardio capacity is high, but after the last few hours, even I'm getting a little breathless from running again. I'm not slowing down though.

Angelo is at the end of this little jaunt, so that is where I want to be.

"I should have known about the secret egress point in the office." Derian sounds like he's walking in the park, not running through a dark forest.

"Pretty sure no one knew about it if you didn't."

Breaking out of the trees, we're confronted with a yard full of activity. Light blazes from every window in the house and men wearing skull masks carry bodies between them.

"Is everyone on our side okay?" I ask, feeling guilty I hadn't sooner.

Derian slows to a walk. "No injuries were reported." Then he asks, "All safe boss?"

And I know he's not talking to me. First, I'm not his boss. Second, he's wearing some kind of hands-free communicator because he's been having a conversation with Angelo and the others since we separated from them earlier.

"I thought he already said it was safe to come." That's the impression I got from the one side of the conversation I could hear, anyway.

Derian shrugs. "Just double checking."

I frown. If Derian is this overprotective, what is Angelo going to be like now that I've been kidnapped from under their noses?

He must've got an affirmative because he leads me through the house. An overturned chair near a pool of blood catches my eye. Wincing, I take in the other signs of violence. One of the windows in the great room has a bullet hole with spiderweb cracks all around it. There's another pool of blood near the fireplace.

The table the men were playing cards at earlier is littered with debris from some kind of altercation.

We reach the doorway to the room I saw the older man in earlier and my focus zeroes in on what I can see through it.

The first thing I see is the man passed out on the carpet. With his head at that weird angle, he might be dead. Probability is high.

There are two unmasked men in the room, Severu and Miceli De Luca. OMG. The freakin' godfather and Genovese don are here? Their sweat matted hair indicates they were two of the men wearing skull masks in the forest.

Wow. Just wow. Angelo had them on his Death crew?

Even two men so high up in the mafia can't hold my attention though. It's too caught by the man wearing a familiar skull mask.

Angelo.

The second I see him, the stress thrumming through my body goes down about a hundred levels and I take my first full breath since parting from him in the forest.

Huh, maybe it wasn't the cardio after all.

"I'll go help with cleanup," Derian tells his boss.

Angelo jerks his head in a single affirmative.

Derian leaves but I can't stop looking at Angelo long enough to tell him goodbye, or even thank you. Later. I'll do that later. Right now, I just want to soak in being near my beloved.

Harsh laughter from my left grates on my eardrums and I turn my head to see Queen Bitch.

Her expression is filled with condescending pity. "Look at the two of you. It's ridiculous."

"I don't know what you think is ridiculous, much less why you're laughing. Maybe it escaped your notice, but your husband is lying dead on the floor."

If that were Angelo, I sure as heck would not be laughing.

"You are here because of my callous son and that is laughable. That we thought we could use you as leverage and that you so clearly think he has feelings for you.He has no feelings," she sneers. "Tonight proves he has no honor or loyalty either."

Anger at her absolute lack of knowledge of her own son bursts out of me. "The only thing tonight proves is that it's a miracle he's turned out to be such a decent person considering the gene pool he swam out of."

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