Page 41 of Angel of Light (Lords of The Commission: New York #5)

MAX

The moment I saw Alison’s face, I stopped breathing.

Not a single scratch marred her angelic features, but her expression was off somehow.

Blood roared through my ears, drowning out Francesca’s protests behind me, the echo of her voice fading as I stalked across the office.

My hands cupped Alison’s cheeks before she could say a word, scanning her face, her neck, the hollow of her collarbone for any bruise, any mark that I didn’t put there.

“Did he hurt you?” My voice cracked under the weight of panic. “Did Diego hurt you?”

Her fingers curled around my wrists, not pulling me away but grounding me instead. “No. No. I’m fine.” Alison said, her voice steady. “But you’re hurt.”

“I’m okay.”

Her expression morphed from relieved to see me breathing to something much tighter. Like her mind was sprinting towards a fleeting prey, and I was the one on the menu.

“Wait. How do you know Diego was in my apartment?” She used that same grip on my wrists to pull my hands off her skin like they were no longer welcome.

“I huh–.” I looked over at Matt, confirming that this was the place where all lies had come to die, and mine was next. He shrugged as if saying, ‘welcome to the slaughterhouse, have a great slay’.

“Don’t look at him,” She spat, her authoritative tone sending a thrilling shiver down my spine that was so fucking contradictory with what was about to happen that I couldn’t even understand it. “How did you know, Max?”

“Vincenzo.”

Her gaze narrowed into sharp slits, analyzing me, the wheels in her pretty little head turning as she went through every conversation, every breadcrumb she could recall, every half-truth I hadn’t buried well enough.

Sooner or later, this needed to happen. I guess there’s no better time than the present.

I exhaled loudly, my eyes shutting tightly, resigning myself to the blow of anger coming my way.

“Alison–” I tried, even against my own better judgment.

“No,” she said, her voice cutting through the tense atmosphere. “Don’t you dare lie to me again.”

We were all frozen to our spots while Alison paced the office, her hand covering her mouth as she tried to find the right words to say.

“You knew Diego was that little boy’s uncle. You knew who the father was, too.”

“Ali, listen to me.”

“Vincenzo called you a bastardo .” She turned to Matt next, “Yesterday, you told Vincenzo Max didn’t need to fuck his way up, he just needed to take the power.

” She was back to me, “ Anche un fratello. That’s what you said, right?

That you’d kill anyone to keep me safe, even a brother. You didn’t mean mine.”

“Alison.” I tried taking a step towards her, but she was quick to back away as if I could stain her by touching her. Her face was contorted in disbelief. The sting of betrayal clear in her shock.

“Don’t touch me.” Her words cut like glass, but I deserved every single one of them.

“The kids at school,” she paused again, her eyes deeply buried into mine, now making me brace myself for the ultimate thunder that was brewing in her storm.

“Max…” She whispered, her head shaking in either denial or disbelief.

“Tell me your name. I wanna hear you say it.”

I hesitated for a second, my head shaking repeatedly in denial.

“Say it.” She barely whispered, but her tone spoke right to my heart.

“Gabriel,” I said, pausing for a moment, the next word cutting my tongue on its way out, “Massimo.”

Her chest heaved at an increased rhythm, and I couldn’t believe this was how she was finding out.

I was supposed to be the one to tell her, but I was too ashamed of my own blood, of my own sins to allow myself that privilege.

Or maybe this was my fucked up way of saying goodbye.

Because if she hated me, she wouldn’t miss the fact that she loved me first.

“You’re his brother, aren’t you?” Her voice was still small until she couldn’t bear my silence anymore, “AREN’T YOU?”

Silence fell over the office. Francesca stood frozen while Matt and Liam stiffened.

“You knew, too?” Her voice cracked as she spoke to her brothers before sharpening with the rest of her accusation, “That he’s my fiancé’s brother?”

They kept their silence in confirmation. There was no denying it anymore.

“You lied to me,” she whispered.

“I didn’t lie. I kept it from you to protect you.”

“Oh, is that what we’re calling it now? Protection? Was fucking me in his bed part of that plan?” She took a step towards me in confrontation. She was out for blood and didn’t care about the audience.

“Alison, I don’t think this is the place to discuss that.”

“No, fuck that. This is the perfect place, and now I want to know. Was drenching his sheets in my cum and yours combined some kind of brotherly love? Some sick and twisted competition you have going on since you were teenagers? Or was it payback because he always ate your favorite parts of chicken? Tell me, Max, why did you fuck me in your brother’s bed? ”

“IT WAS MY BED!” I yelled back. There was no way she could have known, but some part of me hoped she felt it. That she knew. Stupid, of course, because there was no way she could.

Alison sucked in a breath, and while I couldn’t so much as steal a glance away from her, I felt Matt’s hands curling into fists, waiting to smash my face in and make good on his promise.

“The scar on Vincenzo’s neck.” Alison kept sliding the pieces of my puzzle into place while all four of us watched her unravel, “You killed Diego’s father. And you let me walk into the middle of that blood feud without knowing the full truth.”

“I didn’t let you walk into anything. I tried keeping you away from it. With every ounce of strength I had in me, I tried to push you away from all of it.”

“And where the hell were you,” Matt growled, stepping forward now, and more than wanting the answer to that question, he wanted to stop Alison’s spiral, “when Diego strolled into her apartment like he owned the fucking place and drugged my bodyguard? Where were you then?”

I exhaled. “I was at Vincenzo’s hotel.”

I shouldn’t have left her. I called Jimmy to take my place as so many other times, but it should have been me there.

Matt blinked, stepping closer to me, “What?”

“I needed answers. He’s the one turning Alison into a bargaining chip with a target on my back. I wasn’t going to let it stand. I needed to know what this new urgency was about.”

Alison folded her arms. Her voice was razor-sharp and filled with disdain. “And? What did brother-dearest have to say?”

I took a deep breath and laid it all out. Every motive, every sick twist of Vincenzo’s plan.

How I’d fought my way past his guards. How I’d walked in on him pretending to be whole when his body was failing. How he sat there, cane across his lap, drink in hand, and dared me to play his game.

I told them how I accused him of setting the bomb. Of hurting her, and especially how he didn’t deny it.

“He had a tracker in that fucking ruby,” I spat, staring straight at Alison.

“He knew where you were. And when he thought you were out of town, he placed that bomb knowing you’d go after the Cartel with all you had.

It was all calculated. Collateral damage for a tighter alliance.

There’s nothing more bonding than hatred for the same person. ”

Matt’s jaw clenched, the fire burning in his veins screaming for revenge while Liam cursed under his breath.

“I almost took his head off. But then he said something he knew would stop me. That I was wasting my breath on threats while Diego sat in your apartment.”

Alison was frozen in her spot now, and even though the half-truth I’d been feeding her for over three years told her to be wary of my words, she didn’t question a single one right now.

“He baited me. Played me, knowing he had a winning hand. But that’s when it clicked. The sudden urgency. The marriage. The Cartel deal falling apart. It wasn’t about territory or legacy.”

I met Matt’s gaze.

“It was about Camila and his son. The little boy you bumped into at the Ritz.”

Matt’s face twisted with disbelief.

“Camila gave him an ultimatum, too. Cut ties and all business deals with her family, or never see his son again. And Vincenzo’s too proud to beg and too afraid to lose her again.

So what does he do? He comes to you, pushes for the wedding again when he saw Alison falling through the cracks, because he knows Diego will retaliate once the deal ends. ”

“And he needs us,” Francesca muttered. “He needs the Battaglias and the Amatos.”

“Exactly. It’s not about power. It’s about protection. For blood loyalty. He thinks this wedding cements that. But it’s not about love. It’s not even about legacy.”

I looked at Alison. Her eyes hadn’t softened an inch.

“It’s about leverage,” She completed.

Alison inhaled, shook her head like she was shaking off a nightmare. And then, with that sharp gleam I’d seen before, the same one that told me she wasn’t broken, just bent, she stepped forward.

“Then we give him a better deal.”

Everyone’s eyes focused on Alison as she stood taller. Whatever plan was forming in her brilliant mind gave her a new confidence.

“I’m sorry, what?” Matt asked.

“Jackson,” she said. “He’s the key.”

“Jackson would rather shoot himself in the foot than get mixed up in a mafia war.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, because what you don’t know yet is that Jackson is the new head of the Yakuza. He’s taken his father’s place, but he needs our help.”

“How do you know this?” Liam asked.

“Jackson reached out to me. He needs Jimmy’s skills to wipe his record from every police file and every database in every law enforcement agency. No fingerprints, no photos, no mentions of his name. If we do that, we can ask for whatever we want in exchange.”

“Wait,” Francesca chimed in, filling in the blanks as if she were reading Alison’s mind. “You’re thinking?”

“We make Jackson the new distribution head. Let the Yakuza take over laundering and drug flow from the Massimos. Let them deal with Diego. Shift the weight, redirect the attack. Vincenzo wants to back out of the Cartel without dying. Diego needs a new partner. Jackson fills both roles.”

Matt stared at her and her brilliance, and all I could do was smile and love her more than a minute ago.

“It gets Vincenzo out clean, it protects our family, and it gives Jackson the power he needs to prove his worth in his new role.”

“And the wedding?” I asked.

Alison didn’t so much as look at me.

“It becomes unnecessary,” she said flatly. “A placeholder deal Vincenzo no longer needs.”

I took a step toward her. “Alison.”

She finally met my gaze again. Fire and ice in her eyes.

“Don’t. Not now.”

“I didn’t do this to hurt you–”

“You think that makes it better?” Her voice was unwavering. “Was loving me a lie, too?”

“I never lied about loving you. I’ve loved you since the first time I saw you, and that's exactly why I couldn’t risk losing you.”

She stared at me. And for a second, I saw the flicker of something deeper swimming in those green eyes. All this was talking to that part of her that made her feel unwanted. Unloved. I hated myself further because of it.

Then she blinked it away.

“I need to speak with my loved ones now. Alone.”

“Let me explain–”

“You heard her.” Liam cut me off, walking towards the door and opening it, gesturing for me to leave, and before I could protest again, Alison made it clear that I wasn’t welcome.

“Get out, Max.”

I didn’t beg. I didn’t argue. There was no use. But fuck me if I was going down without a fight.

I left, allowing her the space she needed right now.

Because that’s what you do when the woman you love looks at you like you’re the bomb that ruined her world.