Page 59 of Angel of Light (Lords of The Commission: New York #5)
ALISON
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the empty bed, yet I was sure it couldn’t have been a drunken dream because his scent was everywhere.
Max’s cologne mixed with his natural scent, lingering on the shirt I was wearing, on the pillow case, on the sheets, and most importantly, my skin.
Of course he was gone. Had I imagined him saying he would follow me across the country?
My head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, while my mouth tasted like I’d been licking the floor of Dea Tacita. The price of vodka shots and poor life choices, apparently.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.
My phone was having a seizure on the nightstand, lighting up with call after call. Matt’s name flashed across the screen, and my heart immediately jumped into my throat.
Something was wrong. Something had to be catastrophically, horribly wrong for him to be calling this many times this early.
I fumbled for the phone, nearly dropping it in my haste to answer.
“Matt? What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
“ALISON!” His voice boomed through the speaker, making me wince and hold the phone away from my ear. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
I blinked, confused and still half-asleep. “What?”
“Don’t play dumb with me. I found your note, Alison. If this is your version of revenge, it’s not fucking funny.”
Note?
And then it hit me. Fragments of last night came flooding back in drunken, hazy pieces. The alley behind Dea Tacita. Adrianne squealing about something small and furry. Me, completely wasted, declaring that we needed to save it.
Oh no.
Adrianne walked into my bedroom then, and I motioned for her to sit on the bed with me. After all, she’d helped me and deserved the recognition, too.
“You mean the kitten?” I asked innocently, shrugging towards Adrianne. Though I was starting to remember more details that made my stomach drop.
“KITTEN? THIS IS NOT A FUCKING KITTEN, ALISON!” Matt’s voice reached a pitch I didn’t know was possible for a grown man. “YOU LEFT A MOTHERFUCKING POSSUM IN MY OFFICE!”
The laugh that escaped me was completely involuntary. It started as a snicker and quickly escalated into full-blown, tear-inducing laughter that made my hangover infinitely worse.
“Oh my God,” I gasped between fits of giggles. “A possum? Are you serious?”
I could hear Francesca in the background, lost between screams and giggles.
“Do I sound like I’m joking? This thing is in my office, Alison. In. My. Office. It knocked over my coffee, ate my fucking breakfast, and it’s currently sitting on my desk like it fucking owns the place!”
I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe. “Did... did you read the note?”
“Oh, I read it. ‘To help you learn how to take care of a living being. Baby steps.’ Really, Alison? A possum was your solution to teaching me responsibility?”
“I thought it was a kitten!” I wheezed, wiping tears from my eyes while Adrianne was now face planted on the mattress, her body shaking as she laughed. “It was dark, and we were a bit drunk, and it was just sitting there looking so sad, and–”
“You were not a bit drunk. You were fucking out of your mind stoned because this isn’t even the size of a kitten.
” He continued grumbling while I sat on my bed and laughed.
“Great. Just fucking great. It’s playing dead now!
Do you know how disturbing it is to walk into your office and find what you think is a dead animal on your desk? ”
That sent us into another fit of laughter. I could picture it perfectly, my intimidating, powerful brother walking into his pristine office to find a possum having made itself at home.
“I’m sorry,” I managed, though I was still giggling. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“You better be. And you better get your ass down here and figure out how to get this thing out of my office. I have a meeting in an hour, and I can’t exactly conduct business with wildlife as my co-host.”
“Okay, okay. We’ll be there soon. See you in a bit.”
I was about to hang up to contact animal control or something to help me with this situation, when Matt cut me off.
“Is Max with you? I’ve been trying to reach him all morning, but his phone’s going straight to voicemail.”
My stomach dropped. The laughter died in my throat immediately.
“No, he’s not here. He left... sometime during the night, I think.”
“Shit. Alright, just get down here. And bring Adrianne if she’s still breathing. She’s an accomplice in this madness.”
The line went dead, and I sat there for a moment with the humor of the situation fading as Matt’s words sank in.
I tried calling Max, and just as my brother had said, straight to voicemail.
I dragged myself out of bed, my head spinning from the sudden movement. I needed water, coffee, and possibly an exorcism to deal with this hangover.
“Ready in twenty?” I asked, and Adrianne nodded in confirmation.
She groaned and rolled over, one eye cracking open to look at me. “I can’t believe it was a possum.”
“Me neither, but we need to go rescue Matt from our drunken good deed.”
“What a way to meet the family.”
“Don’t worry, his wrath will be directed at me.”
Twenty minutes later, we’d both managed to make ourselves look somewhat human. Adrianne was moving like every step caused her physical pain, and I wasn’t much better. We almost raced toward the kitchen like two zombies in search of caffeine.
The smell hit me before the hallway ended. Food. Real, greasy, hangover-curing food.
Jimmy was standing at the counter, pulling containers out of an Uber Eats bag. The variety was impressive. Bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, fresh fruit, green smoothies that looked like Chlorophyll threw up in a plastic cup, and what looked like enough coffee for a small army.
“Jimmy,” I breathed, feeling like I might cry from gratitude. “You’re an angel. An absolute angel. Thank you.”
He looked up, giving me a small smile. “It wasn’t me, Miss Battaglia. Max texted me saying it was arriving. He said you’d probably need it.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I stared at the food, at this gesture of care and thoughtfulness, and felt my chest tighten with emotion.
After everything that had happened last night, all the pain and the impossibility of our situation, he’d still thought to take care of me.
“He also restocked your medicine cabinet,” Jimmy continued, setting out plates. “Painkillers, electrolyte packets, that ginger tea you like when you’re sick. And he left fresh flowers on your nightstand, in case you missed them.” I had. In the rush to get out of bed and ready, I hadn’t seen them.
“Where is he? Do you know?”
Jimmy’s expression grew serious. “I don’t know, Miss Battaglia. He left around six this morning, saying he had something urgent to handle. I tried calling him about an hour ago, but his phone’s off.”
The worry that had been simmering in my stomach since Matt mentioned not being able to reach him suddenly exploded into full-blown panic.
Max never turned his phone off. Never. He was always reachable, always available for whatever crisis might arise. This was one of Matt’s rules. The fact that he was unreachable now...
“Did he say where he was going? Or when he was coming back?”
“No. Just that it was important and he needed to handle it alone.”
Adrianne was watching this exchange with growing concern, her hangover temporarily forgotten.
Shit.
Could our conversation last night have tipped him into doing something dangerously stupid?
I grabbed my phone, trying his number again. Straight to voicemail.
The sound of his voice on the recording made my chest ache. Professional, controlled, giving no hint of the man who’d held me while I cried last night.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Jimmy said, but I could hear the uncertainty in his voice. “Max can take care of himself.”
“I know,” I whispered, but the knot in my stomach was growing tighter by the minute.
Something was wrong. I could feel it in my bones, the same way I’d felt it right before the bomb went off at AD. That same sense of impending disaster.
Please be safe , I thought, clutching the phone in my hand. Please just be safe .