Page 60 of Angel of Light (Lords of The Commission: New York #5)

MAX

Three days later

The humidity in S?o Paulo was suffocating, clinging to my skin like a wet blanket as I stood outside the small café in Vila Madalena. Three fucking days of chasing ghosts through this never-ending city, following leads that went nowhere, bribing contacts who knew nothing.

But Jimmy was right. Camila was here.

I’d been operating on two hours of sleep and too much caffeine, my phone deliberately turned off to avoid the onslaught of calls I knew would be coming. Matt, Alison, Jimmy. All of them wanting answers I didn’t have yet. Besides, I couldn’t risk being tracked.

I couldn’t afford to go back empty-handed. Not when Alison’s entire future depended on them.

The café was tucked between a bookstore and a vintage clothing shop, the kind of place that blended into the artistic chaos of the neighborhood.

I watched her through the window, the only woman who held the key to destroying Vincenzo’s carefully constructed plans.

She looked different from what I remembered. Tired, for sure, but there was a peace in her face that hadn’t been there before. She was reading a book, occasionally glancing up to watch a small boy coloring at the table beside her.

Lorenzo Massimo.

The kid was maybe four years old, with dark hair and serious grey eyes that were unmistakably Vincenzo Massimo.

He had his father’s jawline, the same stubborn set to his mouth when he concentrated.

But there was something else there that caught my attention more than anything else.

An innocence that a kid in our world could never hold on to.

My little nephew.

The thought hit me like a sucker punch to the chest. This kid, this beautiful, innocent little boy, was my blood, too.

How could he have thought I’d hurt him? Obsession was blinding, sure.

Vincenzo’s state was telling enough of the truth in that fact, but there was nothing in the world that would make me harm a child.

Not when I suffered that fate and still felt the bruises.

I watched through the window as Lorenzo held up his drawing for his mother to see.

Her face lit up with genuine joy, the kind of happiness I’d never seen on her face, even when she was living out the forbidden fairytale with the love of her life.

Maybe because danger and fatality were always lurking, threatening to tear that happiness to shreds at any given moment.

I knew a thing or two about that.

That was what she’d run from. Not just the violence and the danger, but the suffocating weight of a life that would have crushed that light out of him.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the café door. The bell above the door chimed softly, making Camila look up. The moment she saw me, all the color drained from her face.

“ Dios mío ,” My God, she whispered, instinctively pulling Lorenzo closer to her.

“Speak English,” I said quietly, sliding into the chair across from her, my hands held up, hopefully showing her I meant no harm. “I come in peace.”

Her hands were shaking as she reached for her coffee cup. “Gabriel. What... how did you find me?”

“Does it matter?” I kept my voice low, calm, even though my heart was racing. “I needed to talk to you, so I made it happen.”

“ Mam?e ?” Mommy? Lorenzo looked up from his coloring, sensing the tension. “ Quem é ele ?” Who is he ?

Camila forced a smile, smoothing his hair, replying back to him in Portuguese. “ é só um amigo, meu amor. Continue colorindo .” He’s just a friend, my love. Keep coloring.

The kid studied me for a moment with those serious eyes, and I felt something crack open in my chest. He looked so much like Vincenzo, but there was none of his father’s coldness there. Just curiosity and the unguarded trust of a child who’d been protected from the worst of the world.

“He’s adorable,” I said, no second intentions behind that statement, but Camila was immediately on guard.

Her eyes filled with tears. “Don’t. Don’t you dare use my son to manipulate me.”

“I’m not trying to manipulate you. I just need a few minutes of your time.”

“Did Vincenzo send you?”

“No.” The word came out harder than I intended. “He doesn’t know I’m here. No one does. There’s no danger.”

“Five minutes,” She relented.

“That’s all I need,” I hoped. “In two days, he’s going to marry an innocent woman to get what he wants. And that woman happens to be someone I love. He’s doing it for you.”

The confession hung between us, raw and desperate, even though there was no real plea there. I let the truth simmer in the space between us, waiting for her to connect the dots. Camila stared at me, searching for hidden lies.

“The Battaglia girl. I heard rumors…”

“It’s a lot more than a rumor. It’s her life, and mine, hanging in your hands, Camila. And unless someone stops it, Alison is going to spend the rest of her life paying for Vincenzo’s obsession with getting to be in his son’s life.”

Camila’s face hardened. “That’s not my problem.”

“It is when you were the one who set the rules and boundaries, especially when you don’t plan on fulfilling your end of the bargain.” It was clear as day that she’d imposed a clean cut with the Cartel as a way to get away from his grasp. She never actually thought there was a way out.

I leaned forward, keeping my voice low so Lorenzo wouldn’t hear. Camila had gone out of her way to make him blend in with his surroundings by teaching him a different language, but I was almost sure that he understood English.

“You know what kind of man Vincenzo is. You know what he’s capable of. And you’re going to let him destroy another woman’s life because it’s convenient for you?” I aimed to destroy because I needed to use every and any weapon I could.

“Convenient?” Camila’s voice cracked with anger and pain.

“You think this is convenient? Running away with nothing, living in fear, watching over my shoulder every day for four years has been convenient? Sleeping with one eye open, wary of every little noise, too scared that someone will come and take my baby from me? My brother or yours? Is it convenient to be the center of the obsession of two of the most dangerous men out there?”

“Then help me end it.”

“I can’t. Lorenzo is worth all the sacrifice. I can’t take him into a life of crime and fear. How did that turn out for you? Wouldn’t you have preferred that your mother had kept you away from your father?”

Her words were low and sharp, taking lodge in the deepest part of my soul. She was right. Life had been a bitch to me, yet still, I wouldn’t trade it for one I couldn’t be certain would be better.

After all, my path had led me to a kind of love I’d never experienced.

Transcendent.

Sublime.

“You can. You and I both know you can. You are the only person on this earth that Vincenzo listens to. You have always been the only one to get through to him. One phone call. One conversation. Tell him the truth. That you’ll never go back, that he’ll never see Lorenzo, and this plan of his only sets that fact deeper in stone. ”

She shook her head violently. “You don’t understand. If I surface, if I make contact, the Cartel will know where I am. Diego will fly all his men over to find me and take us both back to Colombia. I don’t want Lorenzo to grow up with the same fear I did.”

“The Cartel that he’s trying to escape by marrying Alison? The same Diego who threatened to kill her if the deal she set up to free the father of your child from their agreement, as per your instructions, goes wrong?”

Her eyes widened, tears brimming under the surface. “What?”

“Your ultimatum set all of this in motion, and you’re the only person who can put an end to it.

” I studied her face, seeing genuine shock in her eyes.

“He’s not trying to get you back just because he misses you.

He’s desperate, Camila. You’re taking away the only thing Vincenzo has ever wanted in his life.

A child. Your child, nonetheless. Diego wouldn’t just let him go without a solution, and Vincenzo needs an out.

Marrying into the Commission gives him protection in case things go south.

He’s using Alison as a shield while he cuts ties with your brother and makes his life safe enough for you and Lorenzo to come back.

But we both know going back was never the plan, right? ”

Camila’s face went through every emotion. Shock, pain, and something that looked dangerously close to hope before she crushed it down.

“He’s doing this... for us?” Her voice was barely a whisper, her hand landing on the silky black hair of the little boy enthralled in his drawing.

“This is what you asked of him. A way out of the cartel life. A safe life for Lorenzo.”

I watched her carefully, seeing the conflict play across her features. There was love there. Buried deep, but still burning.

“He’s using an innocent woman. The kindest, most loving and selfless person I’ve ever known.”

Tears welled in her eyes, a single one falling over the brim and staining her cheek with a wet trail. “I never asked him to do this. I never wanted anyone else to get hurt.”

Camila was quiet for a long moment, staring down at Lorenzo, who was completely absorbed in his coloring.

“I can see it in your eyes that you still love him.”

When she spoke again, her voice was thick with emotion.

“I do love him. I never stopped loving him,” She admitted.

“But sometimes love isn’t enough. Even if he cuts ties with Diego, even if he makes his life ‘safer,’ there will always be enemies.

There will always be danger. And I won’t subject my son to that. ”

“You already are.”

She was quiet for a long moment, staring down at her hands. Lorenzo had moved on to a new drawing, completely lost in his art.

“ Posso colorir com você? ” Can I color with you ? I asked Lorenzo, picking up a crayon from his little stash. He looked at Camila for permission, who gave him a little nod. “ O meu nome é Gabriel. Qual é o seu? ” My name is Gabriel. What’s yours?

“Lourenco.” He replied, the way he said it losing all the Spanish accent.

I smiled at him before I started coloring a sun on the edge of the page.

“You’re doing well, Camila. But you and I both know your brother is never going to stop looking for you, and Vincenzo will never give up, either.

Not after he realizes that he’s not going to get to see his kid.

Do you really think he will just lie down and play dead after that?

Don’t you think he’ll come for you with a whole different drive? ”

She looked up sharply, pain flashing across her face. “Then we’ll keep moving.”

“That’s not a life for a little boy, and you know it. Diego doesn’t want to hurt you, Camila. He might be a monster in many ways, but all he wants is to bring you home. You’re his sister. He thinks he’s protecting you.”

“You’re right. He’ll never stop. And that’s exactly why I can’t go back. Diego would never understand why I need to keep Lorenzo away from all of this. To him, family means bringing everyone under his protection, under his control.”

“But if you contacted Vincenzo, if you told him–”

“I won’t expose Lorenzo to that world. I won’t let him become what his father is, or what my brother is. What his uncle Max is. I won’t let him inherit this legacy of violence and danger.”

“No one’s asking you to. One conversation, Camila. That’s all it would take. The truth.”

“And then what? Vincenzo just gives up? Walks away from everything he’s worked for?”

Camila looked down at Lorenzo, who was holding up his new drawing. A stick figure family under a rainbow, my sun shining brightly in the corner. Simple. Happy. Everything his father’s world wasn’t.

“No. And this conversation is over.”

The words and the finality in her tone hit me like a punch to the gut. I had hoped that coming here would be my solution, with the desperate belief that there was still a way to save Alison. And now, that hope was crumbling to dust right in front of me.

“So, that’s it?” I asked, my voice drenched in anguish, and I didn’t even bother to cover it up. “You’re just going to let him do this?”

“I’m protecting my son.” Tears were streaming down her face now. “Just like you’re trying to protect the woman you love.”

She stood up, frantically shoving Lorenzo’s crayons back into his pencil case, grabbing his arm, directing him to leave.

I stood up slowly, feeling like I was moving through quicksand. “If you change your mind…”

“I won’t.”

I looked down at Lorenzo one more time, memorizing his face. This beautiful, innocent child who would grow up never knowing his father, never knowing his uncles. Never knowing that his existence was both the cause of and solution to so much pain.

They walked out of the café in a rushed jog, and I didn’t even bother to follow them with my gaze.

I set a couple of bills on the table and made my way to the door, too.

The Brazilian sun hit my face like a slap. Three days of searching, of hoping, of believing there was still a way to fix this.

And for what? Absolutely fucking nothing.

I pulled out my phone, switching it back on and finally reconnecting with the world.

A string of never-ending notifications filled the screen.

From missed calls to messages. Alison’s voice, desperate and worried, begging me to call her back.

Matt’s increasingly angry texts demanding to know where the fuck I was and saying that the Bratva had spewed absolute chaos in Little Odessa.

Jimmy asked if I’d found her.

But I couldn’t face them yet. I couldn't go back and tell them that I'd failed. That the one lead we had, the one chance to stop this wedding, was gone.

My phone buzzed with another call. Vincenzo’s name flashing across the screen. I hit the green button with more rage than I expected.

“What?”

“Why are you in Brazil? Why the fuck are you with Camila?”

“How do you know?”

“Do you really think I haven’t been tracking her? Don’t be so fucking innocent, Max. My jet is running and ready to bring you the fuck back. Don’t test me.”

“Or what? You’ll marry the love of my life and ruin her? Oh wait, you’re doing that already.”

“Check your fucking messages and make your decision, then.”

He hung up, and I immediately pulled my phone from my ear and searched through the messages to find his.

It was a picture of Alison, asleep in my bed.

I’d seen this exact same moment before. It was like a memory of the day I decided to double-cross him and tell him Alison wasn’t worth his efforts. She was pale, lying in a fetal position in the middle of my bed, the red dot that marred her porcelain skin making my blood boil in fury.

A new message from Vincenzo pushed the image up. I didn’t think I could get more infuriated, but my dearest brother knew exactly what buttons to push, and he never held back.

“I took the liberty of buying you a white tux. There’s no way my best man is going to miss my wedding. Dress up, Fratellino.” Little brother.