Page 2 of Angelo’s Vengeance (The Commission #3)

ANGELO

Even though I was only eleven, my father loved taking me around with him on all sorts of his Santelli mafia crap. Training, he said.

I had learned not to interfere with what he and his men did. I was supposed to learn the business so I could one day take over and keep the Santelli name alive. That meant when my father introduced me to people, I was supposed to nod and keep my mouth shut. On a good day, I had problems with that.

“This meeting we’re going to is important.

” His fingers drummed on the leather seat, ignoring Umberto, who pulled away from our house in silence.

Staff knew that my father preferred no conversation or interaction from them unless asked specifically.

Umberto’s job was to drive, protect, and, if necessary, die.

In the Santelli mafia, the soldiers were disposable toys to my father. Their value was negligible.

“Now, this meeting we’re going to is important,” his fingers drummed on the leather seat. “You can’t fuck this up for me Angelo. Hai capito ?”

“I understand.” It was the only response that could shut him up.

Once I was a don, I wasn’t going to drive around in a crappy Lincoln Towncar, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to have a driver like I was helpless.

My father had no sense of style when it came to cars.

When I grew up, I’d make sure my cars reflected who I was—a badass.

No more of this bullshit. It would be Ferraris for me.

“The meetings are all important.” The reply sounded robotic as I stared out the window while Umberto navigated through the Bronx toward the club where this pointless meeting was supposed to take place. My father grunted in agreement, satisfied with my response, as he scrolled through his emails.

He had already filled me in on most of what would happen at this meeting.

It had been planned for months. The Santelli mafia famiglia was going to sign an agreement with the Volkov Bratva, the O’Kelly mob family, and the Anthakos…

not sure what the fuck they did. Shipping, maybe?

Smuggling of some kind? My father was all hot for the agreement because it would give him better and safer trade routes for his shady deals.

He wanted to move up in the hierarchy of the organized crime families, and the Italian mob life wasn’t cutting it.

I tried to keep occupied by watching the cars pass and imagining the ordinary lives of the people in them. Sometimes, I wished for a normal life for myself and my siblings—maybe without guns and deals with the devil, but maybe that’s all my life would ever be.

The club was a dump.

A neon sign flickered weakly above the entrance, half the letters burned out, making it read more like “LUB” than anything else.

The smell of cigarette smoke and beer clung to the air, thick and unshakable even outside.

A bouncer leaned against the doorframe, barely glancing at us as Umberto pulled up to the curb .

I slid out behind my father, wrinkling my nose. “This is where we’re meeting them?”

“It’s neutral territory,” he replied without looking at me, already adjusting his suit jacket as he strode toward the entrance. “That’s what matters.” He glanced at me briefly. “If you can’t meet someone on your own turf, then you meet them on neutral ground. You check your shit.”

My father liked to drop these pearls of wisdom as part of his training.

That was when I was expected to nod and keep my mouth shut.

I didn’t understand why neutrality had to mean meeting at a shithole, but I didn’t bother wasting any energy on arguing.

Instead, I followed him inside, where the lighting was so dim it took my eyes a second to adjust. The place was half-empty, with a few drunks slouched in booths, ignoring us.

A woman was working the pole in some half-hearted attempt at dancing, though she looked drugged even to me.

In the back was a full table of men, and the area around them had been cleared.

That was obviously where we were headed.

My father moved toward them, and I studied each one as we approached.

My stomach did somersaults as I noticed that each of them had kids with them.

It wasn’t unusual for mafia bosses to bring their sons with them, but this felt strange, and all my senses began to tingle.

The O’Kelly boss, Cormac O’Kelly, looked like he had just come from working under a car.

His red hair was a mess, and a grease stain smeared across the front of his white button-down shirt.

He had the build of a man who had thrown plenty of punches and taken just as many to the face.

His son, who was perhaps a few years older than me, was the exact opposite of his father.

He was dressed as neatly as a pin in a suit that didn’t quite fit his large frame, with his freckled face set in bored defiance.

The Russians, on the other hand, seemed to take pride in their professional appearance.

You could probably cut yourself on the pleat of Alexei Volkov’s slacks.

He sat rigidly, his suit crisp and flawless despite the grungy setting.

His face was sharp and severe, the type that appeared to have never smiled.

“Santelli.” He nodded, his thick Russian accent dripping from his few words, while his dark eyes flicked in my direction once before wholly dismissing me. His son sat beside him, mirroring his father’s cold composure. He didn’t slouch or fidget. He was like ice.

Then there was the Greek—Yianni Anthakos. He was large, his belly straining against the buttons of his expensive silk shirt, and he was already drunk. Distaste coated my throat. My mother was a drinker, and it made her even meaner. Alcohol changed people, and it was rarely for the better.

His thick fingers drummed against a glass half-filled with what looked like whiskey.

I had tried it — it was terrible. His kid was the youngest of us, and I already felt kind of sorry for him.

Every time his father laughed or got too close, he flinched.

He seemed unsure of himself, too thin, with eyes darting as if he were waiting for someone to give him a reason to run.

I could have told him that there was nowhere to go and that no one in this world would save him. I had learned that lesson already.

My father took the last empty seat, gesturing for me to sit beside him. I crossed my arms, glaring at the table, already knowing whatever was about to happen was going to suck. Nothing my father did was sunshine and rainbows, but this already reeked to high heaven.

“Let’s get this done,” Alexei said, his Russian accent clipping his words. His lips curled slightly, and I could tell that he found the club as distasteful as I did.

“Volkov, calm down. The lawyer isn’t even here yet. Let’s have a drink first and relax,” Yianni laughed, leaning back with his glass. “Let the boys get to know each other. This is my son, Ilias.” He placed a heavy hand on the poor kid’s shoulder and nearly pushed him face-first into the tabletop.

The kid twisted to glare at Yianni with unfiltered hate, flinching away from him even while his father grinned like a maniac.

“Just getting him used to the business. He’s spent too much time with his mother,” Yianni added. “Try some of this.” Yianni thrust his glass toward the boy and poured himself another generous serving.

Ilias was clearly familiar with his father’s habits since he didn’t bother refusing the glass, but he didn’t drink it either.

Yianni had already moved on to animatedly talking with the O’Kelly boss, who was equally unpleasant—no wonder these men had gone into business together.

My father and the Volkov pakhan had begun a stilted conversation about an operation on the East River.

I tuned them out and tried not to worry about what would happen when the lawyer arrived. I didn’t know the other boys’ names, but I didn’t care much. The small consolation was that they weren’t happy to be here either. The O’Kelly boy looked distinctly uncomfortable, and that pleased me.

Not fifteen minutes later, a man who looked like he’d blow away in a strong breeze rushed up to the table. “Apologies, apologies.”

He must have been the lawyer everyone was waiting for. The guy looked like a fucking mouse in his outdated suit with his little briefcase. It was hard to believe he was working with the mafia and hadn’t gotten popped yet.

“You’re late,” Alexei Volkov snapped.

The guy turned beet red and bowed several times, repeatedly apologizing as he explained there had been traffic. It was fucking New York. When wasn’t there traffic? If I were the don, I would have told him that he should have planned ahead and arrived on time, but my father said nothing.

Finally, he got the show on the road and opened his briefcase to distribute copies of the contract that everyone would sign.

I saw my father’s forehead wrinkle as he read it line by line.

One of his rules was always to know what he was signing.

My father was a slimy dickwad, but he wasn’t stupid — and a lot of times his advice was solid.

This was one time that I thought it wasn’t wrong.

I noticed Yianni Anthakos didn’t even bother to glance at the document. Fool.

“Give it here. The Volkovs will go first.” Alexei rudely gestured impatiently to the little man.

“Of course, of course. You’ll need to sign and then press your thumb next to your signature.” The lawyer put a little wooden box in the center of the table, flicked the lid open, and revealed an old-fashioned tack.

I watched in rabid fascination as Alexei signed with a flourish, then savagely pressed his forefinger to the tack and sealed the bloody print next to his signature.

“Maxim,” Alexei commanded. The Russian shoved the contract and the box at his son, who looked like he was anything but willing. Maxim looked as if he were going to revolt .

Everything in me went still. My father hadn’t mentioned anything about me signing a contract.

Would I have to? I knew some of what this was about, but why were we signing?

Maxim Volkov frowned but picked up the pen—hesitated until his father growled out something in Russian that obviously provided the needed motivating factor.

He read the document, frowning at it, but signed his name carefully and then slashed his thumb, repeating the motion his father had made before pushing it away from him.

“Feck, he’s a bloodthirsty one,” Cormac O’Kelly boomed like it was all a big joke. “Best keep an eye on him, Conall.”

The red-haired boy, Conall, didn’t respond to the taunt.

After his father signed, he methodically reviewed the document but didn’t hesitate to pass it to my father after he signed himself.

I felt sick, and I could sense the little Anthakos boy trembling next to me.

I hadn’t read it and didn’t know what I was agreeing to.

“Here, boy.” My father shoved the papers at me, reminding me more than ever that I was somewhere I shouldn’t be. The fact that I was in a moldy club at eleven instead of sitting in elementary school like a normal kid made me furious.

Sometimes, I loved the thought of the mafioso life —the danger and the excitement —but most of the time, it made me feel resentful.

I’d watch my brother and sister and know deep in my gut that they were missing out on a real family.

The only person they had who really loved them was me, and wasn’t that fucked up? That their parents didn’t love them?

Anger rose in me, hot and furious, as I struggled to focus on the words.

It was a good thing I wasn’t stupid. I had always been quick, partly because I had no choice.

I read carefully, even when my father grumbled at me to hurry up.

I kept my finger on the document, noticing all the sections where these idiots spoke about forming a group called the Commission and the part where they guaranteed each other specific things for their nastier businesses.

Guns, drugs, human trafficking—you name it, these bastards did it.

They rolled in the mud like the pigs they were. They had no class.

Then my breath hitched. That rage inside me exploded. My father was such a fucker .

“I won’t do it, you asshole!” I cursed in Italian. “Non lo farò, stronzo!”

The dickface wanted me to marry one of these assholes’ daughters when I was older?

That’s what I was signing? I shouldn’t have been surprised by the stuff my father did, but somehow he still managed it.

He wanted me to agree to an arranged marriage when I was older, and he was selling my little sister on top of it.

She was part of this sick agreement. It wasn’t even enough that he trafficked other people.

His own children weren’t safe from his schemes.

My emotions surged and swirled too intensely for me to manage as my eyes flicked from the contract to the crime bosses at the table, then to the other boys who hadn’t had much choice either.

Even as I attempted to scramble away from the table, my father yanked me back into my chair with a sharp slap that jerked my head to the side.

“You’re embarrassing me, you little fuck. Sign it.” My father shot me a look that would have had most men pissing themselves. I didn’t care if his patience had snapped; mine had too. “Angelo!”

He wrenched me forward as I screamed and fought, pulling my limbs together against his as he jabbed my finger onto the tack. I bared my teeth as he smeared my blood onto the page while cursing his name three ways to the Madonna.

“Sign it, or Remo gets sent away.” His eyes narrowed, and I realized he meant it.

He would do it. He’d throw my little brother to the slavers if I didn’t comply.

Although I wasn’t sure it was any better that I would be signing Francesca’s life away, but that was a problem for another day.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I scrawled my name next to the messy blood marker, ensuring he saw the anger behind it. He’d made an enemy out of me today.

The last person to sign was Yianni’s son.

His hand was steady as he pressed the pen down to the paper, and his mouth remained closed against any comments.

His father was jovial, making crass jokes around the table even as his son’s eyes screamed promises of revenge.

Maybe Yianni wasn’t catching on, but I certainly had.

After it was over, the lawyer folded the paper and tucked it back into the wooden box, as if we hadn’t just signed away our futures.

I rubbed my bleeding finger against my pants and muttered under my breath in Italian, swearing and spitting out every curse I knew.

My father just smirked. “Good. It’s done.”

I glared at the table, thinking about my name written in blood.

No, my father was wrong. This was just the beginning.