Page 43 of Angelo’s Vengeance (The Commission #3)

I pistol-whipped him across the mouth. Blood splattered the white plaster behind him. “You hired out men to disrupt our operations in New York. Paid killers. Mercs. To Carlotta Santelli. Ring a bell?”

“Who are you?” he asked, struggling to his feet.

Conall sneered. “How about telling us the truth? Nobody for miles out here. We can do anything to you that we want. We’ve taken out all your security. Which was shit, by the way.”

“Yeah, pathetic. Come on, Barone. We’ve come all this way.” Maxim prodded Barone’s ribcage with his gun barrel. “You know who we are. You had pictures of us.”

Barone whimpered, hands shaking. “She paid me.” He shrugged. “I don’t ask questions.” Shoving the gun back under his chin, he babbled. “She asked for more on this side of the ocean. Asked me to arrange logistics. IDs. Transportation.”

“Details. Transportation to where?” I demanded.

“She said Trieste. But it was only a waypoint. There’s something—something else. Romania. Border town. S?cueni. A factory. That’s all I know.” He spat out the facts like bullet points.

I stepped back. “Good.”

And then I shot him in the leg. He howled, collapsing.

“That’s for your future memory. You’ll be compensated every time she sends a message.

” I followed him to the floor, whipping out my knife and pinning it under one eyeball, pricking it just under the tender inner lid.

He cringed away from me, snot running from his nose.

“We’ll pay double what she’s offering. She texts, you do what she asks. Then …” I pressed.

Ilias leaned against the desk. “Come on, you’re a smart guy. A businessman.”

“Then I call. I’ll let you know what she says.” His head was thrown back against the wall, as far as he could get from me, his eyes wide with panic. “I will, man. I swear it. You don’t even have to pay.”

“We will pay. If you don’t do what we say.” I clucked my tongue. “Let’s just say.” I turned to Maxim. “You don’t want to find out. Open the safe.” I gestured to the wall-mounted safe where we cleaned out the associated files, leaving the stacks of cash and gold behind.

We left him bleeding. He didn’t know it yet, but he was a dead man walking. As soon as we got Carlotta, he’d be a dead man.

Back in the SUV, the gravity of what we had uncovered began to sink in. Carlotta wasn’t just operating a shadow network; she was building something—something big enough to strike at the Commission from every angle. However, it was how dangerous she was that posed the biggest problem .

“Renzetti was a show. Her real plays are still on the board,” I muttered, watching the coastline slide by.

“She hit the Anthakos fleet in the Adriatic last month,” Ilias said, voice low. “Two ships burned. No survivors. They were small, but …” he left it hanging.

“I thought that was pirates,” Conall said. “You didn’t mention that it was Carlotta.”

“She made it look like pirates, and it wasn’t her personally,” Ilias replied. “But the timing… the intel… it was too clean. It was definitely her. And now Galena is gone.” His jaw clenched. “That bitch.”

Maxim didn’t speak, but I could feel the weight of it crushing him.

He was beating himself up after Ilias revealed information about Galena.

He’d thought he was doing the right thing by leaving her to her normal little life away from the Volkov Bratva, but now it seemed that it had been a mistake.

Of course, we could talk until we were blue in the face, telling him he did the right thing by letting her have a sense of normalcy.

Even now, we didn’t know anything about why Galena ran.

It could have something to do with my mother, or it could have been something else entirely.

We drove in silence from the villa. Ilias sat with his forearms resting on his knees, jaw locked tight, his phone gripped in his hand as if it owed him answers.

I caught him glancing at a photograph—one of Galena.

In this one, her face was still turned away, unaware of the camera, her hair wind-swept as she hurried down a side street.

Back at our safehouse, a restored monastery turned base of operations, I poured a stiff drink. The room was stone and candlelit, rustic with heavy tapestries and the faint scent of incense that had lingered for centuries. I preferred it to sterile modernity.

Ilias approached quietly. “If she hurts Galena?—”

“She won’t,” I said. “We don’t even know what’s going on with her.

Who she’s running from — or why she’s running.

If it has anything to do with this whole scene.

” That was the truth. Galena was somewhat of an anomaly.

Granted, it probably did have to do with Carlotta, but maybe it’d make him feel better to think otherwise. “We’ll find her.”

“You don’t know that we will.” His face was set in a worried frown that I hadn’t seen from him in a decade. “And what if …”

“Here’s what I know,” I replied, clapping Ilias on the shoulder.

“Carlotta doesn’t act without purpose. She sees people as tools.

If Carlotta has her, then she’s not dead.

We would know if she had her because she would have let us know.

Galena would have been trotted out as a pawn.

That’s how she operates. If she doesn’t have her, then Galena is hiding from something else. ”

He nodded tightly. “Which is a problem we can solve.”

“Exactly.” Whatever happened to Galena. Whatever she was running from, we’d figure it out. Later.

Maxim joined us, holding an old leather portfolio we’d pulled from the safe. “Found this. Shipping manifests. Trieste to S?cueni. But the real gem is this?—”

He pulled out a photograph. It showed a warehouse in Romania, fenced and heavily guarded. Men in tactical gear. One wore a patch we’d seen before—on the mercenaries at the Cardoni house.

“She’s there,” I said .

“Or was,” Maxim corrected. “The photo is a week old.”

We’d have to move fast.

Still, I couldn’t help but think of Theo. The way her hands trembled in mine when I slipped the ring on her finger. The way her laughter lit up the brownstone during dinner. I hated being away. There was no place I’d rather be than at home with her.

“Well, let’s roll it up here then. Call the pilot.” Conall began gathering the files as he spoke. “The sooner we get in the air the sooner we can get this shite over with. I want to get home to Frankie.” He gave us a shy smile. “She’s agreed to a baby.”

“Are you serious? That’s exciting news.” I clapped him into a hug.

“I can’t wait to be an uncle.” Most of all, I was glad that Frankie had come to terms with whatever had been holding her back.

She had never told me, but I think she’d been worried that she’d be like our parents.

She hadn’t wanted a life like that for a child.

We’d always wondered if we were defective somehow.

Together, we cleaned up and gathered ourselves before I stepped away to call Theo. She answered on the second ring. Her voice was warm and sleepy.

“Hey,” she said. “Still alive?”

“Barely. How’s my fiancée?”

She laughed. “Sketching my wedding dress. Drinking tea. Missing you.”

That last part settled in my chest like fire. “I’ll be home soon,” I promised.

“You better be. I have design ideas to show you.”

I smiled, even as my hand curled tighter around the photograph of the Romanian compound. The war wasn’t over, but we were close.

For Theo, I’d burn the world down.

And for Carlotta? I’d start with her empire.

Brick by bloody brick, so my family would finally be free.