Page 46 of Angelo’s Vengeance (The Commission #3)

ANGELO

The adrenaline that had driven me for the last forty-eight hours had curdled into something colder.

Something precise. Carlotta wasn’t just a ghost anymore.

She was an operator —a strategist. And we’d been reacting while she orchestrated from the shadows.

That was ending now . We needed to change our game.

I stood at the head of the table — cheap plywood warped from humidity. A map of the Black Sea was spread open like a wound. Our knives were stabbed into ports and cities like sutures, trying to keep the thing from splitting further.

“She wants Ilias,” I said flatly. “Specifically, his shipping routes. She’s been circling them like a shark for months.”

Ilias sat back, arms crossed, expression unreadable. He hadn’t spoken much since the surveillance room discovery, but I knew the look on his face. I’d worn it before, the flat look that said everything was fine while his eyes were banked with hate.

Conall leaned forward. “You want to give her the Anathakos shipping network?”

“No,” I said, voice sharp. “I want her to think we are.”

Maxim’s brow furrowed. “Explain.”

“She’s too smart to walk into a trap unless the prize is irresistible,” I said. “We give her what she wants: Ilias. A solo meeting. On his turf. On one of his ships. Something... quiet. Off-grid. She’ll believe he’s breaking ranks. That he’s ready to deal her in.”

“Why would she believe that?” Conall asked. “Ilias wouldn’t do that.”

“She doesn’t know him. She only knows what she wants to believe, and what she wants is power.

We’ll make her think that Ilias is interested in the business.

That he’s willing to cut us out, and cut her in.

We can make her think that Ilias is willing to do what he needs in order to keep his company in the black. ”

“Give her a lie wrapped in desperation,” Ilias murmured, finally catching on. “Make her think I’m bleeding out.”

I nodded once. “And let her come in for the kill.”

Silence stretched. The plan was insane — bold.

It had to be. She wouldn’t take a risk unless she thought the reward outweighed it.

But it wasn’t just about her empire. It was personal.

She needed to win . And winning meant turning one of us against the other.

That was what made it crazy, but part of it hinged on the idea that she still had one step rooted in taking us down.

That there was still a piece of her that would enjoy that.

I lit a cigarette I didn’t want and stared out over the city. This place — S?cueni, Bucharest, the whole damn Eastern Bloc — felt like the rotting teeth of the empire my mother wanted to build. Maybe I was just in a shitty mood.

“You good?” Maxim’s voice behind me was low. Tired.

“No,” I said .

He came to stand beside me, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the horizon. “You think she’ll bite?”

“I know she will,” I said. “The question is how close I need to let her get before I pull the trigger.”

Maxim didn’t speak for a while.“You know she’ll bring backup.”

“I want her to bring it. I want her to think she has the upper hand,” I said viciously. Just the thought of her coming to the meeting tantalized me.

“She’ll sniff out anything that smells like a trap.” Maxim tried to be reasonable. He and Conall had been trying to reason with me for the past few days, as if I were actually being unreasonable about this plan.

“We’re not baiting her into a setup,” I said. “We’re baiting her into a conversation . One where Ilias is supposedly defecting. Where I’ve stepped away. Where the Commission is fracturing from the inside.”

Maxim frowned. “We’re going to need to sell this so hard.” He rubbed a hand over his neck, looking over the map.

I met his eyes. “She’ll believe it if we leak that I have already splintered from the group. ”

Maxim’s face darkened. “That’s a line.”

“Not if it’s for show. Not if it gets her in arm’s reach.

” I flicked the cigarette off the rooftop, watching the ember spiral.

“Let her think I’m angry that I don’t trust any of you anymore.

That I’ve lost control in my anger over Theo.

That Ilias offered me a new future. Ilias will be my brother-in-law after all.

It’s believable. We need her to come to the meeting. That’s it.”

Conall grinned in the gloom. “It could work. She remembers you as the boy who was all teeth and claws, who let his anger get the best of him. She doesn’t know the man you’ve become.” He nodded. “This could work.”

Veronica patched into the encrypted call, her voice clear despite the lag. “I’ve laid the digital breadcrumbs. Rumors that you and Ilias met secretly in Sorrento. That you’ve pulled funding from the Commission’s larger pipeline. Will that work?”

Ilias, seated next to me, snorted softly. “Yeah, I think that’ll be enough to get her interested.”

“She needs to think I’m ready to betray everyone for the sake of survival.” I’d thought this through and talked it over with Bacco and Carlo before I brought it up. I wanted to ensure that our lines of communication didn’t have any holes that she could see through.

Veronica continued, “She’ll do one of two things: retaliate, or try to co-opt you.”

“She’ll co-opt,” I said. “It’s what she’s best at. Manipulation.”

“And when she does?”

I looked at Ilias. “We give her a meeting. One of your deepwater cargo ships. Greek registry. No crew. Just her... and us. I want it rigged to blow. Something you can sacrifice.”

Ilias nodded slowly. “Good. We’re not fucking around.” His grin widened. “She’ll think she’s cutting a new deal. We make her think she’s carving up the Commission with a new partner.”

“And then?” Veronica asked.

I didn’t blink. “Then I’ll either put a bullet in her skull and drop her body into the fucking Black Sea or I’ll blow her sky high, or both just to be sure.”

The sea outside the port of Trieste glittered like spilled oil, dark and rippling under the weight of the coming storm.

I stood on the deck of Ilias’s freighter— Nykte —a steel beast usually tasked with hauling legitimate cargo for Anthakos Enterprises.

Tonight, it had a different job: to become a tomb.

The air carried the tang of salt and diesel.

Below deck, our men moved silently, checking gear, sweeping every inch of the ship for bugs or last-minute surprises.

This plan had no room for error. Carlotta had eluded us for months, her fingerprints found on black-market deals, data leaks, and targeted hits.

Now, we’d drawn her out—not with threats, but with ambition.

The only thing she loved more than control was winning.

And we were about to give her both, or the illusion.

“She took the bait,” Ilias confirmed, joining me at the railing, suit jacket flapping in the sea breeze. “Private meeting. One-on-one. She thinks I’m going rogue.”

“Arrogant. Good,” I said, voice flat.

Maxim joined us next, his expression unreadable, with the moonlight accentuating the harsh angles of his face.

Conall lit a cigarette behind him, squinting at the horizon.

“She’s still using Renzetti’s encryption patterns,” Maxim murmured.

“She thinks she’s clever. This whole plan she’s building hinges on Ilias’s shipping lines.

She must really want them. This is a huge risk. ”

Ilias didn’t respond. He didn’t need to.

We had all seen what Carlotta left in her wake: the soldiers she’d corrupted, the lieutenants who turned up dead, the girls trafficked under fake medical licenses, and the poison she’d poured into every corner of the world we built.

The conference room had been transformed into a high-stakes boardroom. Chrome fixtures adorned a sleek Greek marble table, accompanied by coffee, Turkish delights, and imported wine—a theater of civility.

Behind the fake wall, I had a weapons locker, a kill switch for the doors, and a live feed to the upper deck.

Like we’d planned, the ship was rigged to blow.

Everyone would be escorted off the ship except for a small squad of Ilias’s men.

The detonator would be held on a small shipping vessel by Maxim and Conall.

It would be a second option for us, just in case.

I was pretty sure that we wouldn’t need it, but you never knew.

Frankie had sent me a photo of Theo earlier. She was laughing at something baby Vasily had done, arms full of fabric swatches. That girl made me think of sunlight even in places like this.

“Thirty minutes out,” Conall called from the comms. “We need to get ourselves over to that fishing boat or we’ll blow this whole op,” he chuckled darkly. “And not in the way we talked about.”

I flexed my gloved hands, leather creaking. “Positions.”

Ilias would meet her first. Alone. Play the part of the ambitious younger crime boss looking to break from the Commission. He’d offer her access to his shipping lines. That was her weakness—legitimacy. With Anthakos Enterprises, she could move anything under the radar.

“She won’t expect me,” I said. “That’s the bait. Just enough truth to make her feel safe.”

“She’ll want assurances,” Ilias said. “Documents. Trade access.”

“Hand her that USB full of mock manifests just like we planned.”

Ilias looked at me then, really looked. “You ready?”

“No,” I said honestly, but when the mother who raised you to be a weapon turns that weapon on your family?—

You reload .

And you aim for the heart.

The transport boat moored easily alongside us, despite the rocking swell. She emerged like a wraith in a white trench coat, her eyes concealed behind oversized sunglasses. Two guards, Eastern European muscle, flanked her. She appeared older than I remembered, more brittle.

But her smile was the same. Sharp and cruel.

I watched her through the feed as she stepped onto the deck, her heels clicking sharply against the steel. Ilias greeted her with a disarming air of casual confidence, like it was every day that you had a meeting with a super villain.

“Ilias,” she purred. “Your message surprised me. All of these developments have surprised me.”

“I figured it was time to stop playing second fiddle,” he said, walking beside her into the conference room.

“The others have become... possessive.” She arched a brow.

“I believe in partnerships.” He continued.

“Partnerships that are beneficial.” He gave her a wink that was so blatantly suggestive that it made me throw up a little in my mouth.

Wow, he was really taking one for the team.

I watched every movement through the security camera: her posture, the twitch of her fingers. Was she buying this?

“Let’s get to business, shall we?” She opened a tablet. “I am interested in a … beneficial partnership.” She gave him a coy smile. Gross. “With your logistics pipeline.” Her hand traced over his, and I was astounded to see that he was relaxed as she pawed him. She even leaned into him. Eww.

“Of course,” he hummed as if he were unconcerned about her wandering fingers.

“I’d provide incentives. Monetary and others,” she cooed. “I have product I’d like to move.”

Ilias nodded, leaning into her thoughtfully, going so far as to drag a finger over her cheek. “We can do that, but if I turn on the Commission and dip into trafficking, I’m going to need protection. ”

She leaned back in her chair. “You’d have it.”

That was my signal.

The door slid shut with a mechanical hiss. Carlotta barely had time to react before I stepped through the secondary entrance with my weapon drawn.

She froze. “You,” she breathed.

“Me,” I said, pistol steady. “Did you think you could rebuild the empire on our ashes? Or that Ilias would work with you?” I couldn’t hold back the sneer.

“Angelo,” she started as she stood slowly, defiance crackling in her voice. “I built an empire.”

“You built nothing but trash. We rooted it out. It might have taken a while, but we did it.”

Her guards lunged. Two shots rang out as Ilias’s guards took them out. It was almost too easy.

Carlotta didn’t flinch. She stared at me like I was still the boy who wanted her approval. “Angelo,” she said, softer now. “ Don’t make this mistake. I know things. I know who your father is. I could?—”

“I don’t care. No speeches. No last words.” This was not the sort of evil villain moment where someone talked their way out of their death. This was the end. I hoped Remo would forgive me for not discovering the truth about his parentage, but I wouldn’t play games with her.

The shot echoed.

She crumpled.

Now she was just another ghost.

The sea swallowed her body silently. No funeral. No fanfare.

Only the wind and the creak of the ship.

“She would’ve torn us apart,” Ilias said quietly.

“She almost did,” Conall added.

“But not anymore,” I said. “We rebuild. Tighter. Meaner. Smarter.”

Maxim passed me a bottle of whiskey after taking a swallow. “To brotherhood.”

Taking the bottle, I swallowed and then passed it to Conall. I thought of Theo and the life I had waiting for me back home while I looked out over the water.

Now it was done.

There were always more devils in the dark, but I was ready for them all.