Page 60 of Angelo's Vengeance

My gut tensed. We'd all been dancing around the subject of the blood promise matches lately, too wrapped up in wars and betrayal to think about the future we’d all been chained to before we were even born, but we needed to resolve these matters. Theo and I had told each other we wouldn’t hurry, but it would be safer if we finalized the marriage. She’d be better protected that way. Tonight I had plans to propose. I only hoped she would say yes. Then we needed Ilias to complete his part of the bargain, but that wouldn’t work if he couldn’t find Galena. Fuck.

Galena… she was a ghost. A question mark. She was supposed to be Ilias’s match, but I wasn’t even sure that Maxim knew that much about his half-sister. All I knew was that her mother, Maria Yakonova, had been one of Alexei Volkov’s mistresses. Maria had taken Galena when she was a toddler and disappeared into New York, new paperwork and everything. Alexei Volkov had been an abusive asshole on the best of days and was known for trafficking women, so her getting as far away as possible with her little girl was the best thing she could have done as a mother.

"It took me a long time to find them,” Maxim said, folding his arms. “I checked on her three or four years ago. She was living with her mother and stepfather. Normal neighborhood. He was a schoolteacher. It was obvious Galena didn’t know anything about us. I saw no reason to change her circumstances when we hadn’t moved on the blood oath. She had been Polina’s age. Just finishing up with high school.” He looked sheepish. “I meant to contact her after graduation. See if she might have wanted to meet, but she was happy. I wasn’t worried about her. Even Maria was different. Nothing like I remembered her. They all seemed very ‘Leave it to Beaver.’ Normal. You know?”

"Things changed," Ilias said grimly. "Fast."

There was no reason to tell Maxim that he fucked up because it was written all over his face that he knew. Ilias tossed a thin manila folder onto the desk. A handful of surveillance photos spilled out—Galena, but not thecarefree girl on her way to college life that Maxim had described.

This Galena looked...haunted. She was a beautiful girl, looking nothing like her broody giant brother, but thin and blond. Very classically Russian.

Tired. Thinner. Her clothes weren't the bright, breezy styles of a student, but muted, functional things. Always always looking over her shoulder, her head covered and face hidden or in profile.

"What the hell happened?" I muttered.

Ilias's mouth was a hard line. “There was some kind of incident on the street with Maria and Galena when they were walking home in the evening about six months ago. They were mugged, and Maria was badly injured.” Ilias swallowed before continuing, his throat working. “They had to be transported to the hospital. The records show they were beaten badly. Both of them were assaulted. Maria died.”

Maxim swore under his breath. “Was there a police report?” He ground out.

I already knew that we’d be killing some people. Not that I ever minded a little murder.

“Yeah. Already pulled it. Then the stepfather got into debt. He lost his job and had aheart attack.” Silence fell like a hammer. Ilias leaned over the desk, fists braced like he wanted to punch a hole through the wood. "She’s alone. She was working two jobs. Barely scraping by."

"And she still doesn't know anything?" Conall asked quietly.

"No," Ilias said. His voice cracked on it. "She’s clueless, but I can’t find her. She must have gotten some kind of hint that people were tailing her because she just vanished.”

I stared at the photo of her hurrying through a rain-slicked street, face half-hidden by a scarf. Something cold coiled low in my gut.

My eyes slid over to Maxim, who had his eyes shut as if in pain. “I fucked up. This is totally on me. I should have pulled her out of there and put her in my own home.” He scrubbed his hand over his face.

“Fratello. You couldn’t have known any of this. You aren’t a magic eight ball.” I tried to comfort him as best I could. How was he supposed to predict what would have happened?

“Angelo is right. You couldn’t have known what would happen,” Ilias ground out.

There was more he wasn’t saying. There was a lot to our lives. It was dangerous. The last month or so was a perfect example. Bringing someone innocent into this mess wasn’t something to take lightly. I could see why Maxim had left her in her quiet life for as long as possible, but that wasn’t an option anymore. It forced a choice she was never prepared for. I had watched Theo, strong and stubborn as hell, struggle with the knowledge that her path had never been hers to choose. But Theo had grown up in our world, and she’d known that in the end, she’d have no choice because the underworld would come for her family otherwise. This girl didn’t have that background knowledge. I wasn’t sure how someone like that would react.

“I’ll put out feelers. See what we can do without scaring the fuck out of her, but let’s do our best to find her. She isn’t safe out there on her own.” I clapped a hand on Ilias’s shoulder. It went without saying that Carlotta was potentially looking for Galena, which meant we needed to find her first. He nodded, briefly squeezing his hand over mine, and then Maxim dragged us back to business. “We should find out if there is any information onthe assault. Maybe see if she’s running from the fuckers who were involved?”

“We’ll find her,” Maxim swore. “There’s no way we won’t. I’ll drag in Veronica to see if she can do some facial recognition shit with traffic cams. Maybe we can get a hit that way.”

That was smart. We divided up the people to talk to before addressing our other matter.

"Carlotta," Maxim said, snapping the folder shut. “Let’s talk about what we found at the raid." Maxim tossed a slim USB drive onto my desk. "Surveillance photos. Financials."

Ilias leaned in, tension radiating off him. "Carlotta used Renzetti like a shield. Everything he did—the attacks, the hits, the disruptions in the city—was on her orders."

"No real loyalty," Maxim added. "The men he used weren't soldiers. They were mercenaries. Hired guns. And now that he's gone?—"

"They’re gone too," Ilias finished grimly.

That was interesting. We didn’t operate that way in the organized crime world. Our ranks were filled with men we could count on, made men who would die for thefamiglia. We had assumed that Salvatore (or whoever hewas) had been trying to make a bid for the Olivetto mafia. I frowned, picking up the drive and rolling it between my fingers. "Meaning she’s exposed. This is an opportunity.”

Ilias nodded. "The clothes in the closet weren't just a stopover. There were records hidden in a safe under the floorboards. Coded transactions. Shell companies."

"She's been moving money for years," Maxim said darkly. "Using Renzetti as a shield. Many of the records we’ve found we haven’t cracked …yet.”

"Without him..." I said slowly, the pieces clicking together, “She’s exposed."

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