Copyright © 2017 by Bethany-Kris. All Rights Reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
“What are you looking at?”
“A full shipment,” Wolf replied.
“Of the handguns.”
It wasn’t even a question.
“Sì.”
The olive-toned, dark-haired man on the other side of the table nodded. “One-hundred grand, then.”
Nearly fifteen-year-old Cross Donati’s brow furrowed as he surveyed the guns on the table again. He knew a thing or two about guns; he liked them. He liked them a whole lot for longer than he could remember. Instead of porn stashed under his bed, he had Guns and Ammo.
Nearly seventy percent of America’s black market gun trade was exclusive to handguns, with a large majority being semi-auto pistols. A very small percentage of that market went to rifles. It wasn’t where the money was.
All good dealers—the illegal ones, anyway—went where the money happened to be.
Cross glanced back to the table just across the way, where he’d left his backpack hidden underneath with his phone inside. The calculator on the damn thing would help him figure out the numbers, but he was sure--
“Cross, eyes on the table,” Wolf snapped at the back of his head.
Shit.
“I just wanted to get my—”
“We’re doing business, principe. What does that mean, huh?”
Cross rolled his eyes while his back was still turned. If his father’s consigliere saw him doing that, Wolf wouldn’t hesitate to smack him for it. “Means eyes on the table.”
“So get them there.”
The man who had brought the guns into the strip joint that Wolf owned chuckled, so did the three guys that accompanied him.
“He’s grown quite a bit, hasn’t he?” the man asked, watching Cross with a hard stare that betrayed his kind tone.
Wolf kept his gaze on the guns, even as he answered. “Quite a bit this last year, actually. Puberty kicked in hard with him a couple of years back before anyone knew what the fuck was happening.”
“Calisto’s got him under your feet, I see.”
“Somebody needs to keep an eye on the principe when his zio can’t do it,” Wolf said absently.
“How old is he now?”
“Four—”
“Almost fifteen,” Cross interjected before Wolf could finish. His mentor—for all purposes—gave him a side-eye that warned him to pipe down without even saying a thing. “Well, I am.”
Wolf lifted a hand and waved it at Cross as if to ask, what can you do with him? “He’s still learning, but he’s quick. He has a good interest in this sort of thing, and it would be a shame to waste it. Problem is, he’s also got a mighty attitude that can’t seem to be cured. Maybe it’s puberty, or maybe he’s just going to be one of those cocky shits when he gets older. Who the hell knows? Right now, I have his attention focused. That’s what Calisto wanted me to do. Focus him on something other than easy pussy, idle hands, and trouble. Mostly, he listens. It’s the best I can say for him.”
“Hey!”
The men ignored Cross’s indignant mutter, and went back to discussing the weapons on the table as though he wasn’t even there to begin with.
“One-hundred G’s, you said?” Wolf asked, scratching at his lower jaw.
The guy nodded. “That’ll get you a full shipment of these handguns and the pistols.”
Without a word, Wolf bent down and pulled one of two bags out from under the table. Both had cash in them, as Cross had seen Wolf check, double-check, and then triple check both bags before his … associates arrived.
Money was another thing Cross liked.
A lot.
Wolf set the heavy bag on the table with a thud. “There you are, all large bills.”
One of the three men that had been standing back stepped forward to stuff the guns into duffle bags, while another man grabbed hold of the bag with the cash.
“Leave the pistols,” the man told his man, “just pack up the rifles.”
Cross kind of wanted one of those rifles.
He stayed quiet.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Puzza,” the man said, smirking.
Wolf offered the same back. “And you.”
“Say hello to the principe’s zio for me. It’s been a while, but you know how the Marcellos are. We don’t mingle with other families very often unless it’s for business. How Giovanni gets away with it and doesn’t get himself killed, I’ll never know.”
“I’ll tell Calisto you asked after him, Lucian.”
That was the first time Cross heard Wolf use the man’s name since he had entered the strip joint an hour earlier. He stared at Lucian Marcello’s back as the man’s men flanked him from the sides and behind to follow him out.
Cross blinked out of his daze when Wolf’s hand ruffled through his dark hair, messing up his curls. He smacked the older man’s hands off his head. “Fuck off, Wolf.”
Wolf laughed loud and hard, turning back to the table. “Just figuring out who that was now, are you?”
“Lucian Marcello.”
“Yeah, yeah. But why is he important, kid?”
Cross bristled at the kid comment, but spoke anyway. “He’s Dante Marcello’s underboss.”
“And?”
Cross was not a stupid teenager, despite what Wolf liked to sometimes say. Besides, he was pretty sure Wolf told people stuff like that to keep them from looking at Cross too hard. Like then they might see that Cross had a better understanding of the shit happening around him than anyone was aware of.
He knew who his step-father was in New York. Although, technically Calisto Donati was his cousin, despite the fact Cross referred to him as an uncle, who had married his mother when he was just a baby. A mafia boss, running a criminal organization and living his life by the Cosa Nostra code.
Cross figured all that shit out when he was younger, and realized no, not everyone got a bodyguard like he did when he played in his own backyard during turbulent times. No, not every kid had rules that dealt with things like respect, honor, and dignity repeated to them over and over again by every man in their life. And no, not every kid got someone like Wolf to take them on trips and business meets that they weren’t allowed to talk about with people outside the family.
Also, family meant a whole different thing to Cross compared to other people.
It wasn’t just blood.
It was famiglia.
No, Cross wasn’t stupid.
“Cross,” Wolf said.
“What?”
Wolf gestured toward the front door of the strip joint where Lucian had disappeared out of earlier. “And?”
“And the Marcellos dominate organized crime in New York,” Cross said. He parroted the same words that had been repeated to him a thousand times in an effort to teach him about the rules, families, and expectations of a business that his step-father kept telling him he couldn’t keep his nose out of.
“So what does that mean to us?”
To the Donati family, he meant.
Cross heard the unspoken words loud and clear.
“We defer to the Marcellos,” Cross said, “on stuff that might affect their business or streets. It’s what’s right.”
“It’s the proper thing to do,” Wolf corrected. “It’s about the respect and the point of the matter, Cross.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Wolf picked up one of the handguns from the table and tossed it over to Cross, who caught it easily. The weapon was empty of bullets, for the moment. Cross flipped the gun over in his hands, looking over the shined metal and enjoying the weight of the weapon.
“I think he ripped you off,” Cross said, remembering why he had wanted to grab his phone.
Wolf was already heading toward the bar.
Cross followed behind.
“Why is that?”
“The last time you grabbed a shipment of semi-auto pistols, it was almost twice the size and only thirty-thousand more.”
“Get on with the point, principe,” Wolf said as he gestured for the bartender to get him a drink.
“Well, if I could have gotten my damn phone, I could have worked the numbers out like I wanted to.”
Wolf shook his head, glancing to Cross as he sat on one of the barstools. “Eyes on the table, Cross, always.”
“Or the men, I know.”
“Not on a phone screen.”
“But I was gonna do the numbers and—”
Wolf leaned over and pinged Cross right in the middle of his forehead hard. “You’re almost fifteen, shithead.”
Cross scowled and rubbed at the spot, suddenly finding the urge to hit Wolf back with the gun in his hand. Somehow, he pushed the urge down. “So?”
“So, I’ll overlook the fact you think you need a goddamn phone in your hands to automatically do numbers for you, Cross, but I’m not going to overlook it after today. You’re a smart kid for such a cafone. Most of the time. You don’t need a phone; you need to use your brain. That thing right—”
Cross managed to smack Wolf’s hand out of the way before the guy could poke him again. “Do that again, and I’ll break your fingers.”
Wolf chuckled. “You could try.”
“Someday I will,” he muttered under his breath.
Apparently, not quietly enough.
“And when that day comes, you will thank me for all of this, Cross.”
“I doubt it.”
Wolf smiled. “You will, principe. Trust me.”
“I think he did, though. Rip you off.”
“He didn’t. The street value has gone up, and Lucian still has to make a profit. He changed suppliers a while back, and unlike my last guy, can’t sell closer to wholesale price like he got them before. That’s why they’re more expensive. But …” Wolf looked to Cross with a wider grin beginning to grow, and clapped the teenager hard on the shoulder; a pride shined heavily in his actions. “That was a good catch for an almost fifteen-year-old kid.”
“Will you stop calling me that?”
“Not in your wettest dreams, principe.”
Cross glared.
Wolf winked right back.
Whatever.
Cross’s attention was already onto something else. “Basically, these guns have gone through too many hands, and their price has been upped again and again to make sure the next guy at least gets his money back. Wholesale is where the money is, right? That’s what you’re saying.”
“For a proper arms trafficker?” Wolf sipped from his whiskey. “Damn right. We’re not doing that, though. We’re just keeping our supply up and having a little extra stored away for a few deals coming up. Nothing more, nothing less. You know how we make our money, and it isn’t through selling guns. We don’t have the contacts to make it work, frankly.”
No, they made money through drugs, extortion, and a bunch of other shit.
Cross liked guns, though.
“You give me a bit of hope, Cross,” Wolf said out of the blue.
“For what?”
“When it’s you doing this, with a head that quick and a brain that smart, nobody will get shit past you. It’s why Calisto forces you to school when you don’t want to go, and why he drags your ass out of bed to go with me on the weekends. You don’t get to just stumble and flounder into this life like a fucking idiot hoping to make something of yourself because you like guns and have a mafia boss for a step-dad. You have to learn. I mess with you to make you learn in a way that best suits you. Remember that—eyes on the table, principe.”
Yeah, he got it.
Again.
***
“I swear to God, I am going to put a bullet in you one of these fucking days.”
Cross didn’t bother to look up from the gun he was dismantling at his step-father’s threat because he knew it wasn’t meant for him. Sure, Calisto probably sometimes wanted to put a bullet in Cross because he was, according to the man, mouthy, difficult, and stubborn as shit, but he never actually said it.
Wolf sighed across the table from Cross. “Come on, now, Cal.”
“What did I tell you?” Calisto came to stand by the table, picked up Cross’s drink of Seven Up, and sniffed it before setting it back down. “I told you one thing about today, so what was it, Wolf?”
“He was fine. He’s still fine.”
“In a strip club! He’s not even fifteen, for fuck’s sake!”
Cross tipped his head to the side, eyeing one of the girls dancing mostly naked on a stage with a pole just a few feet away from their table. All she had on was a G-string, but he had something better to pay attention to in his hands. His new gun.
“Jesus, look at him, Cal. He’s not even interested.”
“Oh, he’s interested. He’s—”
“Twenty-one seconds to dismantle,” Cross piped up.
“Where’s your kit I gave you? You should clean it while it’s opened up,” Wolf said as though he weren’t managing two conversations at once. Then, he went back to Calisto. “It’s not the first time he’s been in here, or a place like it, Cal. Relax. You said it, he’s almost fifteen. Let’s not pretend like he doesn’t have a stack of pussy mags hidden somewhere like we all did at that age. But if he doesn’t, well … Seriously, he’s not even interested in the girls. Kind of makes me wonder if he’s a little—”
“Not gay,” Cross interrupted.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Wolf replied.
Cross scowled. “Lies. You were. And I’m not.”
“I wasn’t going to say it loudly.”
Calisto grinded his teeth and glared up at the ceiling. “I want to ask if you are fucking with me right now, but I don’t even have to because I know you’re not. I’m not sure if that should piss me off more.”
“I’m not gay,” Cross said again.
“Yes, Cross,” Calisto muttered under his breath, “I do know that, son.”
“But you could be a little more interested in …” Wolf trailed off, and tipped his head in the direction of the dancing stripper. “I’m just putting that out there.”
“I see his phone history once a week,” Calisto groused. “It gets sent to me in a nice little email. Trust me, the kid is not gay. But that girl is not his preference, either. Too thin, too light, and way too blonde.”
Something that felt a lot like embarrassment filled Cross, but it was quickly replaced with another feeling that was foreign to him—anger. At least where his step-dad was concerned.
“How do you do that?” Cross asked.
Calisto looked down at him. “What?”
“Get stuff from my phone emailed to you.”
“I had my guy put an app on it after I bought it and—”
“You track my phone?”
“Cross.”
“You track my phone?” he demanded again.
Calisto pressed two fingers into his temple. “I have to monitor something when I can, don’t I? Have I ever brought it up to you? Have I ever spoke about the stuff you search or look up, or the people you text? No, because I don’t have to. Don’t give me a reason to, and I won’t.”
Cross stared at his step-father. “I want a new phone. Without a tracking app.”
“Buy one then.”
“But—”
“I bought this one. I do what I want with it. You buy one, do what you want, Cross.”
“Seems fair,” Wolf said more to himself than the table.
“And you,” Calisto said, turning back on his consigliere. “Stop bringing him into these goddamn strip joints. It’s not even about the girls. It’s the way the fools here act about the girls. Like pieces of ass, nothing more. Meat on display. It’s ridiculous, and I won’t have him getting those ideals in his head.”
“He’s going to see it one way or the other, man.”
“Not when I can help it, Wolf.”
“Whatever. Fine. You want a drink?”
Calisto waved as if to say, go for it. Wolf was gone from the table a second later, and then Calisto took the man’s vacant seat.
“You’re pissed at me now,” Calisto said.
It wasn’t even a question.
Cross shrugged as he pulled out a small vat of oil and a brush to clean the gun. “I follow the rules. Don’t see why you need to spy on me, Cal.”
Sometimes, he called his step-father his papa.
Sometimes, it was just Cal to Cross.
It all depended on his mood, and who was around to hear it. As he grew up, there were far too many men who liked to remind Cross that the man he loved as his father, wasn’t really his dad. They liked to point out as often as they could that Cross’s biological father was a bastard who had betrayed their thing—their Cosa Nostra—and left his young mother Emma with a baby and divorce papers before never being heard from again.
Like a coward.
They said those things like they were Cross’s stains to wear.
As though he was stained, too.
“Because you’re almost fifteen,” Calisto said quietly. “That means I don’t see you as much. I don’t get very much say, and there’s no leash short enough to keep you where I would like to have you, Cross. It means even though I have told you again and again what you should or shouldn’t do, where you should or shouldn’t go, and all the rest, I still need to sometimes make sure you’re still listening.”
Well …
“All right,” Cross said.
But he still wasn’t okay with it.
Not entirely.
“What did you mean about the other thing?” Cross asked.
“Pardon?”
“Ideals, you said.” Cross subtly nodded toward the girl that was leaving the stage in preparation for another girl to come and take her spot. “What did you mean?”
“Women aren’t property, Cross. Too many men who hang around these places, and too many in our business, like to believe women are something to be owned. They make a show out of their women; they display them like trophies. As though they’ve won them; it’s not a competition. You earn a good woman by being a good man, that’s it. You can’t do that by treating a woman like your personal toy because then she becomes that ideal to those around you who are watching.”
Calisto sighed, and rested back in his chair. “Make men wish they were you; make them wish they were lucky enough to be you. As for women? Make them want to be with you, or want to be the woman standing next to you. But you don’t do that by putting a woman on display like a trophy you didn’t earn. Got it?”
Cross nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”
“It’s just like Wolf said, huh? You’re not interested in the show here at all, are you?”
“The show?”
Calisto sat straighter in his chair. “The girls, Cross.”
“Not really. What’s to be interested in? They’re letting it all out, anyway. I’ve seen tits and ass before. It’s not new.” Cross went back to his gun on the table. “And like you said, they’re not my type.”
Calisto laughed under his breath. “True. How did football tryouts go yesterday? Ma took you, right?”
“I killed it.”
Calisto smirked. “Didn’t expect any different. First string?”
“Quarterback.”
His step-father whistled low. “Well done. You know they’re probably not going to put you on first string when you enter the upper Academy next year for tenth grade.”
His private school only went from grades sixth through ninth before the higher grades, tenth through twelfth, were separated into what the school called the upper Academy. The upper grades were in an entirely different section, with private grounds and wings from the lower grades, effectively cutting off the younger kids from the older. The school as a whole was just known as the Academy of Westforth.
“It’s just that most of the time, younger grades get placed on second string.” Calisto made a dismissive noise under his breath. “If they even get picked at all.”
Cross shrugged. “I hope they like losing, then.”
“Arrogance is unbecoming.”
“I don’t know, I think it works for me.”
Calisto shook his head. “You’re fucking terrible, Cross.”
Wolf came up to the table, and set the glass of what looked to be vodka down in front of Calisto. “Yeah, but that kind of works for the little shit, too.”
CHAPTER TWO
Catherine Marcello’s favorite spot in her family’s large home had always been her parents’ office. It was a comforting place for her because she had spent so much time inside it. As a child, she used to hide under her father’s desk and play for hours on end until one of her parents came to find her. Despite having a house with too many rooms to fill, her parents—Catrina and Dante—shared an office space.
But she wasn’t a child anymore at thirteen-years-old.
As Catherine got older, she understood exactly why her parents shared an office space together. Or rather, she got nosier.
Instead of playing with her tablet or toys, she snooped through the papers on the desk, or flipped through the folders inside the drawers. She knew it wasn’t exactly right, but she figured it wasn’t all that wrong of her to do, either.
Her parents would have said so, otherwise. They had no problem telling her what she could or couldn’t do for any other thing. Plus Dante and Catrina never made any real effort to hide the things they left behind in their office for Catherine to look through.
Catherine wasn’t entirely sure when she realized the truth about her family. Maybe it was when she was five, and a bodyguard was waiting to pick her up after kindergarten in the afternoon. Or maybe it was over the years, during the many family dinners, when business between men was quietly discussed. Maybe it was when Catherine asked her father why her mother flew out to L.A. twice a month for years, only to have Dante simply say, work.
What kind of work?
What does she do?
Can I go with Ma?
Dante would laugh off his daughter’s questions and shake his head with a wink. “Someday, maybe, reginella,” he would say, although he never sounded very honest when he said it.
Perhaps Catherine really understood the darker truth about her family when people used titles like Queen or Don in reference to her mother or father. Very rarely did people use her father’s name—it was almost always Don or boss. The only people Catherine had ever heard call her mother by her name were very close friends and immediate family. To everyone else, Catrina Marcello was Queen. Or, Regina. Her mother even had that word tattooed on the inside of her pointer finger.
That was also how Catherine had gotten her pet name--reginella. Her mother’s little queen.
Those titles her parents had were always spoken with some level of respect, handed out without question, and never with hesitation. As though they earned them.
She was not dumb.
She was actually quite sly.
Or, that’s what her daddy always said.
Between the things she heard and saw over the years, the way people talked about her family, and through her own snooping, Catherine knew all there was to know about the Marcellos. Organized Crime. Mafia. Cosa Nostra.
It wasn’t really a girl thing, so she pretended like she didn’t know when she needed to. Sometimes, though, her curiosity got the better of her, and she dared to ask about things she knew she probably shouldn’t. Like why her mother was clearly in with the family business.
That was how she learned Catrina was a Queen Pin. A drug dealer of the highest caliber, dealing to the most elite clientele.
And that was damn near the end of the discussion.
At least, from her mother’s side of it.
Catherine was too curious, and too interested in what all of that meant, to let it drop.
That was why she found herself snooping through her mother and father’s office again because Catrina didn’t want to talk. Catherine wanted to know.
She figured she wasn’t asking for much.
Catrina’s trips had slowed over the last year, too. Catherine noticed. Her mother wasn’t flying out as often, and she spent more time taking phone calls in private. She didn’t know what any of that meant, but she did know how to snoop to find enough pieces to put it all together for herself.
“What are you doing in here?”
Catherine looked up at her almost seventeen-year-old brother’s voice. “Looking for something.”
Michel’s brow furrowed. “Looking for what?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“In Ma and Dad’s desk?”
“So?”
“You shouldn’t snoop. They don’t look through our shit.”
“Says you.”
“Go away, Michel.”
“Don’t be a bitch, Catherine.”
“Don’t you have someone else to annoy?” Catherine asked.
She went back to digging though the desk. She hadn’t lied to her brother, technically. She didn’t know what she was looking for until she found it. That was usually how it worked.
“If they didn’t want me to look, they would keep the door locked,” Catherine muttered under her breath.
“That is a shitty justification for your nosiness.”
Catherine shot her brother a glare. “Go away.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“I hate you.”
“It’s mutual.”
Catherine pulled out a thin, leather black notebook from the very bottom drawer. Actually, it was more like a journal. Flipping it open, she found pages upon pages of names and addresses. Some of the names, she recognized, but only because of their star attraction.
Celebrities.
She blinked.
Another page flipped over in her hands.
A sports star turned actor.
A musician.
Michel came up beside her, and pointed at a name she didn’t recognize. “Former president’s son.”
“President of what?” she asked.
He laughed. “The country. How did you pass into eighth grade this year?”
Catherine blinked again, and chose to ignore her brother’s jab. “What is this?”
“Ma’s black book. You know, clients.”
“For drugs?”
Michel shrugged. “Yeah.”
“There’s a lot of names in here.”
“She was good at what she did.”
“Was,” Catherine said.
“Huh?”
“You said was. Past tense. See, there is a reason I passed, asshole.”
Michel rolled his eyes. “I don’t know much about it all, just that she’s not as active as she used to be. It gets boring after a while, maybe. I don’t know, ask her.”
“I do. She tells me nothing. That’s why I—”
“Snoop, yeah I got it.”
“How do you know?” Catherine asked.
“Because I hear shit, so I ask shit,” Michel explained.
“Who do you ask?”
“Mostly cousins, like John or Andino, and sometimes Uncle Gio when he’s in a good mood.”
Huh.
Catherine filed that info away for later.
“Really, though, you shouldn’t snoop,” Michel said, taking the black book and putting it away. “There’s some things that are better left alone, Catherine. Some of this is a lot of that, if you get what I mean.”
“But—”
“And you’ve got school tomorrow.”
She scowled. “So do you.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been attending the Academy since sixth grade. You’re only getting transferred in this year. I’m in the upper Academy, so I won’t be around for you to ask me a million questions or to keep your ass out of trouble.”
“I do just fine on my own, thanks.”
Michel nodded. “Sure you do.”
“I don’t want to go to that stuffy school anyway.”
Her father took her out of her all girls private school, and decided to transfer her into the Academy of Westforth for her eighth grade. That meant all of her friends were left behind.
“Point is,” her brother said, “you don’t want to be tired and stupid walking around tomorrow. Some of those kids are a bunch of shits, too much money and too bored for their own good. With a last name like Marcello, some of them just want to see how far they can push before you push back. Keep an eye open, that’s all.”
“We’ve got too much money, and we’re bored half the time, too.”
Michel smirked. “Maybe you’ll fit right in, then, but who knows? You’ve got too much mouth sometimes. It gets you in trouble.”
It did not.
“Liliana will be there,” Catherine said of her cousin.
She was only one year younger than Liliana.
“Yeah, that’ll help,” Michel said as he headed for the door. “Another one with too much mouth in this family.”
Asshole.
***
“What’s your next class?”
Catherine handed over her schedule to Liliana without even looking at it. “Whatever that says.”
“Art.”
Great.
Liliana rattled off the teacher’s name and the easiest way to find the classroom, but Catherine was more focused on the football players finishing their sprints on the field. Sitting three rows up on the metal benches, she had a good view.
She wasn’t really a football person.
It was more interesting than classes with people she didn’t know, though.
Catherine was not liking her new school at all. Her brother had been right, or maybe she just hadn’t realized how difficult it was to be on the outside looking in. At her old school, she had been a part of the popular crowd. She had friends.
She didn’t need to make them.
It was strange to be … out of place.
The bell rang, signaling it was time for the students to head back inside as lunch was over, and classes would start in another ten minutes. Liliana stood instantly. Catherine stayed right where she was.
“Hey, art class, remember?”
Catherine took the schedule back from her cousin. “Yeah, I know.”
“It’s on the other side of the school, so you might want to get going if you don’t want to be late.”
“I’m going.”
“You’re going to skip, aren’t you?”
Catherine shrugged. “I’m not very artsy.”
That was a lie.
She loved art.
But not with people she didn’t know.
“You know they call home when you skip a class after already showing up to previous ones, right?”
“Maybe my dad will send me back to my old school, then.”
Liliana rolled her eyes upward. “Unlikely. And it’s not that bad here.”
“I don’t know anyone.”
“You have to, oh, I don’t know, talk to people, Catherine.”
“I tried to talk to that Natasha girl from English studies. I told you about her. She fucking scoffed at me--scoffed.”
“She’s a royal bitch on a high horse, and everybody knows it. She just hasn’t figured out who you are yet, that’s all.”
“She scoffs at me again, and I’ll punch her in the throat.”
Catherine had a big brother who used to make a game out of teasing her. She knew how to kick someone’s ass. People underestimated her because she was a girl and pretty, or that’s what her dad said.
Don’t let anybody underestimate you after the first time, Catherine, because then they deserve everything they get when they make the mistake a second time, her dad liked to say.
“I bet she won’t make one of those noises after that,” Catherine added.
Liliana laughed. “You’re going to have so much fun here once you stop sulking.”
Sure she would.
“Seriously, get to your art class,” Liliana said as she turned to head down the bleachers.
Catherine still stayed where she was sitting. Liliana turned back around and stared at her until she finally got up to follow. “You’re no fun.”
“You won’t be, either, if Uncle Dante grounds you for skipping.”
“Shut up, and stop sucking so much.”
Liliana tossed her a look. “Maybe that attitude is why you’re not making friends.”
Catherine didn’t grace that with a response. She followed behind Liliana as they stepped off the bleachers and walked alongside the field to head back to the school.
“Hey, new girl!”
The shout from an unfamiliar voice made Catherine stiffen, but she chose not to pay it any attention. She found a lot of the kids at the Academy had been attending the same schools for years, and they all knew one another. It was unusual for a new face to pop up, and she just happened to be one of a few new students that year.
“Hey, slow down, pretty girl,” the guy said as he jogged alongside Catherine and Liliana. He didn’t look to be much older than her or Liliana, but she figured if he was, he would be in the upper Academy anyway.
“Are you fucking serious, Hugh?” Liliana asked. “Go bother someone else.”
The guy—Hugh—turned on one foot to jog backwards, and let his helmet dangle from one hand. “What? I have to say hi to the fresh meat, don’t I?”
Catherine just stared at the guy. “Go away.”
“Aw, don’t be like that. You’re new, right? Make a friend. I’m a pretty decent guy to start with.”
She doubted that, for some reason. “Seriously, go away.”
He just laughed. “What’s your name?”
Catherine sighed.
Maybe if she just gave the guy what he wanted, he would leave her the hell alone.
“Catherine.”
“Last name? You know, for research purposes.”
Liliana reached over and pushed Hugh hard on his shoulder, nearly knocking him off balance. “Will you crawl off somewhere, creep?”
Hugh righted himself with a glare. “Don’t be a bitch, Lily.”
“Hugh, let’s go! Leave the conversation on the sidelines for your own time, not mine. Donati has been waiting for you for three minutes. Stop wasting my time!”
Catherine didn’t realize how close the football team, and their coaches had come to the sidelines as they were walking off. Out of all the players, only one still had his helmet off, and he wore a scowl that could rival the Devil’s.
A scowl fixed on a very handsome face.
Catherine lingered on the guy for a few more seconds, taking in his smooth features, strong jaw, dark eyes, and irritated expression. She didn’t think she had seen someone look pissed off and damn cute at the same time before. He ran a hand through his dark curls, and his olive-toned complexion shined with perspiration.
“Cross can wait a second,” Hugh hollered back. “I’m working on something here.”
“Working on getting your nuts to ascend back into your body,” Liliana muttered under her breath.
Catherine giggled. Her amusement faded fast. Like the second Hugh grabbed her arm in a tight grip, and stopped her from walking further.
“Last name?” he asked again.
She tugged her arm to free it from his grasp, but he didn’t let go. She looked down at his hand pointedly. “That’s a no.”
“Shit, what’s your problem? I’m just asking who the hell—”
“Let me go,” Catherine said.
She was polite.
It was the only warning he was going to get.
“Tell me your name, then.”
“This isn’t a tit for tat,” Catherine replied. “I said no, and that means—”
Catherine didn’t even see the fist coming before it smashed into Hugh’s face. Hugh let go of Catherine’s arm with a holler, and she almost tripped over her gladiator-style sandals in an effort to jump back.
“Means fucking no,” the guy Catherine had been admiring earlier said, as he stood over a now bleeding Hugh. “Coach said to move your ass, so move, Hugh. Stop bothering girls—didn’t you get enough of that shit last year?”
“Donati!” someone yelled from the field.
“Jesus Christ, Cross,” Liliana muttered.
“Prick!”
That was all Hugh got out before he kicked out a leg and dropped Cross to the ground. In full football gear, but for the helmets, the two boys started laying into one another. Each fist smacking into a body or gear made Catherine cringe. She was pretty sure someone was bleeding, too, in between cursing and name calling. The players and coaches on the field started heading their way fast.
“Okay, time to go,” Liliana said, making sure to tug Catherine along.
She kept up with her cousin easily enough.
First day, and already starting fights.
Yeah, she really missed her old school.
“Donati did you a favor there,” Liliana said as they came closer to the school.
“Who?” Catherine asked, peering back over her shoulder.
“Donati. Cross Donati.”
That surname seemed familiar to Catherine, but she couldn’t quite pull out why.
“Hugh is a creep,” Liliana said, oblivious to Catherine’s confusion. “He doesn’t understand the word no, and if you ask the right girls, they’ll all tell you not to leave a drink unattended when he’s around. Seriously, Cross did you a favor.”
She couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder.
Catherine found a pair of dark eyes looking in her direction before they locked onto hers.
Cross.
Cross Donati.
His fist crashed down into Hugh’s bloody face one more time before the coach reached the fighting boys, and pulled them apart. He was still staring after Catherine, though.
Cross smiled at her, then, showing off white teeth stained red by his bloody mouth. He didn’t seem a bit bothered by it, really. She smiled back.
Catherine thought, years from then, when people asked …
She would say that was when she fell in love with Cross.
Black hair.
Dark eyes.
Bruised knuckles.
Bloody mouth.
All the while, he smiled at her.
And she smiled back.
That was when she fell in love with Cross Donati.
Even if she hadn’t known it then.
CHAPTER THREE
“He got suspended on the first day, Cal. The first day!”
Cross dumped his football gear in the corner of the hall, grabbed his leather jacket, and headed down the hallway. He was hoping to bypass the kitchen where his mother was ranting about his three-day suspension from school, but he should have known better.
Fuck all got past Emma Donati.
Especially when she was in a fit.
“Cross Nazio Donati, you get in here right now!”
“Ooooh,” his eleven year old sister, Camilla, taunted on her way past him in the hallway, “someone’s in trouble. Again.”
“Shut up, Cam.”
“You shut up.”
“Good comeback,” he muttered.
Camilla smiled sweetly over her shoulder. “I’m not the one in trouble.”
True.
Cross stood in the kitchen entryway, and refused to go in further. He folded his arms over his chest. “What, Ma?”
“Cross,” his step-father warned, “tamper down the attitude.”
Just the tone of Calisto’s voice was enough for Cross to know he was walking on some seriously thin lines. He readjusted his attitude, or tried.
“It’s not that big of a deal, Ma,” Cross said. “It’s three days—the first week is all for introductions anyway. Don’t have a fit.”
Calisto cringed, glanced up at the ceiling, and shook his head.
Like he knew what was coming next.
His mother’s gaze narrowed in on him from across the room, and Cross figured out his mistake. It was too late to fix it.
“Don’t have a fit?” Emma asked, strangely calm.
“It’s not like the asshole didn’t—”
“Language, Cross.”
“He is an asshole. That’s why I broke his stupid mouth.”
That, and because the pretty girl with the green eyes told Hugh no. Hugh should have listened. Cross only thought to go over and drag Hugh’s stupid ass back onto the field because he was wasting Cross’s valuable practice time, but then he happened to hear the last bit of the conversation. Next thing he knew, he broke Hugh’s mouth.
And the pretty girl smiled.
Cross figured that made his bloody, bruised knuckles worth it.
“This is ridiculous,” Emma said, glaring at her husband. “He behaves this way at school because you let him do too much—get away with too much—outside of it.”
“That’s not true,” Calisto argued.
Cross leaned back on his heels and glanced down the hallway while his parents continued on with their argument. He could see the light from the backdoor from his spot just beyond the large staircase that led to the upper floors, and the library and office.
Ten seconds, maybe less, and he’d be gone.
He looked back to his parents.
“Look at his hands,” Emma said, “they’re bruised up and—”
“No worse than how they look after he beats the hell out of his punching bag without wrapping them up.”
“Cal, you’re justifying it again.”
“I am not. I’m just saying.”
“And he’s got a bruise on his mouth, too. How the hell is he supposed to show up to church on Sunday with a bruised mouth?”
“With a smile,” Cross said, “makes it stand out more, Ma.”
Both Calisto and Emma shot him warning looks without saying a word.
Cross just shrugged.
He did what he did.
It was over.
He wasn’t going to actually get grounded. He never got grounded. It did little to no good when he would just scale out of his bedroom window, down to the ground level, get on his quad, and head out onto the trails before his parents knew what was happening. Calisto threatened to take the bike keys away; Cross stole and hid them himself. His step-father threatened to have one of the enforcers lock the bike up; Cross filled the garage locks with insulation foam.
Cross was pretty sure Cal was three seconds away from laying a beating down on his ass for those stunts, but …
Worth it.
He got what he wanted.
Calisto stopped using grounding as a method of punishment for Cross after that. Cross didn’t want to be caged in. He talked more. He was better, when he was allowed to do what he wanted, with boundaries and rules on those things.
“Do you want another spell like last time?” Calisto asked, bringing Cross from his thoughts. “Because the last time I had this fight with the kid, he cost me eight grand to fix my garage, Emma. The fucking bastard who came here to fix it is probably still laughing at me.”
Still arguing.
“This is boring now,” Cross said, “and I’ve got things to do, so …”
Neither of them seemed to be paying attention.
Good enough for me.
Cross backed out of the kitchen entryway, and headed for the back of the house. He was outside, sliding on his leather jacket, and tugging his quad helmet down over his head just as he heard Calisto shout out for him. His quad was already parked at the backdoor where he had left it the night before. The Yamaha YFZ450R could get him from his property, to a friend’s four acres away, in less than a minute and a half.
“One hour, Cross, and you’re to be back here! Got it?”
A wave of his hand over his shoulder was the only answer he gave back.
He’d deal with it later.
Later always came.
That was one of the only guarantees in his life.
***
“Where the hell were you after school?” Zeke asked. “I thought you wanted to ride home with me?”
Cross tugged his helmet off, and hung it on the handlebars of the quad. “Getting shouted at the whole way home because Cal couldn’t get out of a meeting to come pick me up earlier. I think he probably let all his anger build up over the day and let it go, but who knows.”
Zeke stood straight, and dropped the rag he was using to buff out the rims on his Camaro. Almost all of Cross’s friends were older than him by a couple of years—Zeke was no exception at seventeen.
“Camilla laughed the whole time in the back seat,” Cross added. “Because she’s evil.”
“All little sisters are. Sent from fuckin’ Satan.”
“Anyway, the school kept me in the office all day. Cal picked me up ten minutes before final bell.”
“Could have sent me a text, so I wasn’t waiting for you after school. I heard you punched Hugh Donahue in the mouth on the field. They were still cleaning up the blood on the sidelines when the upper Academy’s team went on the field to practice, by the way.”
Cross shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Yeah. For Catherine Marcello, too.”
“What?”
Zeke bent back down out of sight, and went to work on his wheels again. “I’m just saying that’s what I heard. New girl—Catherine Marcello. You and Hugh. I don’t know how you haven’t gotten your ass permanently expelled from the Academy yet.”
“Because Cal donates a lot of money to them,” Cross said absently. “Or that’s what he keeps telling my mother.”
But that is beside the point.
“Catherine Marcello?”
Zeke’s head popped up just enough for Cross to see his friend’s eyes. “Uh, yeah. Her brother, Michel, is a couple months younger than me—same grade, though. Guess he heard about it, too, because that’s who I heard it from.”
“Marcello,” Cross repeated, “as in the Marcellos.”
“You’ve met Michel.”
Sure.
At parties. In the locker room off the field at the Academy, when the lower and upper grades were switching out. But he didn’t know the guy.
Cross did know that Michel supplied the school with … stuff.
Pills. Weed. Acid. Molly.
Whatever.
If someone had a poison, Michel could deliver it.
Cross wasn’t into that too much.
“So yeah, Catherine it was,” Zeke said, standing to admire his wheels. “Don’t know how you didn’t know, though.”
“Never met her. She’s new. I didn’t ask questions. I just broke Hugh’s face. She was already gone by the time it was over.”
But hey …
The pretty girl with the green eyes had a name.
Cross wondered what else he could learn about her from her.
“How did you get over here?”
Cross sometimes thought—despite Zeke’s father being Wolf—that the guy was dumb as shit. He was a good friend, sure, but dumb. “I’m on my bike, man.”
“No, I meant … do you ever get in trouble when you act like a little shit?”
“Not really.”
“Ever?” his friend pressed. “Because I breathe in the wrong direction, and Dad is on my ass.”
Wolf wasn’t like that with Cross.
Then again, Zeke wasn’t like Cross, either. He didn’t have an interest in the business their families dabbled in. Zeke wasn’t good, but he wasn’t that sort of bad, either.
Cross shrugged under the weight of his leather jacket. “Did you get my shit I asked for?”
Zeke nodded, and pulled open the passenger door of his Camaro. A beat passed before he tossed a black device across the driveway. Cross caught the phone easily enough, and flipped it over in his hands to take a look at it.
All black.
Touchscreen.
Fingerprint password capability.
“Burner, right?” Cross asked.
Zeke rolled his eyes. “I get you what you ask for, Cross. Why do you need a phone, anyway? Didn’t Cal just buy you a new one for school?”
“He spies on it. He didn’t tell me he was spying on it, and that pisses me off.”
“Oh. Well, shit.” Zeke came close enough to put his hand out, palm up. “Two for that, by the way.”
Cross stuffed the new phone into his pocket, grabbed the rolled up bills he had stuffed in there that morning, and paid his friend. “I thought it was supposed to be three-hundred?”
“I got it cheaper.” Zeke smirked. “For free, actually. It’s wiped, though, so no worries. You’re good.”
Cross didn’t care.
He had a new phone.
That’s what mattered.
“So hey,” Cross said, his thoughts drifting back to the dark-haired, green-eyed Catherine Marcello in an instant, “what else do you know about Catherine?”
Zeke passed him a look. “That she’s a lot closer to your age than mine, and that’s enough for me to know to stay the fuck away, man. I’m not into jailbait. Also, she’s Dante Marcello’s daughter. My father would skin me alive.”
Cross didn’t make much time for girls—at least not ones that went to his school. He liked females, sure, but there weren’t a lot that caught his attention enough to actually keep it. Girls his age liked boring things, and he didn’t care enough to pretend to give a shit. Older girls were good for other things, but that’s about all he kept it to.
Catherine, though …
She was kind of like him, with a family like his.
That interested him a whole lot.
***
Calisto was waiting on the back porch when Cross parked his quad, and dismounted from the bike. “At least you’re wearing your helmet now.”
Cross hung the helmet off the handlebars. “Yeah, well, last month I hit a tree root and went right over the front of the bike. Figured a helmet might have saved me getting knocked out for an hour and then waking up wondering where the hell I was.”
His step-father frowned. “You didn’t tell me you wrecked the bike.”
“The bike is fine. And so was I, you know, after I woke up.”
“Cross.”
“There was nothing to tell, Papa. Didn’t even have a scratch.”
Calisto’s defensive posturing softened a bit “Come sit with me for a minute. We’ll talk.”
“About how Ma wants to lock me in my room for the rest of my life?”
“Not your whole life. Just until you’re eighteen.”
Cross laughed.
Calisto didn’t.
That’s how he knew this was serious.
Standing in front of Calisto, he pulled out the phone that was tracked and handed it over. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Calisto stared at the device for a long while before he took it with tired eyes. “I thought you’d get your own faster than you did, actually.”
“I wanted a specific phone. It took him a while to get it.”
“Wolf’s boy, you mean. I know who you hang around with.”
Cross took a seat next to his step-father on the bench, and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Talk.”
“You know, a couple of years ago when your nonsense started—”
“It’s not nonsense. I am the way I am. I like it just fine.”
Calisto let out a slow breath and glanced up to the sky like he was sending out a silent prayer.
Maybe he was.
Cross wouldn’t be surprised.
“Can you just … pipe down for five minutes, Cross?” Calisto asked. “That’s all. Listen for five minutes, don’t speak.”
“I can try.”
He was honest.
“I learned something then, son,” Calisto said quietly, “and that was the fact I could either make these next few years really easy on us both, or very hard.”
Cross side-eyed his step-father. “How is that?”
“I figured you were going to do what you were going to do, regardless of what I did to stop you. Because the truth was, I wouldn’t be able to stop you. You made that abundantly clear, Cross.”
“The foam was a good one, though. You laughed—deny it.”
Calisto shook his head. “I laughed because I was so exasperated with you, Cross. What else could I do? Nothing worked. You literally cost me eight grand to fix the locks and rewire the entire system for the garage, and do you know what you did? You shrugged. Laughing was the only thing I could do except kill you at that point.”
“So?”
“You have to learn to tamper down the attitude. The rest, whatever. Tamper down the attitude, though.” Calisto crossed his arms over his chest, and began to move the bench swing with the tip of his shoe, rocking them back and forth. “What I am saying, is that I am trying to make these years—while you’re still home with us—easier on us all, but you’re not helping. I need you to help me out a bit here, Cross. I’m goddamn serious.”
“I listen.”
Mostly.
“With one ear, and only what you want to hear.”
“I follow the rules.”
Mostly.
Calisto pursed his lips, hiding a scowl. “What scant rules you have, son.”
“I don’t know what else you want me to do,” Cross said.
“Stop worrying your mother,” Calisto replied. “That would be a great start.”
“Hugh deserved to get punched in the mouth. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“The school felt differently. So much so that you’re suspended for three days, and benched for your first two games.”
Cross made a dismissive noise. “He still deserved it.”
“Why did he deserve it, then? Tell me that.”
“He was bothering a girl. He didn’t listen when she told him to back off. She said no, and he kept on. There’s a half a dozen girls at school that got way worse than this girl got, so I did her a favor by stopping it when I did. Seriously, his surgeon father will pay to have his broken teeth fixed before the second week of school even starts. It’s not a big deal.”
Calisto chuckled under his breath. “Well, then …”
“I don’t randomly go around breaking faces just to break faces.”
“That you don’t.”
“So why is this an issue?” Cross asked.
“Because your mother and I didn’t know the rest of the story,” Calisto replied, “though to be fair, I don’t think you told the school the other bit, either.”
“Doesn’t matter. The girl didn’t do anything wrong except be a girl that Hugh noticed.”
“Make these next few years easier on us, Cross. I’m not asking for a miracle here, just that you be … more careful. I’m not prepared, nor do I have the patience, for a battle of the wills with you until you turn eighteen. I let you have your freedom. I let you do what you want to save me a headache, but you have to give me something back.”
“Like what?”
“Like being careful,” Calisto repeated. “I don’t know, but get smarter or something about your shit. Your mother frets, and you know how she gets. Stop worrying her, I can’t take the state she gets in about your nonsense.”
“Again, it’s—”
“Yeah, yeah. Not nonsense. Just do what I said. Got it?”
Cross meh’ed under his breath.
“I mean,” Calisto continued, “unless you want to have a feud with your mother. It won’t be me the next time, it’ll be her. So either clean your shit up, get smarter about it all, or deal with whatever it is she will do.”
He stiffened on the bench.
Calisto laughed. “Yeah, that doesn’t sound fun at all, does it?”
Cross didn’t reply.
His step-father didn’t need him to, apparently.
“Also, your mother is in the library. Make an effort to apologize for today and mean it, Cross.”
He could do that.
“Sure, Papa.”
Calisto sighed. “Who was the girl, anyway?”
“Catherine Marcello.” That time, it was his father’s turn to go stiff. Cross laughed as he got up from the bench, and headed for the house. “It was worth it, too.”
Calisto’s groan echoed over the silent backyard. “Cross, don’t go getting yourself mixed up in that kind of mess, I swear to God. I won’t kill you for your nonsense, but another man surely might.”
He heard the warning loud and clear.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t go making a spectacle of that girl, Cross!”
He wouldn’t.
Calisto thought Cross didn’t hear him when he spoke, but he did. More than his step-father knew.
Earn a good woman by being a good man.
Yeah, Cross listened … when it was important.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Pretty sure that’s against the school’s dress code policy.”
Catherine’s head popped up at the new, unexpected voice to her left. There, she found Cross Donati grinning down at her. Dark eyes. Black hair. Cunning smile. His three-day suspension was apparently up. She got a much better look at his face and features when he was this close, and not rolling on the ground and beating his fists into someone else’s face.
Jesus.
Pretty was not the kind of word used to describe boys, but if it was the right one Catherine would give it to Cross. His face was all strong lines, tan skin, and the dimple in his right cheek peeking out when his lips quirked up just enough at the corner. Her heart picked up speed a bit. He, like all the other students at the Academy, wore the standard navy and white uniform, tie included. Although, his navy blazer seemed to have been replaced by a leather jacket. Girls got the option of skirts or pants, but Catherine hated them both.
It was all ugly.
Well …
She couldn’t help but think Cross wore the uniform a hell of a lot better than the other boys did.
Cross tipped his head to the side when Catherine couldn’t form words. “You don’t speak?”
“Um.”
He pointed at the open chair at the table. “This open, or …?”
“Is anyone sitting there?’
“Nope.”
“Is there stuff there to say someone might come back?”
“Nope.”
Catherine smiled sweetly. “Then I guess it’s open, Cross.”
“Cute.” Cross slid into the chair with the grace of what Catherine might consider to be a predator. He was at least a half of a foot taller than her five foot, four inches. “I see you learned my name.”
“Seems a lot of people know your name.”
“Do you often hide in the library at lunch time?”
“I do when my cousin is in detention,” Catherine replied.
“Liliana.”
Catherine caught Cross’s stare, and held it. Despite the way his eyes—a dark brown that almost seemed soul-black under the library lights—made her want to freeze like an idiot, she didn’t shrink away from his gaze. “Yeah, Liliana.”
“Your brother is Michel, right?” Cross asked.
“According to my mother and father, and the family photos they make us smile for every year. I think they picked him up in a fucking ditch somewhere, but whatever. Why?”
Cross’s laughter burst from his lax, lazy smile so fast, it shocked Catherine. Not because he laughed, but because of how he looked doing it. “Yeah, I’ve got one of those, too.”
Her confused look made his grin deepen.
“A sibling that makes me want to burn the house down on a regular basis,” Cross added quickly. “Camilla, my sister; she’s eleven. Drives me—”
“Crazy,” Catherine interrupted.
Cross shrugged. “I mean, that works, too.”
Catherine surveyed her nails; the almond-shaped pink and sparkle manicure needed a touch-up, and soon. “Do you know my brother?”
“Sort of,” Cross answered.
“Why ask about him?”
“Making conversation.” Cross winked when Catherine looked up at him. “I didn’t know what to say to you other than the dress code thing, and you completely ignored that.”
“I didn’t ignore it.” Catherine pulled the fake daisy flower crown from her hair, as that was the only thing she was currently wearing that was against the dress code of the school. It was stretchy, with daisies all around the band, and could be worn like a headband, or a crown. Obviously, she preferred the crown style. “They make us wear ugly uniforms, and the only thing I can control is my shoes. You know, as long as they’re not higher than four inches. They can deal with this.”
Cross reached out and snagged the daisy hair band. “Nobody pointed it out yet?”
“Got written up twice before lunch, actually.”
His husky laughter surprised her again.
“Just ignore it; they’ll eventually let it go. One less thing to fight about.”
Catherine nodded at his leather jacket. “Is that why you wear that and not your blazer?”
“I wear the blazer … occasionally.”
“Not what I asked.”
Cross leaned across the table, and set Catherine’s daisy accessory back in place on her head. His fingers were careful not to catch or pull her hair, she noticed, but his fingertips were damn warm against her temples. Then, he pulled away, but her skin still felt warm.
Yep.
She missed a whole breath there.
“There, perfect,” he murmured.
Catherine eyed her new companion. “You still didn’t tell me why you don’t wear the blazer.”
“It’s shit material. My jacket costs more than ten of these stupid uniforms. I wear the rest of it; that’s the best I can do.”
Yeah.
Catherine liked Cross, and his fuck-you-attitude.
A lot.
“You don’t actually have to hide in the library, Catherine,” Cross said.
It was the first time he used her name.
“How do you know—”
“Asked around,” Cross interjected, smirking. “I figured, I broke someone’s face for you, the least I could do was learn your name.”
“And find me hiding out in the library, apparently.”
“What good is learning your name if I can’t use it?”
Catherine laughed. “All right, you win.”
“I usually do.”
She ignored his arrogance, but only because she was used to arrogant men. Her whole family was full of them.
“But I do,” Catherine said, “like to be in here, rather than out there with … them.”
Cross cocked a brow. “Them?”
“I don’t know anyone here. I didn’t want to come here at all.”
He didn’t look all that surprised at her admission. “All my friends are in upper grades. I don’t care to know anyone here, either.” Then, he shot her a smile. “Or, I didn’t.”
“Oh?”
Cross leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms over his chest. “What are you doing after school?”
“Me?”
“You’re the only one sitting here, Catherine.”
“I’m supposed to meet up with my brother—our cousin picks us up on Fridays. At least until Michel gets his license in a couple of months.”
Well, that’s what she was going to tell Cross, anyway. Really, John—who was her cousin—also acted as their enforcer. A guard, of sorts. Catherine sometimes liked to call him a babysitter too, just to piss him off. He drove them around, looked after them when they were out, and kept an eye on the house when her parents were out or gone somewhere.
Cross seemed far too relaxed across from her, as though they were old friends. “Think they might miss you?”
“Uh …”
“You did say you didn’t know anybody, right?”
Sure, but did she want to know him?
That was the question.
“Make a friend,” Cross said before Catherine could speak up. “Or a couple.”
“A couple? As in, more than one.”
Because she was pretty sure he was the only one there.
“That’s what I said.”
***
Catherine readjusted the strap of her messenger bag on her shoulder as she took the entrance steps two at a time. One thing the upper and lower Academies shared? A parking lot. Everything else, besides the football field, was entirely separated.
She quickly found her brother across the lot, sitting on the steps leading into the upper Academy’s wings.
She found someone else quickly, too. Cross Donati. He sat on the hood of a cherry red Camaro. His attention snagged by an older boy with a pair of keys in his hands.
Catherine still hadn’t decided to take him up on his offer of making friends. Mostly because she didn’t do things like that—skip out, blow off already made plans, or blatantly break the rules her parents made. Not going home with her brother and cousin, with a guy her parents didn’t know or hadn’t met, without an enforcer definitely fell into the category of breaking rules.
Several rules, really.
She was already halfway across the lot, heading in her brother’s direction, before she could think better of it.
“Johnathan is going to be late,” Michel said without even looking up at his sister’s approach.
“How late?”
“Thirty minutes, or so.”
She peeked over her shoulder, only to find that the black-haired, dark-eyed boy was still engaged in conversation with his friend, and hadn’t noticed her at all.
Cross didn’t notice her staring.
Michel did.
“Made a friend, did you?” her brother asked.
“I guess.”
His brow lifted. “Not sure Dad would like that, Catherine.”
“Why not? He keeps telling me to make friends, and then I’ll like it here.”
“Cross Donati is a fucking troublemaker. I don’t think that’s the kind of friend Dad meant.”
“He doesn’t seem like trouble to me.”
That was a lie.
Cross seemed like all sorts of trouble.
He also seemed like fun.
It was that thought alone that cemented Catherine’s next choice. “Ma and Dad aren’t going to be home until later, right?”
“Around seven,” Michel said, going back to his phone.
“So I could just … call to get a ride home, if I wanted to stay here for a bit.”
Her brother did look up at that statement. “And what are you going to do while you’re here?”
Well, she didn’t know yet. And who the hell knew if she would be staying?
“I don’t know,” Catherine said honestly.
Michel looked across the lot.
Catherine followed his gaze.
The pretty boy sitting on the cherry red Camaro wasn’t distracted anymore because he was staring straight at her. He flashed a smile, then tipped his head to the side as if to silently call her over.
“You’re going to get yourself in a world of shit,” Michel warned.
“So that’s a yes, right?”
Michel frowned. “You’re not listening, Catherine.”
“I am, but who’s going to tell? I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“If you won’t go home and tell Ma or Dad, it’s wrong.”
“Do you tell them everything you do?”
Michel quickly shut his mouth at that question. “Fine, go. But be back here in three hours, at the most. If you get back earlier, shoot me a text. I’ll say you’re staying at school with friends, and then Dad won’t get pissed off at John for not staying behind to look after you. He’ll come back and pick you up. Don’t get John in shit because you want to have fun, Catherine. He’s got to do his job, too, as our enforcer, but I’ll make an excuse this time.”
“Thanks, I’ll make it up to you, I swear,” Catherine said in a rush.
“Sure, sure.”
She was already spinning on her heel and heading the other way.
Toward trouble and fun.
Cross pushed off the hood of the Camaro at the sight of Catherine’s approach. His smile deepened to a grin, and he took her bag without even asking for it.
“Nice car,” Catherine said.
The older guy Cross had been talking to poked his head out the driver’s window. “Thanks. And hi.”
She waved. “Hi.”
Cross used his free hand to gesture between his friend and Catherine as he tossed her bag into the back of the car. “Zeke, Catherine. Catherine, Zeke.”
“You up for a drive to the Odessa Pier?” Zeke asked.
“Like, way down in Brighton Beach?”
The guy nodded. “That’s the one.”
Her father would kill her.
Brighton was off-limits unless she had an enforcer with her. Dante never said why, just that it was. Catherine didn’t think to ask because her father probably wouldn’t explain. He made rules; she was expected to follow them. It was that simple. For the most part she did just that. Or tried.
Catherine figured she could afford to take the risk.
Especially with Cross still waiting for her to answer.
***
Catherine scrolled through the last message on her phone from her brother.
You good?
Fine, she texted back.
Michel didn’t respond.
In the backseat of the Camaro, Cross chatted away with Zeke about a race of some sort—Catherine didn’t know for sure. She had thought they were going straight to Brighton Beach, but apparently Zeke had other plans. He pulled into a public school parking lot, yanked the car into park, and leaned over to open the door for a pretty blonde that jumped in the front seat. The girl looked closer to Zeke’s age, Catherine thought. Seventeen, maybe.
The girl leaned over and pressed a kiss to Zeke’s mouth, grinning.
“Hey.”
Zeke smiled back. “Hey.” Then, he nodded to the back. “Cross found a friend.”
“Vaffanculo,” Cross swore.
His friend only laughed.
The girl, however, smiled back at Catherine with kind eyes. “Hi. I’m Amanda.”
“Catherine.”
“Are you even old enough to be hanging around with an idiot like this?” she asked, jerking her thumb in Zeke’s direction.
Zeke scoffed. “Be nice, babe.”
Amanda’s lips quirked up at the edges. “I’m just saying.”
“I came for the other one, actually,” Catherine said.
“That might be just as bad.”
Unlike Zeke’s reaction, Cross agreed.
With a damn smirk.
Amanda turned back around in the front seat, put her sandal-clad feet to the dash, and asked, “Where are we headed?”
“The Pier,” Zeke said, putting the car in drive, “unless you’ve got somewhere else to be, babe.”
“Nope. The Pier is good.”
Since Catherine already had her phone out, she turned on the camera, and pointed the device in Cross’s direction. “Smile.”
He cocked a brow instead.
She took the picture, anyway.
It still looked good.
***
The constant stream of giggles from up above made Catherine look up. Amanda sat on the railing of the pier, tipped her head back, and let out a steady stream of gray smoke. Zeke stood between Amanda’s legs; his chin rested on her shoulder while he looked out at the water.
Even from down below, Catherine could smell the very distinct aroma of weed.
The giggling made a lot more sense.
For the first thirty minutes after they arrived, Catherine walked the pier with Cross, watching the water down below. Mostly, though, she watched unknown people approach Zeke where he had been sitting with Amanda on a bench. His hand would disappear into his bag, come out with something Catherine couldn’t see, and then money would get shoved inside before it was zipped back up again.
Over and over and over.
Then, the unknown people slowed. Zeke and Amanda moved to another part of the pier. Catherine and Cross moved down to the wet sand where the tide hadn’t come in yet.
“Is that what he was selling?” Catherine dared to ask.
Cross stopped walking, and so did she. “Who, Zeke?”
“Yeah, earlier. Weed, I mean. Is that—”
“Pick your poison or need, and Zeke probably has it,” Cross said, “but if he doesn’t, he can get his hands on it. He doesn’t deal at school. Someone’s already laid claim there. It’s the respect of the matter, or so he says.”
“Huh.”
Cross shrugged off his leather jacket, and tossed it over his arm. “Don’t worry. Zeke doesn’t use at all. He won’t be driving back high.”
Catherine looked up again. “But his girlfriend does.”
“He looks out for her, or whatever.”
Cross walked further under the pier.
Catherine followed.
“Besides, Wolf or Cal would cut his nuts off if they thought he was driving me around while stoned out of his mind.”
“Who?” she asked.
Cross tossed his leather jacket to the sand. “Wolf is his dad. Calisto—but I just call him Cal—is my step-dad. Sit.”
She did, tucked tight into Cross’s side on the leather jacket. The sound of the water echoed under the pier, and it made a soothing sound. Cross rested his arms over his knees, while Catherine stared at him from the side.
“I thought I was supposed to be making friends,” she teased.
Cross grinned. “You did. Three of them.”
“But mostly just one.”
His gaze met hers. “So?”
“So … thanks for punching Hugh and getting suspended for me, I guess?”
Cross chuckled, and went back to staring out at the water. “It was worth it. I kind of hate him, anyway.”
Catherine bit her lower lip to hold back the laughter. “That’s kind of terrible.”
“Terrible is my thing.”
She wiped her sandy hands off on the pleated skirt of her school uniform, but it did no good. The sand still stuck to her skin, scratchy and bothersome. Silently, Cross’s larger hands captured hers inside his. Without a word, he took his time to brush all the sand off her hands and fingers until there was nothing left. His careful hands and serious expression, focused in on his task of making her clean and comfortable, made Catherine smile.
And her chest got tight, too.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
Cross shrugged. “No worries.”
Catherine thought he’d drop her hands when he was done. He only dropped the one, and then he quickly grabbed something at his side before he was holding her hand with both of his again in a firm grip.
She felt him slide something into her palm.
“A gift,” he said quietly.
Catherine raised a single eyebrow, and flipped her hand over to see what it was when he let her go. A small conch shell, maybe an inch and a half long, and pale pink in color.
When had he even seen it?
“It’s pretty,” Catherine said, turning the little conch shell over in her hand. “Thank you.”
Cross plucked the conch from her palm, and gave her one of his winks. He began unwinding the thin leather cord that had circled his wrist like a triple-wrapped bracelet of sorts until it was fully undone. Quickly, he wrapped the conch shell securely in the cord, and it hung like a pendant.
“Give me your wrist,” Cross said.
Catherine held her arm out, not hesitating a bit.
Cross wrapped the cord two times more around her wrist than he needed to for his, even with the conch tied into it. Once it was secured, he pulled a lighter from his pocket, and held her wrist still while he burned the leather knot.
“It’s not going to slip off now,” he told her.
She flipped her wrist around, admiring her new accessory. She loved it.
Catherine loved anything different and unique.
Like daisy crowns or conch shells on leather bracelets.
She looked up to thank Cross--again—but the words didn’t quite form when she found his dark gaze already locking onto hers.
Maybe it was giggling laughter from up above, or the sound of water coming in under the pier. Maybe it was the memory of a bloody smile and busted up knuckles. Maybe it was just him seeking her out for no reason at all.
Or shit …
Maybe it was just Cross.
Catherine really liked the way he looked at her.
She didn’t know what it was, but it was something. So, she leaned over and kissed him. Quick and fleeting, a fast press of her lips to his—silky, soft and over before she blinked or thought about it for too long.
Her first kiss.
Ever.
For a split second, Catherine’s mind went stupid. She thought maybe she shouldn’t have done that at all, and maybe he hadn’t wanted her to. Besides a dumb crush, she didn’t have a lot of experience with boys, and she didn’t know how to act or what to do.
She stopped thinking all together when she looked at Cross again. His grin grew a little wider.
Catherine looked down.
“Are you going to do that again?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Are you going to do it soon?”
Catherine’s cheeks heated. “Maybe.”
“Do you mind if I do it?”
Her head popped up again, and her gaze darting to his. “No, I don’t mind.”
It seemed like that was all Cross was waiting for.
Her okay.
Her permission.
Cross didn’t just lean over like she had done—no, his whole body moved toward her. His hands found her cheeks, and he pulled her into him before he kissed her. His kiss was not like hers had been. It wasn’t fast or fleeting; he didn’t pull away a quick second later, or barely kiss her at all. Where she had been hesitant, he was not.
No, she found his kiss was almost rough, but in a good way. A hard press of his soft lips to hers, and then another. His thumbs stroked the line of her cheekbones as his tongue darted in between her parted lips. She realized then that he tasted sweet and warm at the same time. Her worries and embarrassment slipped away as she found that she liked this a whole lot, too.
It wasn’t so hard to do.
And it all felt wonderful.
Catherine hadn’t realized how much she needed air to breathe until Cross pulled away. His dark eyes watched her for a moment, pulling her into a silent hurricane of feelings and wonder.
“I’ll probably do that again,” he told her, his voice low and promising. “Soon.”
Catherine shrugged.
Nonchalant seemed the way to go.
There was no reason to say she couldn’t speak.
***
Catrina Marcello dominated rooms when she walked into one.
Catherine thought—if anything—that was what intimidated people the most about her mother. Then, people got a good look at Catrina. They saw her beautiful clothes, perfectly done makeup and dark red hair, her manicured nails sharpened into points at every perfect tip, and were caught off guard by her beauty. Even in her forties, her mother turned heads when all she was doing was walking down the street.
But to Catherine?
Catrina was just her mom.
They butted heads a lot. Her father liked to say that’s because they were too much alike for their own good. Catherine didn’t know how true that was.
She knew she looked a lot like her mother, much more than she took after her father. Her sharp cheekbones, full lips with a dainty cupid’s bow, olive complexion, and even her smile … it all came from her mother. Her green eyes and dark hair came from her father.
Catherine sometimes thought it would have been nice if her mother could have passed on more than just her looks to her daughter. Like her confidence and natural aura of superiority. As though the world was hers, and she owed it fucking nothing.
Maybe those were learned traits, though.
Catherine hadn’t quite learned them, yet.
Catrina bent over her daughter at the kitchen table, surveying the textbooks Catherine had laid out. “How was school?”
“Boring.”
Her mother laughed a tinkling sound. “Come on, now, dolcezza. Make an effort, and you might like it there.”
“It’s not so bad, really.”
Now, Catherine thought silently.
“Did you make friends?”
Catherine flipped to the next page in her book. “Sort of.”
“Johnathan said he went back to pick you up a bit later because you were hanging out with some friends.”
At that same time, Catherine’s brother strolled through the kitchen, following behind their father and muttering on about something or other. She caught Michel’s eye as he passed her by, but he didn’t speak up or say a word about who she had gone with that day.
“I made friends,” Catherine admitted.
Sort of.
Catrina smiled, pleased, and kissed the top of her daughter’s head. “See, I told you.”
“Yeah, I know, Ma.”
“Did Michel order you some pizza?”
“When I got home,” she said.
Catrina patted Catherine’s cheek in her motherly way, saying, “Tomorrow, I’ll make your favorites. It’s been a busy week. You know your father’s trial is coming up, and all.”
Yeah, it wasn’t like Catherine could forget the night almost a year earlier when FBI agents raided their home in the middle of the night. Her father was facing weapons charges, amongst other things. The trial was a few weeks away, as far as she understood.
“I don’t want you worrying about it,” Catrina said, bringing Catherine from her thoughts. “We haven’t talked a lot about it, or what to expect, but that’s just because we’re not sure right now on some of the details. Okay?”
Catherine frowned, still trying to focus on her homework. “It’s all right, Ma.”
“Well, it will be.” Catrina pressed another kiss to her daughter’s head. “Just remember, we don’t talk about the family with anyone, Catherine. That’s our rule, dolcezza.”
“Got it, Ma.”
“And stop feeling so put out about that school and the people there,” her mother added with a smirk. “You’re a Marcello, Catherine. Act like it. Own it.”
CHAPTER ONE
“What are you looking at?”
“A full shipment,” Wolf replied.
“Of the handguns.”
It wasn’t even a question.
“Sì.”
The olive-toned, dark-haired man on the other side of the table nodded. “One-hundred grand, then.”
Nearly fifteen-year-old Cross Donati’s brow furrowed as he surveyed the guns on the table again. He knew a thing or two about guns; he liked them. He liked them a whole lot for longer than he could remember. Instead of porn stashed under his bed, he had Guns and Ammo.
Nearly seventy percent of America’s black market gun trade was exclusive to handguns, with a large majority being semi-auto pistols. A very small percentage of that market went to rifles. It wasn’t where the money was.
All good dealers—the illegal ones, anyway—went where the money happened to be.
Cross glanced back to the table just across the way, where he’d left his backpack hidden underneath with his phone inside. The calculator on the damn thing would help him figure out the numbers, but he was sure--
“Cross, eyes on the table,” Wolf snapped at the back of his head.
Shit.
“I just wanted to get my—”
“We’re doing business, principe. What does that mean, huh?”
Cross rolled his eyes while his back was still turned. If his father’s consigliere saw him doing that, Wolf wouldn’t hesitate to smack him for it. “Means eyes on the table.”
“So get them there.”
The man who had brought the guns into the strip joint that Wolf owned chuckled, so did the three guys that accompanied him.
“He’s grown quite a bit, hasn’t he?” the man asked, watching Cross with a hard stare that betrayed his kind tone.
Wolf kept his gaze on the guns, even as he answered. “Quite a bit this last year, actually. Puberty kicked in hard with him a couple of years back before anyone knew what the fuck was happening.”
“Calisto’s got him under your feet, I see.”
“Somebody needs to keep an eye on the principe when his zio can’t do it,” Wolf said absently.
“How old is he now?”
“Four—”
“Almost fifteen,” Cross interjected before Wolf could finish. His mentor—for all purposes—gave him a side-eye that warned him to pipe down without even saying a thing. “Well, I am.”
Wolf lifted a hand and waved it at Cross as if to ask, what can you do with him? “He’s still learning, but he’s quick. He has a good interest in this sort of thing, and it would be a shame to waste it. Problem is, he’s also got a mighty attitude that can’t seem to be cured. Maybe it’s puberty, or maybe he’s just going to be one of those cocky shits when he gets older. Who the hell knows? Right now, I have his attention focused. That’s what Calisto wanted me to do. Focus him on something other than easy pussy, idle hands, and trouble. Mostly, he listens. It’s the best I can say for him.”
“Hey!”
The men ignored Cross’s indignant mutter, and went back to discussing the weapons on the table as though he wasn’t even there to begin with.
“One-hundred G’s, you said?” Wolf asked, scratching at his lower jaw.
The guy nodded. “That’ll get you a full shipment of these handguns and the pistols.”
Without a word, Wolf bent down and pulled one of two bags out from under the table. Both had cash in them, as Cross had seen Wolf check, double-check, and then triple check both bags before his … associates arrived.
Money was another thing Cross liked.
A lot.
Wolf set the heavy bag on the table with a thud. “There you are, all large bills.”
One of the three men that had been standing back stepped forward to stuff the guns into duffle bags, while another man grabbed hold of the bag with the cash.
“Leave the pistols,” the man told his man, “just pack up the rifles.”
Cross kind of wanted one of those rifles.
He stayed quiet.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Puzza,” the man said, smirking.
Wolf offered the same back. “And you.”
“Say hello to the principe’s zio for me. It’s been a while, but you know how the Marcellos are. We don’t mingle with other families very often unless it’s for business. How Giovanni gets away with it and doesn’t get himself killed, I’ll never know.”
“I’ll tell Calisto you asked after him, Lucian.”
That was the first time Cross heard Wolf use the man’s name since he had entered the strip joint an hour earlier. He stared at Lucian Marcello’s back as the man’s men flanked him from the sides and behind to follow him out.
Cross blinked out of his daze when Wolf’s hand ruffled through his dark hair, messing up his curls. He smacked the older man’s hands off his head. “Fuck off, Wolf.”
Wolf laughed loud and hard, turning back to the table. “Just figuring out who that was now, are you?”
“Lucian Marcello.”
“Yeah, yeah. But why is he important, kid?”
Cross bristled at the kid comment, but spoke anyway. “He’s Dante Marcello’s underboss.”
“And?”
Cross was not a stupid teenager, despite what Wolf liked to sometimes say. Besides, he was pretty sure Wolf told people stuff like that to keep them from looking at Cross too hard. Like then they might see that Cross had a better understanding of the shit happening around him than anyone was aware of.
He knew who his step-father was in New York. Although, technically Calisto Donati was his cousin, despite the fact Cross referred to him as an uncle, who had married his mother when he was just a baby. A mafia boss, running a criminal organization and living his life by the Cosa Nostra code.
Cross figured all that shit out when he was younger, and realized no, not everyone got a bodyguard like he did when he played in his own backyard during turbulent times. No, not every kid had rules that dealt with things like respect, honor, and dignity repeated to them over and over again by every man in their life. And no, not every kid got someone like Wolf to take them on trips and business meets that they weren’t allowed to talk about with people outside the family.
Also, family meant a whole different thing to Cross compared to other people.
It wasn’t just blood.
It was famiglia.
No, Cross wasn’t stupid.
“Cross,” Wolf said.
“What?”
Wolf gestured toward the front door of the strip joint where Lucian had disappeared out of earlier. “And?”
“And the Marcellos dominate organized crime in New York,” Cross said. He parroted the same words that had been repeated to him a thousand times in an effort to teach him about the rules, families, and expectations of a business that his step-father kept telling him he couldn’t keep his nose out of.
“So what does that mean to us?”
To the Donati family, he meant.
Cross heard the unspoken words loud and clear.
“We defer to the Marcellos,” Cross said, “on stuff that might affect their business or streets. It’s what’s right.”
“It’s the proper thing to do,” Wolf corrected. “It’s about the respect and the point of the matter, Cross.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
Wolf picked up one of the handguns from the table and tossed it over to Cross, who caught it easily. The weapon was empty of bullets, for the moment. Cross flipped the gun over in his hands, looking over the shined metal and enjoying the weight of the weapon.
“I think he ripped you off,” Cross said, remembering why he had wanted to grab his phone.
Wolf was already heading toward the bar.
Cross followed behind.
“Why is that?”
“The last time you grabbed a shipment of semi-auto pistols, it was almost twice the size and only thirty-thousand more.”
“Get on with the point, principe,” Wolf said as he gestured for the bartender to get him a drink.
“Well, if I could have gotten my damn phone, I could have worked the numbers out like I wanted to.”
Wolf shook his head, glancing to Cross as he sat on one of the barstools. “Eyes on the table, Cross, always.”
“Or the men, I know.”
“Not on a phone screen.”
“But I was gonna do the numbers and—”
Wolf leaned over and pinged Cross right in the middle of his forehead hard. “You’re almost fifteen, shithead.”
Cross scowled and rubbed at the spot, suddenly finding the urge to hit Wolf back with the gun in his hand. Somehow, he pushed the urge down. “So?”
“So, I’ll overlook the fact you think you need a goddamn phone in your hands to automatically do numbers for you, Cross, but I’m not going to overlook it after today. You’re a smart kid for such a cafone. Most of the time. You don’t need a phone; you need to use your brain. That thing right—”
Cross managed to smack Wolf’s hand out of the way before the guy could poke him again. “Do that again, and I’ll break your fingers.”
Wolf chuckled. “You could try.”
“Someday I will,” he muttered under his breath.
Apparently, not quietly enough.
“And when that day comes, you will thank me for all of this, Cross.”
“I doubt it.”
Wolf smiled. “You will, principe. Trust me.”
“I think he did, though. Rip you off.”
“He didn’t. The street value has gone up, and Lucian still has to make a profit. He changed suppliers a while back, and unlike my last guy, can’t sell closer to wholesale price like he got them before. That’s why they’re more expensive. But …” Wolf looked to Cross with a wider grin beginning to grow, and clapped the teenager hard on the shoulder; a pride shined heavily in his actions. “That was a good catch for an almost fifteen-year-old kid.”
“Will you stop calling me that?”
“Not in your wettest dreams, principe.”
Cross glared.
Wolf winked right back.
Whatever.
Cross’s attention was already onto something else. “Basically, these guns have gone through too many hands, and their price has been upped again and again to make sure the next guy at least gets his money back. Wholesale is where the money is, right? That’s what you’re saying.”
“For a proper arms trafficker?” Wolf sipped from his whiskey. “Damn right. We’re not doing that, though. We’re just keeping our supply up and having a little extra stored away for a few deals coming up. Nothing more, nothing less. You know how we make our money, and it isn’t through selling guns. We don’t have the contacts to make it work, frankly.”
No, they made money through drugs, extortion, and a bunch of other shit.
Cross liked guns, though.
“You give me a bit of hope, Cross,” Wolf said out of the blue.
“For what?”
“When it’s you doing this, with a head that quick and a brain that smart, nobody will get shit past you. It’s why Calisto forces you to school when you don’t want to go, and why he drags your ass out of bed to go with me on the weekends. You don’t get to just stumble and flounder into this life like a fucking idiot hoping to make something of yourself because you like guns and have a mafia boss for a step-dad. You have to learn. I mess with you to make you learn in a way that best suits you. Remember that—eyes on the table, principe.”
Yeah, he got it.
Again.
***
“I swear to God, I am going to put a bullet in you one of these fucking days.”
Cross didn’t bother to look up from the gun he was dismantling at his step-father’s threat because he knew it wasn’t meant for him. Sure, Calisto probably sometimes wanted to put a bullet in Cross because he was, according to the man, mouthy, difficult, and stubborn as shit, but he never actually said it.
Wolf sighed across the table from Cross. “Come on, now, Cal.”
“What did I tell you?” Calisto came to stand by the table, picked up Cross’s drink of Seven Up, and sniffed it before setting it back down. “I told you one thing about today, so what was it, Wolf?”
“He was fine. He’s still fine.”
“In a strip club! He’s not even fifteen, for fuck’s sake!”
Cross tipped his head to the side, eyeing one of the girls dancing mostly naked on a stage with a pole just a few feet away from their table. All she had on was a G-string, but he had something better to pay attention to in his hands. His new gun.
“Jesus, look at him, Cal. He’s not even interested.”
“Oh, he’s interested. He’s—”
“Twenty-one seconds to dismantle,” Cross piped up.
“Where’s your kit I gave you? You should clean it while it’s opened up,” Wolf said as though he weren’t managing two conversations at once. Then, he went back to Calisto. “It’s not the first time he’s been in here, or a place like it, Cal. Relax. You said it, he’s almost fifteen. Let’s not pretend like he doesn’t have a stack of pussy mags hidden somewhere like we all did at that age. But if he doesn’t, well … Seriously, he’s not even interested in the girls. Kind of makes me wonder if he’s a little—”
“Not gay,” Cross interrupted.
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Wolf replied.
Cross scowled. “Lies. You were. And I’m not.”
“I wasn’t going to say it loudly.”
Calisto grinded his teeth and glared up at the ceiling. “I want to ask if you are fucking with me right now, but I don’t even have to because I know you’re not. I’m not sure if that should piss me off more.”
“I’m not gay,” Cross said again.
“Yes, Cross,” Calisto muttered under his breath, “I do know that, son.”
“But you could be a little more interested in …” Wolf trailed off, and tipped his head in the direction of the dancing stripper. “I’m just putting that out there.”
“I see his phone history once a week,” Calisto groused. “It gets sent to me in a nice little email. Trust me, the kid is not gay. But that girl is not his preference, either. Too thin, too light, and way too blonde.”
Something that felt a lot like embarrassment filled Cross, but it was quickly replaced with another feeling that was foreign to him—anger. At least where his step-dad was concerned.
“How do you do that?” Cross asked.
Calisto looked down at him. “What?”
“Get stuff from my phone emailed to you.”
“I had my guy put an app on it after I bought it and—”
“You track my phone?”
“Cross.”
“You track my phone?” he demanded again.
Calisto pressed two fingers into his temple. “I have to monitor something when I can, don’t I? Have I ever brought it up to you? Have I ever spoke about the stuff you search or look up, or the people you text? No, because I don’t have to. Don’t give me a reason to, and I won’t.”
Cross stared at his step-father. “I want a new phone. Without a tracking app.”
“Buy one then.”
“But—”
“I bought this one. I do what I want with it. You buy one, do what you want, Cross.”
“Seems fair,” Wolf said more to himself than the table.
“And you,” Calisto said, turning back on his consigliere. “Stop bringing him into these goddamn strip joints. It’s not even about the girls. It’s the way the fools here act about the girls. Like pieces of ass, nothing more. Meat on display. It’s ridiculous, and I won’t have him getting those ideals in his head.”
“He’s going to see it one way or the other, man.”
“Not when I can help it, Wolf.”
“Whatever. Fine. You want a drink?”
Calisto waved as if to say, go for it. Wolf was gone from the table a second later, and then Calisto took the man’s vacant seat.
“You’re pissed at me now,” Calisto said.
It wasn’t even a question.
Cross shrugged as he pulled out a small vat of oil and a brush to clean the gun. “I follow the rules. Don’t see why you need to spy on me, Cal.”
Sometimes, he called his step-father his papa.
Sometimes, it was just Cal to Cross.
It all depended on his mood, and who was around to hear it. As he grew up, there were far too many men who liked to remind Cross that the man he loved as his father, wasn’t really his dad. They liked to point out as often as they could that Cross’s biological father was a bastard who had betrayed their thing—their Cosa Nostra—and left his young mother Emma with a baby and divorce papers before never being heard from again.
Like a coward.
They said those things like they were Cross’s stains to wear.
As though he was stained, too.
“Because you’re almost fifteen,” Calisto said quietly. “That means I don’t see you as much. I don’t get very much say, and there’s no leash short enough to keep you where I would like to have you, Cross. It means even though I have told you again and again what you should or shouldn’t do, where you should or shouldn’t go, and all the rest, I still need to sometimes make sure you’re still listening.”
Well …
“All right,” Cross said.
But he still wasn’t okay with it.
Not entirely.
“What did you mean about the other thing?” Cross asked.
“Pardon?”
“Ideals, you said.” Cross subtly nodded toward the girl that was leaving the stage in preparation for another girl to come and take her spot. “What did you mean?”
“Women aren’t property, Cross. Too many men who hang around these places, and too many in our business, like to believe women are something to be owned. They make a show out of their women; they display them like trophies. As though they’ve won them; it’s not a competition. You earn a good woman by being a good man, that’s it. You can’t do that by treating a woman like your personal toy because then she becomes that ideal to those around you who are watching.”
Calisto sighed, and rested back in his chair. “Make men wish they were you; make them wish they were lucky enough to be you. As for women? Make them want to be with you, or want to be the woman standing next to you. But you don’t do that by putting a woman on display like a trophy you didn’t earn. Got it?”
Cross nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”
“It’s just like Wolf said, huh? You’re not interested in the show here at all, are you?”
“The show?”
Calisto sat straighter in his chair. “The girls, Cross.”
“Not really. What’s to be interested in? They’re letting it all out, anyway. I’ve seen tits and ass before. It’s not new.” Cross went back to his gun on the table. “And like you said, they’re not my type.”
Calisto laughed under his breath. “True. How did football tryouts go yesterday? Ma took you, right?”
“I killed it.”
Calisto smirked. “Didn’t expect any different. First string?”
“Quarterback.”
His step-father whistled low. “Well done. You know they’re probably not going to put you on first string when you enter the upper Academy next year for tenth grade.”
His private school only went from grades sixth through ninth before the higher grades, tenth through twelfth, were separated into what the school called the upper Academy. The upper grades were in an entirely different section, with private grounds and wings from the lower grades, effectively cutting off the younger kids from the older. The school as a whole was just known as the Academy of Westforth.
“It’s just that most of the time, younger grades get placed on second string.” Calisto made a dismissive noise under his breath. “If they even get picked at all.”
Cross shrugged. “I hope they like losing, then.”
“Arrogance is unbecoming.”
“I don’t know, I think it works for me.”
Calisto shook his head. “You’re fucking terrible, Cross.”
Wolf came up to the table, and set the glass of what looked to be vodka down in front of Calisto. “Yeah, but that kind of works for the little shit, too.”
CHAPTER TWO
Catherine Marcello’s favorite spot in her family’s large home had always been her parents’ office. It was a comforting place for her because she had spent so much time inside it. As a child, she used to hide under her father’s desk and play for hours on end until one of her parents came to find her. Despite having a house with too many rooms to fill, her parents—Catrina and Dante—shared an office space.
But she wasn’t a child anymore at thirteen-years-old.
As Catherine got older, she understood exactly why her parents shared an office space together. Or rather, she got nosier.
Instead of playing with her tablet or toys, she snooped through the papers on the desk, or flipped through the folders inside the drawers. She knew it wasn’t exactly right, but she figured it wasn’t all that wrong of her to do, either.
Her parents would have said so, otherwise. They had no problem telling her what she could or couldn’t do for any other thing. Plus Dante and Catrina never made any real effort to hide the things they left behind in their office for Catherine to look through.
Catherine wasn’t entirely sure when she realized the truth about her family. Maybe it was when she was five, and a bodyguard was waiting to pick her up after kindergarten in the afternoon. Or maybe it was over the years, during the many family dinners, when business between men was quietly discussed. Maybe it was when Catherine asked her father why her mother flew out to L.A. twice a month for years, only to have Dante simply say, work.
What kind of work?
What does she do?
Can I go with Ma?
Dante would laugh off his daughter’s questions and shake his head with a wink. “Someday, maybe, reginella,” he would say, although he never sounded very honest when he said it.
Perhaps Catherine really understood the darker truth about her family when people used titles like Queen or Don in reference to her mother or father. Very rarely did people use her father’s name—it was almost always Don or boss. The only people Catherine had ever heard call her mother by her name were very close friends and immediate family. To everyone else, Catrina Marcello was Queen. Or, Regina. Her mother even had that word tattooed on the inside of her pointer finger.
That was also how Catherine had gotten her pet name--reginella. Her mother’s little queen.
Those titles her parents had were always spoken with some level of respect, handed out without question, and never with hesitation. As though they earned them.
She was not dumb.
She was actually quite sly.
Or, that’s what her daddy always said.
Between the things she heard and saw over the years, the way people talked about her family, and through her own snooping, Catherine knew all there was to know about the Marcellos. Organized Crime. Mafia. Cosa Nostra.
It wasn’t really a girl thing, so she pretended like she didn’t know when she needed to. Sometimes, though, her curiosity got the better of her, and she dared to ask about things she knew she probably shouldn’t. Like why her mother was clearly in with the family business.
That was how she learned Catrina was a Queen Pin. A drug dealer of the highest caliber, dealing to the most elite clientele.
And that was damn near the end of the discussion.
At least, from her mother’s side of it.
Catherine was too curious, and too interested in what all of that meant, to let it drop.
That was why she found herself snooping through her mother and father’s office again because Catrina didn’t want to talk. Catherine wanted to know.
She figured she wasn’t asking for much.
Catrina’s trips had slowed over the last year, too. Catherine noticed. Her mother wasn’t flying out as often, and she spent more time taking phone calls in private. She didn’t know what any of that meant, but she did know how to snoop to find enough pieces to put it all together for herself.
“What are you doing in here?”
Catherine looked up at her almost seventeen-year-old brother’s voice. “Looking for something.”
Michel’s brow furrowed. “Looking for what?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“In Ma and Dad’s desk?”
“So?”
“You shouldn’t snoop. They don’t look through our shit.”
“Says you.”
“Go away, Michel.”
“Don’t be a bitch, Catherine.”
“Don’t you have someone else to annoy?” Catherine asked.
She went back to digging though the desk. She hadn’t lied to her brother, technically. She didn’t know what she was looking for until she found it. That was usually how it worked.
“If they didn’t want me to look, they would keep the door locked,” Catherine muttered under her breath.
“That is a shitty justification for your nosiness.”
Catherine shot her brother a glare. “Go away.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
“I hate you.”
“It’s mutual.”
Catherine pulled out a thin, leather black notebook from the very bottom drawer. Actually, it was more like a journal. Flipping it open, she found pages upon pages of names and addresses. Some of the names, she recognized, but only because of their star attraction.
Celebrities.
She blinked.
Another page flipped over in her hands.
A sports star turned actor.
A musician.
Michel came up beside her, and pointed at a name she didn’t recognize. “Former president’s son.”
“President of what?” she asked.
He laughed. “The country. How did you pass into eighth grade this year?”
Catherine blinked again, and chose to ignore her brother’s jab. “What is this?”
“Ma’s black book. You know, clients.”
“For drugs?”
Michel shrugged. “Yeah.”
“There’s a lot of names in here.”
“She was good at what she did.”
“Was,” Catherine said.
“Huh?”
“You said was. Past tense. See, there is a reason I passed, asshole.”
Michel rolled his eyes. “I don’t know much about it all, just that she’s not as active as she used to be. It gets boring after a while, maybe. I don’t know, ask her.”
“I do. She tells me nothing. That’s why I—”
“Snoop, yeah I got it.”
“How do you know?” Catherine asked.
“Because I hear shit, so I ask shit,” Michel explained.
“Who do you ask?”
“Mostly cousins, like John or Andino, and sometimes Uncle Gio when he’s in a good mood.”
Huh.
Catherine filed that info away for later.
“Really, though, you shouldn’t snoop,” Michel said, taking the black book and putting it away. “There’s some things that are better left alone, Catherine. Some of this is a lot of that, if you get what I mean.”
“But—”
“And you’ve got school tomorrow.”
She scowled. “So do you.”
“Yeah, but I’ve been attending the Academy since sixth grade. You’re only getting transferred in this year. I’m in the upper Academy, so I won’t be around for you to ask me a million questions or to keep your ass out of trouble.”
“I do just fine on my own, thanks.”
Michel nodded. “Sure you do.”
“I don’t want to go to that stuffy school anyway.”
Her father took her out of her all girls private school, and decided to transfer her into the Academy of Westforth for her eighth grade. That meant all of her friends were left behind.
“Point is,” her brother said, “you don’t want to be tired and stupid walking around tomorrow. Some of those kids are a bunch of shits, too much money and too bored for their own good. With a last name like Marcello, some of them just want to see how far they can push before you push back. Keep an eye open, that’s all.”
“We’ve got too much money, and we’re bored half the time, too.”
Michel smirked. “Maybe you’ll fit right in, then, but who knows? You’ve got too much mouth sometimes. It gets you in trouble.”
It did not.
“Liliana will be there,” Catherine said of her cousin.
She was only one year younger than Liliana.
“Yeah, that’ll help,” Michel said as he headed for the door. “Another one with too much mouth in this family.”
Asshole.
***
“What’s your next class?”
Catherine handed over her schedule to Liliana without even looking at it. “Whatever that says.”
“Art.”
Great.
Liliana rattled off the teacher’s name and the easiest way to find the classroom, but Catherine was more focused on the football players finishing their sprints on the field. Sitting three rows up on the metal benches, she had a good view.
She wasn’t really a football person.
It was more interesting than classes with people she didn’t know, though.
Catherine was not liking her new school at all. Her brother had been right, or maybe she just hadn’t realized how difficult it was to be on the outside looking in. At her old school, she had been a part of the popular crowd. She had friends.
She didn’t need to make them.
It was strange to be … out of place.
The bell rang, signaling it was time for the students to head back inside as lunch was over, and classes would start in another ten minutes. Liliana stood instantly. Catherine stayed right where she was.
“Hey, art class, remember?”
Catherine took the schedule back from her cousin. “Yeah, I know.”
“It’s on the other side of the school, so you might want to get going if you don’t want to be late.”
“I’m going.”
“You’re going to skip, aren’t you?”
Catherine shrugged. “I’m not very artsy.”
That was a lie.
She loved art.
But not with people she didn’t know.
“You know they call home when you skip a class after already showing up to previous ones, right?”
“Maybe my dad will send me back to my old school, then.”
Liliana rolled her eyes upward. “Unlikely. And it’s not that bad here.”
“I don’t know anyone.”
“You have to, oh, I don’t know, talk to people, Catherine.”
“I tried to talk to that Natasha girl from English studies. I told you about her. She fucking scoffed at me--scoffed.”
“She’s a royal bitch on a high horse, and everybody knows it. She just hasn’t figured out who you are yet, that’s all.”
“She scoffs at me again, and I’ll punch her in the throat.”
Catherine had a big brother who used to make a game out of teasing her. She knew how to kick someone’s ass. People underestimated her because she was a girl and pretty, or that’s what her dad said.
Don’t let anybody underestimate you after the first time, Catherine, because then they deserve everything they get when they make the mistake a second time, her dad liked to say.
“I bet she won’t make one of those noises after that,” Catherine added.
Liliana laughed. “You’re going to have so much fun here once you stop sulking.”
Sure she would.
“Seriously, get to your art class,” Liliana said as she turned to head down the bleachers.
Catherine still stayed where she was sitting. Liliana turned back around and stared at her until she finally got up to follow. “You’re no fun.”
“You won’t be, either, if Uncle Dante grounds you for skipping.”
“Shut up, and stop sucking so much.”
Liliana tossed her a look. “Maybe that attitude is why you’re not making friends.”
Catherine didn’t grace that with a response. She followed behind Liliana as they stepped off the bleachers and walked alongside the field to head back to the school.
“Hey, new girl!”
The shout from an unfamiliar voice made Catherine stiffen, but she chose not to pay it any attention. She found a lot of the kids at the Academy had been attending the same schools for years, and they all knew one another. It was unusual for a new face to pop up, and she just happened to be one of a few new students that year.
“Hey, slow down, pretty girl,” the guy said as he jogged alongside Catherine and Liliana. He didn’t look to be much older than her or Liliana, but she figured if he was, he would be in the upper Academy anyway.
“Are you fucking serious, Hugh?” Liliana asked. “Go bother someone else.”
The guy—Hugh—turned on one foot to jog backwards, and let his helmet dangle from one hand. “What? I have to say hi to the fresh meat, don’t I?”
Catherine just stared at the guy. “Go away.”
“Aw, don’t be like that. You’re new, right? Make a friend. I’m a pretty decent guy to start with.”
She doubted that, for some reason. “Seriously, go away.”
He just laughed. “What’s your name?”
Catherine sighed.
Maybe if she just gave the guy what he wanted, he would leave her the hell alone.
“Catherine.”
“Last name? You know, for research purposes.”
Liliana reached over and pushed Hugh hard on his shoulder, nearly knocking him off balance. “Will you crawl off somewhere, creep?”
Hugh righted himself with a glare. “Don’t be a bitch, Lily.”
“Hugh, let’s go! Leave the conversation on the sidelines for your own time, not mine. Donati has been waiting for you for three minutes. Stop wasting my time!”
Catherine didn’t realize how close the football team, and their coaches had come to the sidelines as they were walking off. Out of all the players, only one still had his helmet off, and he wore a scowl that could rival the Devil’s.
A scowl fixed on a very handsome face.
Catherine lingered on the guy for a few more seconds, taking in his smooth features, strong jaw, dark eyes, and irritated expression. She didn’t think she had seen someone look pissed off and damn cute at the same time before. He ran a hand through his dark curls, and his olive-toned complexion shined with perspiration.
“Cross can wait a second,” Hugh hollered back. “I’m working on something here.”
“Working on getting your nuts to ascend back into your body,” Liliana muttered under her breath.
Catherine giggled. Her amusement faded fast. Like the second Hugh grabbed her arm in a tight grip, and stopped her from walking further.
“Last name?” he asked again.
She tugged her arm to free it from his grasp, but he didn’t let go. She looked down at his hand pointedly. “That’s a no.”
“Shit, what’s your problem? I’m just asking who the hell—”
“Let me go,” Catherine said.
She was polite.
It was the only warning he was going to get.
“Tell me your name, then.”
“This isn’t a tit for tat,” Catherine replied. “I said no, and that means—”
Catherine didn’t even see the fist coming before it smashed into Hugh’s face. Hugh let go of Catherine’s arm with a holler, and she almost tripped over her gladiator-style sandals in an effort to jump back.
“Means fucking no,” the guy Catherine had been admiring earlier said, as he stood over a now bleeding Hugh. “Coach said to move your ass, so move, Hugh. Stop bothering girls—didn’t you get enough of that shit last year?”
“Donati!” someone yelled from the field.
“Jesus Christ, Cross,” Liliana muttered.
“Prick!”
That was all Hugh got out before he kicked out a leg and dropped Cross to the ground. In full football gear, but for the helmets, the two boys started laying into one another. Each fist smacking into a body or gear made Catherine cringe. She was pretty sure someone was bleeding, too, in between cursing and name calling. The players and coaches on the field started heading their way fast.
“Okay, time to go,” Liliana said, making sure to tug Catherine along.
She kept up with her cousin easily enough.
First day, and already starting fights.
Yeah, she really missed her old school.
“Donati did you a favor there,” Liliana said as they came closer to the school.
“Who?” Catherine asked, peering back over her shoulder.
“Donati. Cross Donati.”
That surname seemed familiar to Catherine, but she couldn’t quite pull out why.
“Hugh is a creep,” Liliana said, oblivious to Catherine’s confusion. “He doesn’t understand the word no, and if you ask the right girls, they’ll all tell you not to leave a drink unattended when he’s around. Seriously, Cross did you a favor.”
She couldn’t help but look back over her shoulder.
Catherine found a pair of dark eyes looking in her direction before they locked onto hers.
Cross.
Cross Donati.
His fist crashed down into Hugh’s bloody face one more time before the coach reached the fighting boys, and pulled them apart. He was still staring after Catherine, though.
Cross smiled at her, then, showing off white teeth stained red by his bloody mouth. He didn’t seem a bit bothered by it, really. She smiled back.
Catherine thought, years from then, when people asked …
She would say that was when she fell in love with Cross.
Black hair.
Dark eyes.
Bruised knuckles.
Bloody mouth.
All the while, he smiled at her.
And she smiled back.
That was when she fell in love with Cross Donati.
Even if she hadn’t known it then.
CHAPTER THREE
“He got suspended on the first day, Cal. The first day!”
Cross dumped his football gear in the corner of the hall, grabbed his leather jacket, and headed down the hallway. He was hoping to bypass the kitchen where his mother was ranting about his three-day suspension from school, but he should have known better.
Fuck all got past Emma Donati.
Especially when she was in a fit.
“Cross Nazio Donati, you get in here right now!”
“Ooooh,” his eleven year old sister, Camilla, taunted on her way past him in the hallway, “someone’s in trouble. Again.”
“Shut up, Cam.”
“You shut up.”
“Good comeback,” he muttered.
Camilla smiled sweetly over her shoulder. “I’m not the one in trouble.”
True.
Cross stood in the kitchen entryway, and refused to go in further. He folded his arms over his chest. “What, Ma?”
“Cross,” his step-father warned, “tamper down the attitude.”
Just the tone of Calisto’s voice was enough for Cross to know he was walking on some seriously thin lines. He readjusted his attitude, or tried.
“It’s not that big of a deal, Ma,” Cross said. “It’s three days—the first week is all for introductions anyway. Don’t have a fit.”
Calisto cringed, glanced up at the ceiling, and shook his head.
Like he knew what was coming next.
His mother’s gaze narrowed in on him from across the room, and Cross figured out his mistake. It was too late to fix it.
“Don’t have a fit?” Emma asked, strangely calm.
“It’s not like the asshole didn’t—”
“Language, Cross.”
“He is an asshole. That’s why I broke his stupid mouth.”
That, and because the pretty girl with the green eyes told Hugh no. Hugh should have listened. Cross only thought to go over and drag Hugh’s stupid ass back onto the field because he was wasting Cross’s valuable practice time, but then he happened to hear the last bit of the conversation. Next thing he knew, he broke Hugh’s mouth.
And the pretty girl smiled.
Cross figured that made his bloody, bruised knuckles worth it.
“This is ridiculous,” Emma said, glaring at her husband. “He behaves this way at school because you let him do too much—get away with too much—outside of it.”
“That’s not true,” Calisto argued.
Cross leaned back on his heels and glanced down the hallway while his parents continued on with their argument. He could see the light from the backdoor from his spot just beyond the large staircase that led to the upper floors, and the library and office.
Ten seconds, maybe less, and he’d be gone.
He looked back to his parents.
“Look at his hands,” Emma said, “they’re bruised up and—”
“No worse than how they look after he beats the hell out of his punching bag without wrapping them up.”
“Cal, you’re justifying it again.”
“I am not. I’m just saying.”
“And he’s got a bruise on his mouth, too. How the hell is he supposed to show up to church on Sunday with a bruised mouth?”
“With a smile,” Cross said, “makes it stand out more, Ma.”
Both Calisto and Emma shot him warning looks without saying a word.
Cross just shrugged.
He did what he did.
It was over.
He wasn’t going to actually get grounded. He never got grounded. It did little to no good when he would just scale out of his bedroom window, down to the ground level, get on his quad, and head out onto the trails before his parents knew what was happening. Calisto threatened to take the bike keys away; Cross stole and hid them himself. His step-father threatened to have one of the enforcers lock the bike up; Cross filled the garage locks with insulation foam.
Cross was pretty sure Cal was three seconds away from laying a beating down on his ass for those stunts, but …
Worth it.
He got what he wanted.
Calisto stopped using grounding as a method of punishment for Cross after that. Cross didn’t want to be caged in. He talked more. He was better, when he was allowed to do what he wanted, with boundaries and rules on those things.
“Do you want another spell like last time?” Calisto asked, bringing Cross from his thoughts. “Because the last time I had this fight with the kid, he cost me eight grand to fix my garage, Emma. The fucking bastard who came here to fix it is probably still laughing at me.”
Still arguing.
“This is boring now,” Cross said, “and I’ve got things to do, so …”
Neither of them seemed to be paying attention.
Good enough for me.
Cross backed out of the kitchen entryway, and headed for the back of the house. He was outside, sliding on his leather jacket, and tugging his quad helmet down over his head just as he heard Calisto shout out for him. His quad was already parked at the backdoor where he had left it the night before. The Yamaha YFZ450R could get him from his property, to a friend’s four acres away, in less than a minute and a half.
“One hour, Cross, and you’re to be back here! Got it?”
A wave of his hand over his shoulder was the only answer he gave back.
He’d deal with it later.
Later always came.
That was one of the only guarantees in his life.
***
“Where the hell were you after school?” Zeke asked. “I thought you wanted to ride home with me?”
Cross tugged his helmet off, and hung it on the handlebars of the quad. “Getting shouted at the whole way home because Cal couldn’t get out of a meeting to come pick me up earlier. I think he probably let all his anger build up over the day and let it go, but who knows.”
Zeke stood straight, and dropped the rag he was using to buff out the rims on his Camaro. Almost all of Cross’s friends were older than him by a couple of years—Zeke was no exception at seventeen.
“Camilla laughed the whole time in the back seat,” Cross added. “Because she’s evil.”
“All little sisters are. Sent from fuckin’ Satan.”
“Anyway, the school kept me in the office all day. Cal picked me up ten minutes before final bell.”
“Could have sent me a text, so I wasn’t waiting for you after school. I heard you punched Hugh Donahue in the mouth on the field. They were still cleaning up the blood on the sidelines when the upper Academy’s team went on the field to practice, by the way.”
Cross shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Yeah. For Catherine Marcello, too.”
“What?”
Zeke bent back down out of sight, and went to work on his wheels again. “I’m just saying that’s what I heard. New girl—Catherine Marcello. You and Hugh. I don’t know how you haven’t gotten your ass permanently expelled from the Academy yet.”
“Because Cal donates a lot of money to them,” Cross said absently. “Or that’s what he keeps telling my mother.”
But that is beside the point.
“Catherine Marcello?”
Zeke’s head popped up just enough for Cross to see his friend’s eyes. “Uh, yeah. Her brother, Michel, is a couple months younger than me—same grade, though. Guess he heard about it, too, because that’s who I heard it from.”
“Marcello,” Cross repeated, “as in the Marcellos.”
“You’ve met Michel.”
Sure.
At parties. In the locker room off the field at the Academy, when the lower and upper grades were switching out. But he didn’t know the guy.
Cross did know that Michel supplied the school with … stuff.
Pills. Weed. Acid. Molly.
Whatever.
If someone had a poison, Michel could deliver it.
Cross wasn’t into that too much.
“So yeah, Catherine it was,” Zeke said, standing to admire his wheels. “Don’t know how you didn’t know, though.”
“Never met her. She’s new. I didn’t ask questions. I just broke Hugh’s face. She was already gone by the time it was over.”
But hey …
The pretty girl with the green eyes had a name.
Cross wondered what else he could learn about her from her.
“How did you get over here?”
Cross sometimes thought—despite Zeke’s father being Wolf—that the guy was dumb as shit. He was a good friend, sure, but dumb. “I’m on my bike, man.”
“No, I meant … do you ever get in trouble when you act like a little shit?”
“Not really.”
“Ever?” his friend pressed. “Because I breathe in the wrong direction, and Dad is on my ass.”
Wolf wasn’t like that with Cross.
Then again, Zeke wasn’t like Cross, either. He didn’t have an interest in the business their families dabbled in. Zeke wasn’t good, but he wasn’t that sort of bad, either.
Cross shrugged under the weight of his leather jacket. “Did you get my shit I asked for?”
Zeke nodded, and pulled open the passenger door of his Camaro. A beat passed before he tossed a black device across the driveway. Cross caught the phone easily enough, and flipped it over in his hands to take a look at it.
All black.
Touchscreen.
Fingerprint password capability.
“Burner, right?” Cross asked.
Zeke rolled his eyes. “I get you what you ask for, Cross. Why do you need a phone, anyway? Didn’t Cal just buy you a new one for school?”
“He spies on it. He didn’t tell me he was spying on it, and that pisses me off.”
“Oh. Well, shit.” Zeke came close enough to put his hand out, palm up. “Two for that, by the way.”
Cross stuffed the new phone into his pocket, grabbed the rolled up bills he had stuffed in there that morning, and paid his friend. “I thought it was supposed to be three-hundred?”
“I got it cheaper.” Zeke smirked. “For free, actually. It’s wiped, though, so no worries. You’re good.”
Cross didn’t care.
He had a new phone.
That’s what mattered.
“So hey,” Cross said, his thoughts drifting back to the dark-haired, green-eyed Catherine Marcello in an instant, “what else do you know about Catherine?”
Zeke passed him a look. “That she’s a lot closer to your age than mine, and that’s enough for me to know to stay the fuck away, man. I’m not into jailbait. Also, she’s Dante Marcello’s daughter. My father would skin me alive.”
Cross didn’t make much time for girls—at least not ones that went to his school. He liked females, sure, but there weren’t a lot that caught his attention enough to actually keep it. Girls his age liked boring things, and he didn’t care enough to pretend to give a shit. Older girls were good for other things, but that’s about all he kept it to.
Catherine, though …
She was kind of like him, with a family like his.
That interested him a whole lot.
***
Calisto was waiting on the back porch when Cross parked his quad, and dismounted from the bike. “At least you’re wearing your helmet now.”
Cross hung the helmet off the handlebars. “Yeah, well, last month I hit a tree root and went right over the front of the bike. Figured a helmet might have saved me getting knocked out for an hour and then waking up wondering where the hell I was.”
His step-father frowned. “You didn’t tell me you wrecked the bike.”
“The bike is fine. And so was I, you know, after I woke up.”
“Cross.”
“There was nothing to tell, Papa. Didn’t even have a scratch.”
Calisto’s defensive posturing softened a bit “Come sit with me for a minute. We’ll talk.”
“About how Ma wants to lock me in my room for the rest of my life?”
“Not your whole life. Just until you’re eighteen.”
Cross laughed.
Calisto didn’t.
That’s how he knew this was serious.
Standing in front of Calisto, he pulled out the phone that was tracked and handed it over. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Calisto stared at the device for a long while before he took it with tired eyes. “I thought you’d get your own faster than you did, actually.”
“I wanted a specific phone. It took him a while to get it.”
“Wolf’s boy, you mean. I know who you hang around with.”
Cross took a seat next to his step-father on the bench, and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Talk.”
“You know, a couple of years ago when your nonsense started—”
“It’s not nonsense. I am the way I am. I like it just fine.”
Calisto let out a slow breath and glanced up to the sky like he was sending out a silent prayer.
Maybe he was.
Cross wouldn’t be surprised.
“Can you just … pipe down for five minutes, Cross?” Calisto asked. “That’s all. Listen for five minutes, don’t speak.”
“I can try.”
He was honest.
“I learned something then, son,” Calisto said quietly, “and that was the fact I could either make these next few years really easy on us both, or very hard.”
Cross side-eyed his step-father. “How is that?”
“I figured you were going to do what you were going to do, regardless of what I did to stop you. Because the truth was, I wouldn’t be able to stop you. You made that abundantly clear, Cross.”
“The foam was a good one, though. You laughed—deny it.”
Calisto shook his head. “I laughed because I was so exasperated with you, Cross. What else could I do? Nothing worked. You literally cost me eight grand to fix the locks and rewire the entire system for the garage, and do you know what you did? You shrugged. Laughing was the only thing I could do except kill you at that point.”
“So?”
“You have to learn to tamper down the attitude. The rest, whatever. Tamper down the attitude, though.” Calisto crossed his arms over his chest, and began to move the bench swing with the tip of his shoe, rocking them back and forth. “What I am saying, is that I am trying to make these years—while you’re still home with us—easier on us all, but you’re not helping. I need you to help me out a bit here, Cross. I’m goddamn serious.”
“I listen.”
Mostly.
“With one ear, and only what you want to hear.”
“I follow the rules.”
Mostly.
Calisto pursed his lips, hiding a scowl. “What scant rules you have, son.”
“I don’t know what else you want me to do,” Cross said.
“Stop worrying your mother,” Calisto replied. “That would be a great start.”
“Hugh deserved to get punched in the mouth. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“The school felt differently. So much so that you’re suspended for three days, and benched for your first two games.”
Cross made a dismissive noise. “He still deserved it.”
“Why did he deserve it, then? Tell me that.”
“He was bothering a girl. He didn’t listen when she told him to back off. She said no, and he kept on. There’s a half a dozen girls at school that got way worse than this girl got, so I did her a favor by stopping it when I did. Seriously, his surgeon father will pay to have his broken teeth fixed before the second week of school even starts. It’s not a big deal.”
Calisto chuckled under his breath. “Well, then …”
“I don’t randomly go around breaking faces just to break faces.”
“That you don’t.”
“So why is this an issue?” Cross asked.
“Because your mother and I didn’t know the rest of the story,” Calisto replied, “though to be fair, I don’t think you told the school the other bit, either.”
“Doesn’t matter. The girl didn’t do anything wrong except be a girl that Hugh noticed.”
“Make these next few years easier on us, Cross. I’m not asking for a miracle here, just that you be … more careful. I’m not prepared, nor do I have the patience, for a battle of the wills with you until you turn eighteen. I let you have your freedom. I let you do what you want to save me a headache, but you have to give me something back.”
“Like what?”
“Like being careful,” Calisto repeated. “I don’t know, but get smarter or something about your shit. Your mother frets, and you know how she gets. Stop worrying her, I can’t take the state she gets in about your nonsense.”
“Again, it’s—”
“Yeah, yeah. Not nonsense. Just do what I said. Got it?”
Cross meh’ed under his breath.
“I mean,” Calisto continued, “unless you want to have a feud with your mother. It won’t be me the next time, it’ll be her. So either clean your shit up, get smarter about it all, or deal with whatever it is she will do.”
He stiffened on the bench.
Calisto laughed. “Yeah, that doesn’t sound fun at all, does it?”
Cross didn’t reply.
His step-father didn’t need him to, apparently.
“Also, your mother is in the library. Make an effort to apologize for today and mean it, Cross.”
He could do that.
“Sure, Papa.”
Calisto sighed. “Who was the girl, anyway?”
“Catherine Marcello.” That time, it was his father’s turn to go stiff. Cross laughed as he got up from the bench, and headed for the house. “It was worth it, too.”
Calisto’s groan echoed over the silent backyard. “Cross, don’t go getting yourself mixed up in that kind of mess, I swear to God. I won’t kill you for your nonsense, but another man surely might.”
He heard the warning loud and clear.
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Don’t go making a spectacle of that girl, Cross!”
He wouldn’t.
Calisto thought Cross didn’t hear him when he spoke, but he did. More than his step-father knew.
Earn a good woman by being a good man.
Yeah, Cross listened … when it was important.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Pretty sure that’s against the school’s dress code policy.”
Catherine’s head popped up at the new, unexpected voice to her left. There, she found Cross Donati grinning down at her. Dark eyes. Black hair. Cunning smile. His three-day suspension was apparently up. She got a much better look at his face and features when he was this close, and not rolling on the ground and beating his fists into someone else’s face.
Jesus.
Pretty was not the kind of word used to describe boys, but if it was the right one Catherine would give it to Cross. His face was all strong lines, tan skin, and the dimple in his right cheek peeking out when his lips quirked up just enough at the corner. Her heart picked up speed a bit. He, like all the other students at the Academy, wore the standard navy and white uniform, tie included. Although, his navy blazer seemed to have been replaced by a leather jacket. Girls got the option of skirts or pants, but Catherine hated them both.
It was all ugly.
Well …
She couldn’t help but think Cross wore the uniform a hell of a lot better than the other boys did.
Cross tipped his head to the side when Catherine couldn’t form words. “You don’t speak?”
“Um.”
He pointed at the open chair at the table. “This open, or …?”
“Is anyone sitting there?’
“Nope.”
“Is there stuff there to say someone might come back?”
“Nope.”
Catherine smiled sweetly. “Then I guess it’s open, Cross.”
“Cute.” Cross slid into the chair with the grace of what Catherine might consider to be a predator. He was at least a half of a foot taller than her five foot, four inches. “I see you learned my name.”
“Seems a lot of people know your name.”
“Do you often hide in the library at lunch time?”
“I do when my cousin is in detention,” Catherine replied.
“Liliana.”
Catherine caught Cross’s stare, and held it. Despite the way his eyes—a dark brown that almost seemed soul-black under the library lights—made her want to freeze like an idiot, she didn’t shrink away from his gaze. “Yeah, Liliana.”
“Your brother is Michel, right?” Cross asked.
“According to my mother and father, and the family photos they make us smile for every year. I think they picked him up in a fucking ditch somewhere, but whatever. Why?”
Cross’s laughter burst from his lax, lazy smile so fast, it shocked Catherine. Not because he laughed, but because of how he looked doing it. “Yeah, I’ve got one of those, too.”
Her confused look made his grin deepen.
“A sibling that makes me want to burn the house down on a regular basis,” Cross added quickly. “Camilla, my sister; she’s eleven. Drives me—”
“Crazy,” Catherine interrupted.
Cross shrugged. “I mean, that works, too.”
Catherine surveyed her nails; the almond-shaped pink and sparkle manicure needed a touch-up, and soon. “Do you know my brother?”
“Sort of,” Cross answered.
“Why ask about him?”
“Making conversation.” Cross winked when Catherine looked up at him. “I didn’t know what to say to you other than the dress code thing, and you completely ignored that.”
“I didn’t ignore it.” Catherine pulled the fake daisy flower crown from her hair, as that was the only thing she was currently wearing that was against the dress code of the school. It was stretchy, with daisies all around the band, and could be worn like a headband, or a crown. Obviously, she preferred the crown style. “They make us wear ugly uniforms, and the only thing I can control is my shoes. You know, as long as they’re not higher than four inches. They can deal with this.”
Cross reached out and snagged the daisy hair band. “Nobody pointed it out yet?”
“Got written up twice before lunch, actually.”
His husky laughter surprised her again.
“Just ignore it; they’ll eventually let it go. One less thing to fight about.”
Catherine nodded at his leather jacket. “Is that why you wear that and not your blazer?”
“I wear the blazer … occasionally.”
“Not what I asked.”
Cross leaned across the table, and set Catherine’s daisy accessory back in place on her head. His fingers were careful not to catch or pull her hair, she noticed, but his fingertips were damn warm against her temples. Then, he pulled away, but her skin still felt warm.
Yep.
She missed a whole breath there.
“There, perfect,” he murmured.
Catherine eyed her new companion. “You still didn’t tell me why you don’t wear the blazer.”
“It’s shit material. My jacket costs more than ten of these stupid uniforms. I wear the rest of it; that’s the best I can do.”
Yeah.
Catherine liked Cross, and his fuck-you-attitude.
A lot.
“You don’t actually have to hide in the library, Catherine,” Cross said.
It was the first time he used her name.
“How do you know—”
“Asked around,” Cross interjected, smirking. “I figured, I broke someone’s face for you, the least I could do was learn your name.”
“And find me hiding out in the library, apparently.”
“What good is learning your name if I can’t use it?”
Catherine laughed. “All right, you win.”
“I usually do.”
She ignored his arrogance, but only because she was used to arrogant men. Her whole family was full of them.
“But I do,” Catherine said, “like to be in here, rather than out there with … them.”
Cross cocked a brow. “Them?”
“I don’t know anyone here. I didn’t want to come here at all.”
He didn’t look all that surprised at her admission. “All my friends are in upper grades. I don’t care to know anyone here, either.” Then, he shot her a smile. “Or, I didn’t.”
“Oh?”
Cross leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms over his chest. “What are you doing after school?”
“Me?”
“You’re the only one sitting here, Catherine.”
“I’m supposed to meet up with my brother—our cousin picks us up on Fridays. At least until Michel gets his license in a couple of months.”
Well, that’s what she was going to tell Cross, anyway. Really, John—who was her cousin—also acted as their enforcer. A guard, of sorts. Catherine sometimes liked to call him a babysitter too, just to piss him off. He drove them around, looked after them when they were out, and kept an eye on the house when her parents were out or gone somewhere.
Cross seemed far too relaxed across from her, as though they were old friends. “Think they might miss you?”
“Uh …”
“You did say you didn’t know anybody, right?”
Sure, but did she want to know him?
That was the question.
“Make a friend,” Cross said before Catherine could speak up. “Or a couple.”
“A couple? As in, more than one.”
Because she was pretty sure he was the only one there.
“That’s what I said.”
***
Catherine readjusted the strap of her messenger bag on her shoulder as she took the entrance steps two at a time. One thing the upper and lower Academies shared? A parking lot. Everything else, besides the football field, was entirely separated.
She quickly found her brother across the lot, sitting on the steps leading into the upper Academy’s wings.
She found someone else quickly, too. Cross Donati. He sat on the hood of a cherry red Camaro. His attention snagged by an older boy with a pair of keys in his hands.
Catherine still hadn’t decided to take him up on his offer of making friends. Mostly because she didn’t do things like that—skip out, blow off already made plans, or blatantly break the rules her parents made. Not going home with her brother and cousin, with a guy her parents didn’t know or hadn’t met, without an enforcer definitely fell into the category of breaking rules.
Several rules, really.
She was already halfway across the lot, heading in her brother’s direction, before she could think better of it.
“Johnathan is going to be late,” Michel said without even looking up at his sister’s approach.
“How late?”
“Thirty minutes, or so.”
She peeked over her shoulder, only to find that the black-haired, dark-eyed boy was still engaged in conversation with his friend, and hadn’t noticed her at all.
Cross didn’t notice her staring.
Michel did.
“Made a friend, did you?” her brother asked.
“I guess.”
His brow lifted. “Not sure Dad would like that, Catherine.”
“Why not? He keeps telling me to make friends, and then I’ll like it here.”
“Cross Donati is a fucking troublemaker. I don’t think that’s the kind of friend Dad meant.”
“He doesn’t seem like trouble to me.”
That was a lie.
Cross seemed like all sorts of trouble.
He also seemed like fun.
It was that thought alone that cemented Catherine’s next choice. “Ma and Dad aren’t going to be home until later, right?”
“Around seven,” Michel said, going back to his phone.
“So I could just … call to get a ride home, if I wanted to stay here for a bit.”
Her brother did look up at that statement. “And what are you going to do while you’re here?”
Well, she didn’t know yet. And who the hell knew if she would be staying?
“I don’t know,” Catherine said honestly.
Michel looked across the lot.
Catherine followed his gaze.
The pretty boy sitting on the cherry red Camaro wasn’t distracted anymore because he was staring straight at her. He flashed a smile, then tipped his head to the side as if to silently call her over.
“You’re going to get yourself in a world of shit,” Michel warned.
“So that’s a yes, right?”
Michel frowned. “You’re not listening, Catherine.”
“I am, but who’s going to tell? I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“If you won’t go home and tell Ma or Dad, it’s wrong.”
“Do you tell them everything you do?”
Michel quickly shut his mouth at that question. “Fine, go. But be back here in three hours, at the most. If you get back earlier, shoot me a text. I’ll say you’re staying at school with friends, and then Dad won’t get pissed off at John for not staying behind to look after you. He’ll come back and pick you up. Don’t get John in shit because you want to have fun, Catherine. He’s got to do his job, too, as our enforcer, but I’ll make an excuse this time.”
“Thanks, I’ll make it up to you, I swear,” Catherine said in a rush.
“Sure, sure.”
She was already spinning on her heel and heading the other way.
Toward trouble and fun.
Cross pushed off the hood of the Camaro at the sight of Catherine’s approach. His smile deepened to a grin, and he took her bag without even asking for it.
“Nice car,” Catherine said.
The older guy Cross had been talking to poked his head out the driver’s window. “Thanks. And hi.”
She waved. “Hi.”
Cross used his free hand to gesture between his friend and Catherine as he tossed her bag into the back of the car. “Zeke, Catherine. Catherine, Zeke.”
“You up for a drive to the Odessa Pier?” Zeke asked.
“Like, way down in Brighton Beach?”
The guy nodded. “That’s the one.”
Her father would kill her.
Brighton was off-limits unless she had an enforcer with her. Dante never said why, just that it was. Catherine didn’t think to ask because her father probably wouldn’t explain. He made rules; she was expected to follow them. It was that simple. For the most part she did just that. Or tried.
Catherine figured she could afford to take the risk.
Especially with Cross still waiting for her to answer.
***
Catherine scrolled through the last message on her phone from her brother.
You good?
Fine, she texted back.
Michel didn’t respond.
In the backseat of the Camaro, Cross chatted away with Zeke about a race of some sort—Catherine didn’t know for sure. She had thought they were going straight to Brighton Beach, but apparently Zeke had other plans. He pulled into a public school parking lot, yanked the car into park, and leaned over to open the door for a pretty blonde that jumped in the front seat. The girl looked closer to Zeke’s age, Catherine thought. Seventeen, maybe.
The girl leaned over and pressed a kiss to Zeke’s mouth, grinning.
“Hey.”
Zeke smiled back. “Hey.” Then, he nodded to the back. “Cross found a friend.”
“Vaffanculo,” Cross swore.
His friend only laughed.
The girl, however, smiled back at Catherine with kind eyes. “Hi. I’m Amanda.”
“Catherine.”
“Are you even old enough to be hanging around with an idiot like this?” she asked, jerking her thumb in Zeke’s direction.
Zeke scoffed. “Be nice, babe.”
Amanda’s lips quirked up at the edges. “I’m just saying.”
“I came for the other one, actually,” Catherine said.
“That might be just as bad.”
Unlike Zeke’s reaction, Cross agreed.
With a damn smirk.
Amanda turned back around in the front seat, put her sandal-clad feet to the dash, and asked, “Where are we headed?”
“The Pier,” Zeke said, putting the car in drive, “unless you’ve got somewhere else to be, babe.”
“Nope. The Pier is good.”
Since Catherine already had her phone out, she turned on the camera, and pointed the device in Cross’s direction. “Smile.”
He cocked a brow instead.
She took the picture, anyway.
It still looked good.
***
The constant stream of giggles from up above made Catherine look up. Amanda sat on the railing of the pier, tipped her head back, and let out a steady stream of gray smoke. Zeke stood between Amanda’s legs; his chin rested on her shoulder while he looked out at the water.
Even from down below, Catherine could smell the very distinct aroma of weed.
The giggling made a lot more sense.
For the first thirty minutes after they arrived, Catherine walked the pier with Cross, watching the water down below. Mostly, though, she watched unknown people approach Zeke where he had been sitting with Amanda on a bench. His hand would disappear into his bag, come out with something Catherine couldn’t see, and then money would get shoved inside before it was zipped back up again.
Over and over and over.
Then, the unknown people slowed. Zeke and Amanda moved to another part of the pier. Catherine and Cross moved down to the wet sand where the tide hadn’t come in yet.
“Is that what he was selling?” Catherine dared to ask.
Cross stopped walking, and so did she. “Who, Zeke?”
“Yeah, earlier. Weed, I mean. Is that—”
“Pick your poison or need, and Zeke probably has it,” Cross said, “but if he doesn’t, he can get his hands on it. He doesn’t deal at school. Someone’s already laid claim there. It’s the respect of the matter, or so he says.”
“Huh.”
Cross shrugged off his leather jacket, and tossed it over his arm. “Don’t worry. Zeke doesn’t use at all. He won’t be driving back high.”
Catherine looked up again. “But his girlfriend does.”
“He looks out for her, or whatever.”
Cross walked further under the pier.
Catherine followed.
“Besides, Wolf or Cal would cut his nuts off if they thought he was driving me around while stoned out of his mind.”
“Who?” she asked.
Cross tossed his leather jacket to the sand. “Wolf is his dad. Calisto—but I just call him Cal—is my step-dad. Sit.”
She did, tucked tight into Cross’s side on the leather jacket. The sound of the water echoed under the pier, and it made a soothing sound. Cross rested his arms over his knees, while Catherine stared at him from the side.
“I thought I was supposed to be making friends,” she teased.
Cross grinned. “You did. Three of them.”
“But mostly just one.”
His gaze met hers. “So?”
“So … thanks for punching Hugh and getting suspended for me, I guess?”
Cross chuckled, and went back to staring out at the water. “It was worth it. I kind of hate him, anyway.”
Catherine bit her lower lip to hold back the laughter. “That’s kind of terrible.”
“Terrible is my thing.”
She wiped her sandy hands off on the pleated skirt of her school uniform, but it did no good. The sand still stuck to her skin, scratchy and bothersome. Silently, Cross’s larger hands captured hers inside his. Without a word, he took his time to brush all the sand off her hands and fingers until there was nothing left. His careful hands and serious expression, focused in on his task of making her clean and comfortable, made Catherine smile.
And her chest got tight, too.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
Cross shrugged. “No worries.”
Catherine thought he’d drop her hands when he was done. He only dropped the one, and then he quickly grabbed something at his side before he was holding her hand with both of his again in a firm grip.
She felt him slide something into her palm.
“A gift,” he said quietly.
Catherine raised a single eyebrow, and flipped her hand over to see what it was when he let her go. A small conch shell, maybe an inch and a half long, and pale pink in color.
When had he even seen it?
“It’s pretty,” Catherine said, turning the little conch shell over in her hand. “Thank you.”
Cross plucked the conch from her palm, and gave her one of his winks. He began unwinding the thin leather cord that had circled his wrist like a triple-wrapped bracelet of sorts until it was fully undone. Quickly, he wrapped the conch shell securely in the cord, and it hung like a pendant.
“Give me your wrist,” Cross said.
Catherine held her arm out, not hesitating a bit.
Cross wrapped the cord two times more around her wrist than he needed to for his, even with the conch tied into it. Once it was secured, he pulled a lighter from his pocket, and held her wrist still while he burned the leather knot.
“It’s not going to slip off now,” he told her.
She flipped her wrist around, admiring her new accessory. She loved it.
Catherine loved anything different and unique.
Like daisy crowns or conch shells on leather bracelets.
She looked up to thank Cross--again—but the words didn’t quite form when she found his dark gaze already locking onto hers.
Maybe it was giggling laughter from up above, or the sound of water coming in under the pier. Maybe it was the memory of a bloody smile and busted up knuckles. Maybe it was just him seeking her out for no reason at all.
Or shit …
Maybe it was just Cross.
Catherine really liked the way he looked at her.
She didn’t know what it was, but it was something. So, she leaned over and kissed him. Quick and fleeting, a fast press of her lips to his—silky, soft and over before she blinked or thought about it for too long.
Her first kiss.
Ever.
For a split second, Catherine’s mind went stupid. She thought maybe she shouldn’t have done that at all, and maybe he hadn’t wanted her to. Besides a dumb crush, she didn’t have a lot of experience with boys, and she didn’t know how to act or what to do.
She stopped thinking all together when she looked at Cross again. His grin grew a little wider.
Catherine looked down.
“Are you going to do that again?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Are you going to do it soon?”
Catherine’s cheeks heated. “Maybe.”
“Do you mind if I do it?”
Her head popped up again, and her gaze darting to his. “No, I don’t mind.”
It seemed like that was all Cross was waiting for.
Her okay.
Her permission.
Cross didn’t just lean over like she had done—no, his whole body moved toward her. His hands found her cheeks, and he pulled her into him before he kissed her. His kiss was not like hers had been. It wasn’t fast or fleeting; he didn’t pull away a quick second later, or barely kiss her at all. Where she had been hesitant, he was not.
No, she found his kiss was almost rough, but in a good way. A hard press of his soft lips to hers, and then another. His thumbs stroked the line of her cheekbones as his tongue darted in between her parted lips. She realized then that he tasted sweet and warm at the same time. Her worries and embarrassment slipped away as she found that she liked this a whole lot, too.
It wasn’t so hard to do.
And it all felt wonderful.
Catherine hadn’t realized how much she needed air to breathe until Cross pulled away. His dark eyes watched her for a moment, pulling her into a silent hurricane of feelings and wonder.
“I’ll probably do that again,” he told her, his voice low and promising. “Soon.”
Catherine shrugged.
Nonchalant seemed the way to go.
There was no reason to say she couldn’t speak.
***
Catrina Marcello dominated rooms when she walked into one.
Catherine thought—if anything—that was what intimidated people the most about her mother. Then, people got a good look at Catrina. They saw her beautiful clothes, perfectly done makeup and dark red hair, her manicured nails sharpened into points at every perfect tip, and were caught off guard by her beauty. Even in her forties, her mother turned heads when all she was doing was walking down the street.
But to Catherine?
Catrina was just her mom.
They butted heads a lot. Her father liked to say that’s because they were too much alike for their own good. Catherine didn’t know how true that was.
She knew she looked a lot like her mother, much more than she took after her father. Her sharp cheekbones, full lips with a dainty cupid’s bow, olive complexion, and even her smile … it all came from her mother. Her green eyes and dark hair came from her father.
Catherine sometimes thought it would have been nice if her mother could have passed on more than just her looks to her daughter. Like her confidence and natural aura of superiority. As though the world was hers, and she owed it fucking nothing.
Maybe those were learned traits, though.
Catherine hadn’t quite learned them, yet.
Catrina bent over her daughter at the kitchen table, surveying the textbooks Catherine had laid out. “How was school?”
“Boring.”
Her mother laughed a tinkling sound. “Come on, now, dolcezza. Make an effort, and you might like it there.”
“It’s not so bad, really.”
Now, Catherine thought silently.
“Did you make friends?”
Catherine flipped to the next page in her book. “Sort of.”
“Johnathan said he went back to pick you up a bit later because you were hanging out with some friends.”
At that same time, Catherine’s brother strolled through the kitchen, following behind their father and muttering on about something or other. She caught Michel’s eye as he passed her by, but he didn’t speak up or say a word about who she had gone with that day.
“I made friends,” Catherine admitted.
Sort of.
Catrina smiled, pleased, and kissed the top of her daughter’s head. “See, I told you.”
“Yeah, I know, Ma.”
“Did Michel order you some pizza?”
“When I got home,” she said.
Catrina patted Catherine’s cheek in her motherly way, saying, “Tomorrow, I’ll make your favorites. It’s been a busy week. You know your father’s trial is coming up, and all.”
Yeah, it wasn’t like Catherine could forget the night almost a year earlier when FBI agents raided their home in the middle of the night. Her father was facing weapons charges, amongst other things. The trial was a few weeks away, as far as she understood.
“I don’t want you worrying about it,” Catrina said, bringing Catherine from her thoughts. “We haven’t talked a lot about it, or what to expect, but that’s just because we’re not sure right now on some of the details. Okay?”
Catherine frowned, still trying to focus on her homework. “It’s all right, Ma.”
“Well, it will be.” Catrina pressed another kiss to her daughter’s head. “Just remember, we don’t talk about the family with anyone, Catherine. That’s our rule, dolcezza.”
“Got it, Ma.”
“And stop feeling so put out about that school and the people there,” her mother added with a smirk. “You’re a Marcello, Catherine. Act like it. Own it.”