The Son
Cross POV
It was the warm streak of sunlight painting bright colors across Cross’s eyelids that woke him up first. And then shortly after, the soft beeping of his alarm going off reminded him that he had shit to do this morning.
Still, he didn’t bother to open his eyes until he felt his wife’s hand come over and push gently against the middle of his spine. Her sly way of getting him up before her so that he could make her—
“Go turn the coffee pot on, Cross,” Catherine said, her voice thick with sleep.
She wasn’t sly at all about this.
He groaned. “But I’m comfortable.”
“You have one job in the mornings.”
“A job you delegated to me,” he grumbled, “and not one I willingly volunteered for. How I became the coffee maker between us every day, I don’t know.”
“I am the queen of the house.”
“What about the fucking king?”
Cross finally looked over to find Catherine’s green eyes glittering under the mound of blankets. He could still see the camber of her smile peeking out a little, too. It was enough to tell him she was joking.
Always trying to get a rise out of him.
“You make the best coffee,” Catherine said with her glittering eyes and half-hidden smile. “And that is why you were delegated to the task every day of our marriage.”
“Mmhmm.”
Cross reached out, and grabbed hold of his wife. He yanked her from the fortress of her blankets, and pulled her into him. Smothering her half-hearted protests with a searing kiss woke up his semi-hard erection more than it already was.
He didn’t mind making coffee …
If he got a taste of her first.
“Good morning,” she whispered against his lips.
“It’s a very good morning now.”
Catherine’s light laughter lit up the room. The sweet, musical sound was a balm to his soul. A melody he had permanently imprinted on his mind. He could hear it when the house was silent, or even in his dreams.
Beauty was his life.
Love was his wife.
There was nothing about Catherine that he didn’t know. There was nothing about her that he didn’t love entirely.
Catherine was everything.
His everything.
“Looks like I stole all the blankets again,” Catherine murmured.
Cross chuckled. “I kept a pretty tight hold on mine.”
He had to.
Otherwise, she would just steal that blanket from him, too. It was just what she did.
Not that he minded.
Over two decades of marriage taught him not to mind the small stuff. They just didn’t matter in the grander scheme.
“So … about that coffee?” Catherine asked.
Cross laughed, and smacked his wife’s ass over her boy shorts. “You’re so goddamn spoiled, babe.”
Catherine rolled off him, and preened all the while. “But who made me this way?”
He rolled his eyes at her as he moved out of the bed. “You say that like it was me. We both know you already came to me being spoiled rotten to your fucking core.”
“But you love it.”
Cross tugged on sleep pants, and called over his shoulder as he left the bedroom, “Yeah, can’t deny that.”
Her laughter chased him from the room. He really didn’t mind getting up to get coffee, or to spoil her more than she already was.
Whatever made her happy.
He would do it.
Cross was in the kitchen and waiting for the percolator to finish filling the carafe when a noise from outside the entryway caught his attention. A curse, it sounded like. And it didn’t belong to a voice he recognized, either.
Now, when someone unknown was in Cross’s house—they signed their fucking death warrant being there.
Simple as that.
Cross reached for the gun hidden in the drawer where Catherine kept dish cloths. He had the weapon tight to his palm, and ready to fire just as the unknown intruder came into view at the entryway.
Instantly, he relaxed.
Set the gun down to his side, too.
“Who the fuck are you?” Cross asked.
The young woman—she was maybe eighteen, or nineteen—trying to sneak by the kitchen with her high heels dangling from her fingertips froze like a statue on the spot. She spun around to face Cross as he came closer.
Her wide blue eyes were a mess of smudged makeup, and smeared mascara. Sleep still lingered in her gaze, though, as if she hadn’t been awake for very damn long. Her blonde hair looked like she hadn’t run a brush through it that morning, and the wrinkled, sparkly club dress she wore showed off a hell of a lot of leg.
Embarrassment snaked up the girl’s cheeks in a bright red.
Jesus Christ.
The walk of shame.
Oh, he knew that look well.
Sure, it had been years since he sent a woman home looking like that, and he couldn’t remember a time when he had been the one to go home in that state. But Cross wasn’t so old or foolish that he didn’t recognize what he was seeing.
The young woman gaped like a fish—she was a pretty enough thing, but he doubted this was the kind of morning the woman had planned.
Cross chose to throw her a bone.
This was humiliating enough.
He waved the gun and gestured at her. “I don’t want to know your name—just go. Don’t even tell me a thing.”
“Okay,” the girl squeaked.
She was gone a second later.
Cross waited until the front door of their Newport home closed shut before he went in search of the only possible explanation for the strange young female in his house. He soon found eighteen-year-old Nazio in his bedroom doing chin-ups on the bar that hung in the doorway of Naz’s connecting bathroom.
On the TV, news played.
The stereo—heavy metal.
On the white board above the head of Naz’s bed—well, to Cross it looked like a bunch of jumbled, nonsensical numbers and symbols, but he knew just by seeing them enough times from Naz that it was a physics theory of some sort.
And no, not high school level shit.
Genius level physics.
All of this shit played on in Naz’s room as he finished his chin-up set. The eighteen year old dropped to the floor without barely making a sound—six foot six, and two-hundred and thirty pounds of solid muscle.
Yeah, where Naz had once seemed like all long arms and legs was now a very filled out young man. A good two hours of every day for Naz was dedicated to fitness whether it be weight training, or hard cardio. Not because he was vain about his body, but because his body needed to be able to keep up with him.
He still liked his beanie, though.
That reminded Cross of when his boy was young, and still little. Before all this genius stuff had come along to make Naz a little chaotic in his life.
“Hey,” Naz said as he grabbed the black marker from his nightstand. “The weather is going to be good for that gun run to Kenya.”
That was what was playing on the TV.
Naz scribbled more shit Cross couldn’t even begin to attempt to understand on the whiteboard, and stepped back as the TV and radio blared on in the background. The young man surveyed his formula like he was satisfied—sort of.
Cross was overwhelmed just standing there. It was too many things happening all at once, and too much noise to get his thoughts in order. Far too much movement, and everything else, too.
He couldn’t keep up.
This was Naz, though.
This was Naz’s everyday life.
His mind.
Chaotic.
Intense.
So full.
Non-stop.
“Naz,” Cross said, “give me five.”
Naz clapped once, and the TV shut off, Then, he snapped his fingers, and the music quieted to a dull roar in the background—much better than before.
“You want more lights on for this, or …?” his son asked.
“Whatever, son.”
Naz clapped twice, and the lights brightened. A whole set up Naz had hooked up himself. Like everything else in this damn bedroom.
Cross did not understand how he had ended up with a child that was a literal genius.
But here Naz was.
Graduated high school at fifteen. He was going into his third year of college, and would likely graduate with a doctorate within three or so years. That was, if Naz stayed in school and continued to work as hard as he did for his studies.
Who knew if he would?
Naz was brilliant, sure.
But fickle, too.
And restless.
Sinful.
Criminal.
Amazing, really.
The young man could attend six hours of classes five days a week, plus two hours of online studies. Then, in the evenings, he mentored under one of Cross’s Capos—and Zeke, too. Naz had been doing that since he was twelve because he wanted to be a made man like nothing else.
And on the weekends?
Naz ran guns.
Sometimes with Cross, if it was a short run, but more often than not, with his partner.
“Who was that woman?” Cross asked.
Naz scribbled more nonsensical things to the white board. “Tess, or Treena … Tyler, maybe. Something with a T, anyway.”
“Nazio.”
“Met her at the club last night.”
“What are you gonna do if they catch your ass in one of those clubs with a fake ID, Naz?”
Nazio passed his father a look. “Buy a new one?”
Jesus.
“Naz!”
“What?”
“Since when do you break my rules—no women in this house when your mother and I are home. You know the rules.”
Naz shot his father an apologetic look. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“Since when do you not think?”
Shrugging, Naz shoved his hands into the pockets of his training shorts. “When I’m buried in pussy, I guess.”
Christ.
“Naz,” Cross murmured, raising a brow high.
“What? It’s the only time I don’t have to be …”
“What, son?”
Naz gestured at the white board, and then pointed to his temple. “This.”
Cross frowned.
Naz was a decent young man despite his bloodline and namesake. Sure, he was a criminal, too. Dark in his soul at times.
But he was also eighteen.
And pretty normal, all things considered.
Even being amazing like he was.
“Naz.”
“Hmm?” his son asked.
“No women in the house when we’re here.”
“All right, Dad. Got it.”
Cross smiled. “Unless, of course, it’s a woman you would like to introduce your mother and I to. That, son, is a whole different story.”
A chuckle answered him back before Naz said, “I don’t think I am ever going to find someone to keep all of this interested for longer than it takes me to bust a nut.”
“Never say never, Naz. And you know—you earn that kind of woman by being the man you think a woman like that deserves. She is never just going to be given to you.”
Naz nodded, and for a second, their gazes locked. “Yeah, Dad, I know.”