One of Cross’s favorite memories with Catherine was the weekend he had snuck into her house when they were just fifteen and seventeen. He spent two days in nothing but boxer-briefs, listening to Catherine read Romeo and Juliet in her underwear.
They could have been making a similar memory, except …
“Holy fuck, this is the most boring shit I have ever heard,” Cross grumbled, scrubbing a hand down his face.
Catherine instantly stopped reading from her law textbook. “I know, right?”
“What are you even doing with that garbage?”
Her green eyes danced with mirth beside him on her bed. He could figure out a dozen better ways to spend their night together other than her reading text from that terrible book. Like the fact she was already half naked, and so was he.
“Well,” she said, “I thought that maybe if I became a defense attorney, that would add four to the family. Don’t all crime families need good defense lawyers on their side?”
Cross eyed her, and chuckled. “Babe, that’s what we hire people for when we don’t have one on hand. Good lawyers that actually know what they’re doing and enjoy their job.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Catherine, you’ve rolled your eyes three times in one paragraph. I watched you.”
She pressed her lips together in an effort to hide her smile. “So?”
“You don’t even like what you’re doing.”
“Again, so?”
“You’ll make a terrible lawyer, babe.”
“Cross!” She flung her arm and smacked him hard in the shoulder.
“Hey!”
“You don’t get to tell me I would be terrible at anything. Not when I haven’t even tried. Thank you very much, you ass.”
Cross sighed while dragging his fingers through his hair. “I can’t help that it’s true, Catty. Yes, you would be amazing at pretty much anything you enjoy and actually want to do. It kind of seems like this is neither of those.”
She scowled, and then hit him again. “Shut up.”
“Okay, that’s twice, so now you’re going to have to owe me.”
“Worth it,” she said under her breath.
Smartass.
Cross snatched the large textbook from Catherine’s hand, and threw the piece of shit across the room before she could even protest. It was so heavy that he felt the impact of the book hitting the floor from ten feet away on the bed.
Catherine stared at him. “I have a thing due next week, you know. I’m supposed to be reading so I know what to … I don’t even know.”
“Oh? What kind of thing?”
“Not really sure at the moment.”
“You’re not a very good law student, either.”
Catherine shrugged. “I kind of hate it.”
Cross nodded. “Yeah, I figured.”
She reached over and pushed back the longer strands of hair that had fallen over his eyes. Then, her palm rested warm and soft against his cheek.
“I don’t even know what I want to do,” she admitted quietly.
“You’ve got time to find out.”
“Do I really, though? I’m twenty-five. I’ve been in college since I was eighteen. I basically hate it and everything about it. So what, do I live off my trust fund for the rest of my life because I can’t find direction?”
“You have time,” Cross repeated, “and because you’re luckier than some, you have the funds to support yourself until you do figure it out, Catherine. You shouldn’t feel guilty because you have money. What are you going to do with it, let it rot?”
“Well—”
“You can’t actually take money with you when you die, okay. Sure, you can line your grave in gold, and rest in the most expensive silk, surrounded by Italian marble, but what good does that do?”
Catherine rolled her eyes. “No, I know that.”
“Then what exactly do you plan to do with it all?”
“I do spend money.”
“Really, where?” he asked. “Because you live in a decent neighborhood in a pretty basic apartment, although it’s better than most, and I guess you do have a new car. I’m not sure where else you’re actually living, babe.”
Catherine’s gaze narrowed at him a second before she pushed off the bed. Cross propped himself up on his elbows, and watched her as she disappeared into a closet. Without warning, stuff started coming from the closet and landing on the foot of the bed.
Cross’s gaze skipped over the items—designer bags, clothes, shoes, and more. Gucci. Dolce & Gabbana. Prada. Louboutin. Marc Jacobs. Valentino.
Catherine came out of the closet with a whole armful of red soled heels. Sparkly. Black. White. Leather. Pointed toe. Open toe. She dumped the Louboutin heels onto the floor, and then turned around and went right back into the closet.
“Catherine, what are you doing?”
Instead of answering, she came back out with a large wooden, shiny box that was at least a foot and a half wide by a foot and a half deep. Guessing by the doors on the sides and the small drawers, he thought it was a jewelry box. Wordlessly, she turned the box over and let the contents fall out onto the bed where she had been resting beside him earlier.
Diamonds. Pearls. Precious stones.
Necklaces. Bracelets. Earrings.
So much jewelry that it made a small mountain.
“I can go get my sunglasses collection,” Catherine added, “but I’m quite fond of them, and I would rather not scratch the lenses.”
Cross picked up a particular ring in the pile that had an emerald stone and a white gold band. The green gem rested in a crown of diamonds. It was at least two carats in size.
“How many do you have?”
“Glasses or rings?” Catherine asked.
“Uh … both?”
“Three-hundred pairs of glasses. Maybe like fifty or so rings.”
Cross just stared at the items, unsure. “Huh.”
“I spend money.”
“Your money, or …?”
Catherine gave him a look. “Yes, my money. Before I knew how to hide and launder the money I was making through Andino, the only thing I knew how to do was shop. Also, I have a storage facility with more.”
Cross cleared his throat. “More what?”
“Well, paintings, mostly. Expensive paintings. I couldn’t very well hang them in my apartment when some of them are worth more than the cars parked outside. Also, what if my parents asked about them? What would I have said then?”
Holy shit.
“I mean, I collect guns,” Cross said, “but not … this.”
“Someone once told me that the best way to hide vast wealth was in material things,” Catherine said.
“Who was that?”
“My therapist’s husband.”
Cross chuckled dryly. “Yeah, Gian Guzzi can spend money. His mansion might as well be lined in gold.”
“I was making a million a year. For the longest time, I just shoved cash in shoe boxes and hid them under my bed when I didn’t anonymously donate to shelters or food banks. I know I can’t take money with me when I die. I also know I’m really good at doing one thing that I like. If I could, that’s the only thing I would do.”
“Hustling, you mean,” Cross said.
Catherine folded her arms over her chest, and looked away. In nothing but black lace and olive-toned skin, she was quite a sight amongst her wealth and things. Yet, not one of those beautiful things compared to her.
“Yeah, hustling, but not for Andino.”
“Maybe in time, you’ll forg—”
“Nope.”
“Well, all right then,” Cross muttered, rolling to his back.
Catherine waved a hand at the items strewed across the bed and floor. “This isn’t even a quarter of it. That closest is still full. The spare bedroom down the hall? Full. I didn’t even start on dresses, hats, jackets … stuff, Cross. I spend my money as I make my money. I don’t plan on being buried in cash. I just …”
“What? Tell me.”
“I thought I needed to be something other than a hustler to prove my worth. You know? That I was worthy of these things, or my money.”
“But you did earn the money, Catherine. You get that, don’t you? People like to separate us from them—good money, and dirty money. There’s no such thing. It all spends the same. Everybody takes it just the same. Money is fucking money.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that now.”
“And there’s other options, babe. Especially for dealing, if that’s what you want to do.”
“You think?” Catherine smirked. “Not sure there is after what Andino said.”
“There could be. Your mother, for starters.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Hey,” Cross said, pushing up to rest on his knees, “you have time. None of this needs to be decided right now.”
Catherine smiled. “No?”
“No.”
She bent down and dug under the bed before pulling out a single shoebox. She flipped open the top and dumped a whole boxful of cash on to the bed.
“I’m down to one shoebox, though. I mean, I learned how to hide the money or make it … clean. So, that’s a good thing, right?”
Cross shook his head as he flicked a hand through the cash, and sent it flying over the bed and floor. “What would you do if this place got broken into?”
Catherine shrugged. “Start over?”
“Oh, my God.”
What else could he say?
“Well, I don’t know!”
Laughing, Cross snagged Catherine’s wrist in his hand and pulled her onto the bed with him so that they were both on their knees and facing one another. He held her face in his palms as she closed the distance between them. Her kiss quickly burned from sweet to hot in an instant. Her teeth nipped into his lower lip as her soft hands pushed beneath his boxer-briefs. Cross was more than happy to push the underwear down the rest of the way, and shuffle out of them, all the while Catherine kept jerking him off.
All it took was a few tight, firm strokes of her hands down his shaft, and his cock was hard. Still, she didn’t break their kiss. Every brush of their lips was familiar. Every touch. Every breath. Everything.
Somehow, though, it never felt old.
It didn’t get tiring.
Cross couldn’t possibly imagine a time when he would get sick of this woman, or of having her, teasing her, and feeling her. If he could spend the rest of his life holed up with nothing else but Catherine Marcello, he would be a happy man.
Catherine pulled Cross down into the messy bed with her. He heard her shit hit the floor and, felt the coldness of the cash sliding along his legs as he resituated himself between Catherine’s wide open thighs. He couldn’t get her panties down her legs fast enough. He didn’t even consider his pants on the floor—the condom in the back pocket. He just … didn’t.
His mind was elsewhere. Stuck firmly on the beautiful woman beneath him, and how her body molded into his. How her back curved into a perfect arch as he kissed a path from her neck, to her navel, and then back up again.
She let out a sharp breath when he bit her collarbones hard enough to leave teeth marks behind. Her fingernails dug into his backside when he tangled his fists into her hair, and pulled her in for another bruising kiss.
“Won’t you fuck me?”
Her words skipped over his skin like the sweetest whisper.
A cool breeze in a hot month.
Raindrops in the desert.
Love to his life.
Catherine’s hand tightened around the base of his cock as she fitted him to her sex. Already, he could feel how hot she was. Wetness met the head of his dick as she slid his dick up and down her slit, smearing her juices and watching him with wicked eyes.
All of her was that way, he thought.
Wicked.
Sinful.
Perfect.
From the shape of red lips that promised and begged, to the tips of pretty fingernails that scratched and stroked.
Her nails scored hot lines over his back when he thrust inside the first time. She added another row when he pulled out to the tip of his cock, and slammed right back in again.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Catherine breathed in his ear.
Cross pushed her thighs wider. He knew it had to burn. It had to ache.
Catherine only tipped her head back and asked for more.
“Please, please, please.”
Cross wanted to fuck. He liked taking Catherine hard because she enjoyed it, too. She could take it. She liked his hands on her throat, or pulling her hair. She liked it more when he taunted in her ear, or demanded more from her body.
He couldn’t do any of that right then. As much as he wanted to, he found himself doing something else.
Slow strokes, and deep kisses. Soft fingertips, and exploring hands. Bodies that moved perfectly in sync, yet never too fast or too hard.
Loving, he thought.
They were loving.
It was strange how that made him come harder than he ever had before.
Yet, he wasn’t surprised at all.
“Cross …”
He mumbled under his breath, and reached for Catherine to pull her close and quiet whatever she was saying.
“Cross, answer your phone.”
“Mmm. No.”
“Cross.”
His eyes popped open to darkness, and it took him another few seconds to register the annoying ring in the background.
“Someone’s called twice now,” Catherine mumbled into his chest.
Fuck.
He rolled over just enough to paw at the nightstand. Once he had his phone in his hand, he answered the call with a grunt. He couldn’t even manage more than that.
“Cross?”
Wolf’s tired, yet concerned, voice instantly had Cross wide awake.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Cal … again,” his old mentor murmured. “He’s in another spell. It’s bad this time.”
Cross was already up out of the bed before Wolf had even finished talking. He yanked on the jeans he had discarded earlier. “I’m in the city right now.”
“I’m here with them.”
“I’ll be there,” Cross said.
“All right.”
Wolf hung up the phone.
Cross shrugged on his shirt, and grabbed his holstered gun from the nightstand. Catherine moved off the bed, naked and concerned.
“Where are you going?”
Quickly, he dropped a kiss to her forehead. “I have to head out. Something came up.”
“Like what?”
He headed for the bedroom door. “Just … I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”
“Can I come with you?” she asked softly.
Cross hesitated.
He didn’t know if he should bring Catherine. For one, he didn’t know what kind of state Calisto might be in. For two, Calisto’s sickness had been kept tightly under wraps by those closest to him. And for three, the secret of his paternity was still unknown to Catherine, and basically everyone else around them.
“Cross, please let me come with you,” she said behind him. “You’re upset, and I don’t know why, but maybe I could help.”
“Can you get dressed fast?”
“Of course.”
“Okay.”
Emma’s wary gaze skipped over Catherine in the hallway. Just as fast, his mother looked to Cross. “We got him to sleep.”
“How long did that take?”
“A few hours or so.”
Cross could feel Catherine’s eyes on him, taking in the confusing scene, but he couldn’t fill her in on the details of their secrets just yet. He had other, more pressing, matters to deal with.
“A few hours, Ma?”
Emma shrugged. “That’s what I said. Why?”
“Why did I only get a call two hours ago, then? And from Wolf, not you. Him.”
“I thought I could handle it, or we could once Wolf came over.”
“But?”
“He got worse,” Emma admitted. “Wolf decided to call you.”
Cross wanted to be angry with his mother for trying to manage his father’s episodes without some kind of help. He suspected this was not the first time she had done just that. Truthfully, he figured he had brought that on himself, really. His mother probably thought he didn’t want to be there after everything.
“He’s sleeping, you said?”
His mother nodded.
“Why don’t you make a coffee with Catherine, or something? Relax a bit. Is there anything to clean?”
Emma flinched. “His office. The bedroom. The bathroom. He got really sick this time. Wolf just went home to clean up. He said he would be back in a little while.”
“I’ll get it, Ma.”
“Thank you.”
Cross turned to Catherine. “Will you be all right for a bit?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good.”
Cross left his mother and Catherine behind to go in search of his father. It didn’t take him long to find Calisto sleeping fitfully in bed inside the master bedroom. He did a quick check of the space, noting the overturned dresser and scattered items. The bathroom was a horror zone of vomit.
“Cross?”
From his position in the bathroom doorway, he turned at the voice calling his name. Calisto stared at him from the bed.
“Hey, Papa,” he murmured.
Confused. Exhausted. Sad.
All that stared back at him from Calisto.
Cross moved to the side of the bed where Calisto could see him better. “How are you feeling?”
“Strange.”
“Like cloudy in your head?”
Calisto had told him that a few times before. Sometimes, when he came out of his episodes, he felt like he was in the clouds. His head was not clear, and his thoughts were muddy.
“No,” Calisto said, “just strange, son.”
“Okay. Do you want to get up, or have a drink of water? Maybe—”
“I’m sorry, my boy,” Calisto whispered. “I’m sorry I’ve hurt you, Cross.”
Cross let out a shaky breath, and ignored the stinging behind his eyes. “Not tonight, okay? It doesn’t matter tonight.”
“Were you home?”
“No, I was … well, with Catherine.”
Calisto smiled a bit. “Oh?”
“She came over with me tonight, actually. She’s downstairs with Ma.”
“I bet Emma loves that.”
Cross laughed. “Probably.”
“I’m going …”
Calisto’s words trailed off, and then his eyes rolled back. His hands balled into tight fists as the shaking started. The trembling of the seizure was violent enough that it shook the fucking bed. Cross put his father to his side, and started counting.
At one minute, he called for his mother.
At two, they called for an ambulance.
“Hey, man.”
Cross didn’t look up from Catherine’s sleeping form. She had used his legs as a pillow on the hard hospital chairs. He’d tossed his leather jacket over her torso as a blanket. The place was cold as hell, for some reason.
“Hey, Zeke.”
His friend took a seat on the other side of him. “How’s your dad?”
“Better this morning. Awake. Lucid. Eating. All that good stuff. As long as his tests come back relatively good, he’ll be out before the day is over. Tomorrow, it’ll be like it didn’t even happen.”
Again.
Cross could no longer overlook his father’s health. He was selfish to do so.
“Dad said something about a seizure.”
“Four,” Cross said, “back to back.”
“Shit.”
Cross sighed. “He was lucid for a bit before it started.”
“Oh?”
“Apologized to me for lying about my paternity. I want to just … tell him it’s okay, that I get it, though I don’t agree with it. At the very least, I forgive him for lying to me all these years about Affonso being my father when it was really him.”
“So do that, Cross.”
“I don’t want to do it still feeling bitter, though. I know he wants to explain things that happened back then between him and Ma, but I’m not ready to hear that. You know?”
Zeke leaned back in the chair. “Yeah, I get that. Not everything is black and white.”
“I’ve always lived in shades of gray.”
“So this time was quite bad, then?”
Cross nodded, and let his fingers sift through Catherine’s hair. “His doctor said it’ll probably continue to get worse at this point. We’re really just playing with fire now. He needs surgery—the lesion and aneurism need corrected. He’s getting to a point where the damage might be irreversible.”
“I’m sorry, Cross.”
“Don’t be.” He let out a long, slow exhale. “I know what I need to do for him.”
“Even if you’re not ready to take that step?”
“Even then,” Cross echoed. “I just have to finish up business elsewhere. This gun run for Andino, and a trip to Chicago to let them know I’m done.”
“When’s the run for Andino?”
“Few days.”
“Do you have it all figured out?”
“Yeah, it’s going to be a couple weeks. There’s some drills happening down in the Gulf for the Mexican Navy. Just … usual nonsense to avoid. I’ll spend a bit of it in Cancun waiting before I can take the guns out to the drop on a yacht.”
“So, that’s it?”
“Hmm?”
“One last gun run,” Zeke clarified.
Cross smiled, but it faltered. “Yeah, one last gun run.”
“You want a coffee, or something?”
“Make it strong?”
“Sure, man.”
Zeke smacked him on the back before he left.
Staring out the window, Cross kept stroking Catherine’s hair as the late October sunlight filtered through the glass.
“Calisto is your real dad?”
The quiet question didn’t even surprise Cross. He didn’t even look down at Catherine when he said, “Apparently. The skeletons hide in everyone’s closets, I guess.”
“Huh.”
“I was the product of their affair,” he murmured.
“Or a product of their love,” she countered.
“That, too.”
“So … you’re going to Cancun, huh?”
Cross looked down at Catherine, and managed a smile. “On a pretty nice boat, too.”
She grinned. “Oh?”
“I’ll spend my twenty-seventh birthday on it, actually.”
“Alone?”
Cross shrugged. “Pretty much.”
Catherine rolled over to look up at him fully. “Could I go?”
“Well …”
“I know it’s … business, right?”
“A gun run, yeah.”
“But a lot of time won’t be. I heard what you said. Two weeks, most of it avoiding specific areas. Couldn’t I go, and stay out of sight when the business is happening?”
“Catty.”
“Don’t spend your birthday alone, Cross.”
“You’re making it very difficult to say no.”
“So don’t.”
“What will you tell your father, huh?”
Catherine scrunched up her nose. “Well, nothing.”
“Not nothing. You can’t tell him nothing.”
“Okay, so I’ll let him know I’m heading out of country for a bit with you.”
“Just like that—with me.”
Catherine nodded once. “Just like that, Cross.”
“I can’t really say no, can I?”
“Nope.”