Cross heard the penthouse door close, but he didn’t move from his position at the piano. He liked to sit there and play when his mind was too full with everything else. It helped to clear space, while he looked out the windows.
Catherine had messaged Cross to let him know that she was coming over. His response had only been that the door would be unlocked.
His back faced her as she closed the door. He listened for the sound of the latch when she locked it, too. She wasn’t quiet about her entrance, and her heels clicked along the hardwood floor until she was sitting on the bench with him. She dropped her bag and jacket alongside the leg of the piano.
Catherine’s pretty smile lit up her face. “Hey.”
“I’m surprised your father let you leave after today.”
“He didn’t have any reason to keep me, honestly.”
His dark gaze darted to hers, and he flashed a quick, sexy smile before going back to his music. “You sure about that? Because your father always seems to have a reason to keep you from me, Catty.”
“Was that really his fault, or mine?”
Cross swallowed thickly. “I love even your faults, babe. I always have.”
“I know.”
“Here you are, though.”
Catherine’s teeth nipped into her bottom lip. “Here I am.”
“How did you manage that?”
“I told the truth for once.”
“For once, huh?”
“About everything,” she added.
Cross lifted a brow. “That’s a lot of stuff to tell.”
“We all needed to hear it. Me included. Probably more me than them, really.”
“And so here you are,” he repeated.
Catherine laughed lightly. “Yeah, here I am. With you.”
“Where you belong.”
She didn’t deny it.
“You know, you’ve never played for me before,” Catherine mused.
When they lived together before, he hadn’t even had the piano in the penthouse.
Cross’s fingers slowed on the keys momentarily. “No, I guess I haven’t.”
“Shame. You’re very good.”
“Thank my mother for that.”
“Piano is a little odd for someone like you, isn’t it?”
“My father plays, too. My mother always said that sitting me down at the piano was the only thing that would make me stay still for longer than five minutes. She used that to her advantage.”
“Do you remember learning how to play?”
Cross shook his head. “No, but I do remember when I first started learning guitar with an instructor—I was six. I had already been having piano lessons for quite a while before that. I was starting to read music by then, and not just copy what my mother was doing, or play a bit by ear.”
“So … you’ve basically been playing piano for longer than you can remember?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Do you play often?” Catherine asked.
Cross lifted a single shoulder. “For the last year, sure. Especially since Calisto dragged me to an antique shop after he found this piano, and then forced me to buy it.”
“You really look like someone who can be forced to do something, Cross.”
His smirk deepened. “That’s my story.”
“I wish you would have played for me years ago.”
“I didn’t play at all for a period of time. More so when I was a teenager. I had better things to do, you know?”
“I think you told me once that I was the better things you were doing.”
He laughed huskily.
She grinned.
Cross thought he might like to get that pretty mouth of hers doing something else. “You were definitely one of the better things I was doing, Catherine.”
Catherine reached up to brush the few strands of hair that had fallen into Cross’s eyes out of the way. He watched her all the while; his hands never once stopped moving along the keys. The melody he created relaxed him almost as much as her touch did.
“What is it you’re playing, exactly?”
“It’s a piece from the sixth volume of Songs Without Words,” he said.
“The sixth volume?”
“There’s eight altogether.”
“Huh,” she whispered. “Well, this is very unfair, Cross.”
His hands stilled, and the last notes he played echoed through the penthouse before silence took its place.
“What’s unfair?” he asked.
“You.”
“Me?”
“You,” Catherine repeated with a nod.
“Explain, Catty.”
Catherine started ticking things off with her fingers. “Guitar. Piano. Guns. Style. Cooking. Driving, and cars. Money. Looks. Oh, let’s not forget sex, too.”
“Yes, let’s not,” Cross agreed. “That’s an important skill to have, babe. I think you would agree.”
“I do; that’s why I put it in the list. These are just a few things you’re good at, excel in, or have, Cross. A few. I could keep going. It’s a little unfair, that’s all.”
“How so?”
“I don’t think my list would match up, to be honest. Also, no one stands a chance against you. No one has ever even come close to me compared to you. I was unprepared for that—for you. You need to come with a warning, Cross.”
“Catherine, come on.”
She ticked off things about herself, too. “I’m rich, pretty, and I can hustle like nobody’s business. That’s about it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said.
“No. That’s the truth.”
Didn’t she know how amazing she was?
Cross had news for her.
“Catherine, you’re also smart, strong, you love, you’ve survived, and I can keep going. You’ve done those things, or been those things, on your own. You did miss something on your list, though.”
“What?” she asked.
“You’re mine, my girl.”
Catherine blinked.
Cross smiled.
Then, he leaned over and kissed her hard enough to make his heart race. His tongue dived between her parted lips, and he got a taste of her heat clashing against his. He loved how she kissed him back, and never shied away; how she let him own her with it. His hand cupped her throat while his arm snaked around her waist. He wanted her closer, so he pulled her across the bench until she was straddling his lap.
“You’re mine,” Cross said again. His thumb stroked the column of her throat, and his lips brushed against hers. “That means everything that I am is already yours, Catherine. It’s always been yours.”
“I came home,” she whispered.
He kissed her again, until his lungs burned with the need for air. His hands skimmed over her shoulders because he wanted to feel her in his palms. “You did. That’s scary for you, isn’t it? The thought that I might break your heart again.”
“A bit.”
“A bit?”
“A lot,” she admitted.
“I won’t, though,” he promised.
“I’ll hold you to it.”
“You better.”
She tipped her head back, and her waves of hair tumbled over her shoulders. He enjoyed the sight of his hand slipping lower on her throat, and the feel of his fingertips overtop her pulse point. His thumb fit perfectly into the little hollow of her throat. When she hummed, it vibrated against the digit like a musical note would from the keys of his piano.
Catherine undid the last three buttons on Cross’s dress shirt. He’d already unbuttoned the top three, and rolled up his sleeves earlier when he sat down at the piano. Her warm hands stroked down his chest. She used the very tip of her finger to trace the script-style lettering of his tattoo on his ribcage.
“It’s like love was your religion.”
“No.”
Catherine’s gaze jumped up to his. “No?”
“Not any love. Not love for love. You, Catherine. You were the only thing in life I have ever believed in, waited for, cared about, and revered like my own personal God that would grant me salvation. It has always been only you.”
He would get on his knees for this woman.
He had every bit of his faith in her.
He would pray to this woman.
He would forever love this woman.
Only ever her.
He adored her—everything about her. Her mistakes, her faults, and her imperfections had simply been things that shaped her.
Catherine would not be his Catherine without every single piece that made up who she was. Cross found that he was proud, and so happy, that she finally realized it, too.
She shoved his dress shirt down his shoulders until he tugged the article off. Her soft lips kissed a hot path over his jaw, down the column of his throat, and she just kept going lower. It was only when her knees pressed to the floor, and she was freeing his hard length from the confines of his pants that she finally spoke again.
“I was thinking I would stay the night,” she said quietly, staring up at him.
Cross stood just long enough to let her pull his pants and boxer-briefs down the rest of the way, before she shoved them aside. “I should say so. You can’t possibly think I’ll let you suck my dick and then watch you leave, Catty.”
“Well … no.”
“Goddamn right.”
“I was thinking I might stay for good, too.”
Cross wet his lips. “I like the sound of that, too. Now get my cock in your mouth before you fucking kill me.”
Catherine winked; her lips curved wickedly.
A promise, he thought.
She could promise sin without even saying a word.
Cross took a breath, then two, and suddenly he couldn’t fucking breathe at all. Not when Catherine took his cock into her mouth from the tip to the base without damn near any hesitation. She held him there, too, as her lips tightened to the base and her tongue flicked against the underside of his cock. He felt her throat constrict with every swallow, and her eyes watered as she looked up at him.
“Fucking beautiful, babe. God, you’re so beautiful.”
Her teeth teased his shaft as she started bobbing slowly on his cock. Just enough of her teeth to drag and make him feel it—a tease. His fingers tangled into her hair, and a groan of approval fought its way out of his chest as she stilled in place.
“You always know what I want, huh?” he asked.
Catherine didn’t move an inch, but stayed staring at him, and waiting. He stood from the bench again, and she moved with him. She put her hands on the bench to steady herself as he started fucking her mouth in earnest.
“There we are,” Cross murmured, his throat thick with satisfaction, “take my fucking cock, Catherine. Jesus, I love your mouth.”
He saw the way her hands dashed under the skirt of her dress after she let go of the bench. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but he could fucking hear it. That was more than enough. She must have been sinking her fingers into her pussy because that familiar wet sound filled the air. It mixed in with the way his cock disappeared between her sweet lips over and over. The muscles of her throat jumped as a muffled moan vibrated around his dick.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Why are you teasing me even when you’re on your knees, huh? Don’t you know that only means I’ll fuck you harder, Catherine, when I finally get it?”
She just winked at him.
Winked.
Cross’s restrained snapped. As much as he loved fucking her mouth, he was really going to enjoy fucking her silly while he made handprints on her ass.
Oh, yes.
He pulled free from her sinful mouth, and yanked her up from the floor. Catherine’s teeth sunk into her bottom lip as her eyes widened. Her hands still hadn’t come out from beneath her dress.
Cross pushed her into the piano until their bodies were pressed together. He could feel her hands moving under her dress, fast and rhythmic. Her breaths picked up speed, and her pupils enlarged as she started trembling.
“You gonna come?” he asked.
Catherine nodded. “Yeah.”
He had a good mind to pull her hands out from between her thighs, but he decided against it. If only because he wanted her wet and tight as hell when he finally sunk his cock into her cunt. She was always soaked and snug after she came.
Cross was on his knees in a blink, and pushing the skirt of Catherine’s dress up around her waist. He was caught like a deer in the headlights by the sight of her hands under her lace panties. One rubbing at her clit, the other stuffing her cunt full of two fingers and making a damp spot on her panties.
He could smell her, too.
All tart and hot.
Cross groaned. “Christ, come on. I want a taste, Catherine. Come, so I can clean off those fingers of yours.”
“Oh, my God,” she breathed.
Her orgasm came on faster than he expected, but it was still a beautiful sight to watch it race over her skin. She pulled shaking hands from her panties, and offered them to him like a gift. He sucked and licked her fingers clean just like he said he would, and took his sweet time to make sure every bit of her cum was gone from her skin before he stood up once more.
“You better fuck me so good after that, Cross,” Catherine said.
“You know it. Strip.” He kicked that damn bench so it was out of way of the piano, and he had room to move. “Then I want you bent over that bench, Catty, and showing me what’s always been mine. Now.”
Catherine didn’t hesitate. Her dress hit the floor soundlessly, and then her bralette and panties followed. She left her black pumps on, though. He loved fucking her in heels, and she knew it. He palmed her ass when she moved past him to go to the bench, and sighed a happy sound when his hand snapped against the same spot with a slap.
“Keep it up,” she whispered.
So high.
So airless.
He loved that, too.
“Show me what’s mine,” he countered.
Catherine bent over the bench with a soft laugh. She spread her legs when he came up behind her, and tapped his hands to the insides of her thighs with a barked, wider, babe.
Her ass was high, pinked by his hand, and a peek of her wet cunt stared back at him. Fucking hell, it was a beautiful sight. He couldn’t help but stroke his cock while he looked her over, made her wait, and slipped his fingers into her tight slit.
Wet.
Hot.
Perfect.
His fingers curled against her G-spot, and she moaned a broken plea.
“Cross, please …”
“Keep saying that,” he demanded.
“Start fucking me, then.”
Whatever she wanted.
His fingers were quickly replaced by his cock. He didn’t even give Catherine a chance to realize what was happening before he yanked her back onto his dick. All nine inches of him sunk into her pussy, and then he was pulling right back out again. He slammed back in without a pause, and with enough force to make Catherine’s fingers dig into the leather of the bench to keep her steady.
“Shit,” Catherine stuttered out.
“Fucking take it, babe. It’s what you wanted.”
“Cross.”
There it was; her sweet, high cries that he loved the very most.
His pace was brutal—no holds barred.
Catherine only begged for more.
He found heaven and home when he was balls deep in Catherine. He found the best music came spilling from her lips when she cried his name and panted her way through another orgasm. He found the prettiest art was made by his handprints on her ass and his fingerprints on her hips when he yanked her into every thrust.
She was life to him.
She was his life.
“I’m surprised you came over this morning,” Calisto said.
Cross looked up from the Guns and Ammo magazine in his hands. “Why?”
“Because I’ve called you three times this week—and last night—but you ignore my calls.”
“If you needed something, you would get Wolf to call me. That’s what you do.”
“I don’t seem to have any other choice where you’re concerned at the moment, son.”
Cross shrugged. “I didn’t have anything to say, so I didn’t pick up the phone.”
“Yet here you sit.”
“Thank Catherine.”
Calisto raised a brow high. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’m here because of Catherine.”
“Again—”
“I was in bed with her when you called last night. She told me to stop ignoring you; you’re my father, she said, and I was acting like a child.”
Calisto cleared his throat. “Well, then.”
“Sometimes she gets shit right,” Cross muttered, “even when I don’t like it.”
“Women do tend to have that advantage over us.”
“So it seems. And here I am.”
“She’s been at your place for how long, now?”
“A week,” Cross answered. “Before you ask, yes, Dante knows. No, I haven’t seen him. I don’t care if I ever do at the moment, but I am sure it is coming.”
“I wasn’t going to ask, but thanks for letting me know. You told her, then?”
Cross flipped a page, and admired the rose-gold tinted sniper rifle on the page. A custom gun, it seemed, and he wondered the price tag to have it made. “Told her what?”
“About us. Our … well, shit, saying it’s a secret seems juvenile, doesn’t it?”
“That’s what it is. A secret you kept from me for my entire fucking life. Call it what it is.” Cross didn’t bother looking up from the magazine as he spoke. “Yes, I told her. I am not the one in this family that lies, Papa.”
“I don’t lie, Cross.”
“You did. For years.”
“Because I had no other choice.”
“Mmm.”
“Cross, give me the decency of your attention when we speak. Not even as a boss and his man, but as a father and his son. Look at me.”
He did.
Cross didn’t like what stared back at him.
Pain.
Calisto was in pain, and that hurt Cross, too.
It was easier for him to stay mad and bitter when he didn’t have to face the reality that these years of secrets and lies had been just as hard on his father.
Not his cousin.
Not his uncle.
Not his step-dad.
No, his father.
Made from his blood, from his heart and soul. Him and Calisto, they were the same. Cross just wished he had already known that detail.
“I had no other choice,” Calisto repeated, “because I wanted to protect Emma first. We were such a fucking mess back then—her and I made a lot of mistakes, and we played a very dangerous game for years. I thought it wouldn’t matter, really.”
“It wouldn’t matter if you didn’t tell me that you were my real father—that I was a product of your affair?”
“No, I didn’t. I loved you anyway; I was going to love you regardless, and I did. All your life, Cross, you’ve always been treated as though you were a child born from my blood because you were. The rest was details. I thought if I loved you enough, if you already felt like you were actually mine, then the truth wasn’t going to make that much of an impact.”
“It did, though.” Cross sighed, and tossed the magazine aside. “So lie to everyone else, but not me. Why me, too?”
“When was I supposed to tell you, Cross?” Calisto asked, holding his hands wide. “When you were just a child, and wouldn’t understand? Or why not when you were a teenager, and couldn’t listen long enough to hear what was actually being said? Should I have told you in your more difficult years, so that I could put a strain between you and me? When all I had to keep control of you was the trust you had in me? When should I have told you?”
Cross stayed quiet.
“Tell me,” his father demanded.
“I hated a man I didn’t even know for years simply because I thought he left me and my mother,” Cross said. “I hated Affonso because you told me to.”
“You should hate that man. He was a goddamn monster.”
“Should I?”
“I did,” Calisto murmured. “I still do.”
“Why?”
“Because he made me.”
Cross stilled on the couch. “What?”
“He made me. He’s my father. My mother’s rapist; he made me violently. See, I grew up like you, thinking one man—although a dead one—was my father, until I learned the truth. I blamed my mother without knowing the whole truth, for lying to me. The thing was, Affonso wanted something, and so he took it from her; when she birthed the product of what he had done to her, he then took me from her, too. It took me years to figure it out, and it was already too late to apologize to my mother for what I had done. So yes, I hated him because he made me.”
“I …”
“But you should not hate him for that reason,” Calisto said when Cross couldn’t form words. “You should hate him because he took your mother, and made her a very young wife when she wanted anything else but to marry him. You should hate him because he hurt her, and he used her. He wanted one thing from her. When she could not give him what he wanted, he tossed her away like garbage.”
Cross glanced away, taking in those words.
“I am sorry that you’re hurting because of my choices, but I am not sorry that I love Emma,” Calisto said quietly.
“I know you love Ma.”
He had always known that.
He never questioned it once.
Calisto—first and foremost—had always given Emma everything that he had to give that was good, wonderful, and honest. Cross only knew what a healthy, real love looked like because of his mother and father. No one else around him growing up had showcased that kind of love and respect for their spouse.
He simply thought it was something his parents learned over time. He assumed because of things he was told that their marriage had been for convenience because Emma had been left to fend for herself and Cross after Affonso left.
“I am not sorry that I loved her when I was not allowed to, Cross,” Calisto added after a moment, “because had I not loved her then, you would not be here. You and your sister are everything that I am most proud of in my life. I chose to protect your mother’s image and reputation, and our family’s respect for all these years, so that we could sit here and have this fucking conversation. Had I done it differently, you would be talking to a gravestone where your mother and I were concerned, and we would not be answering back.”
“I get that,” Cross said.
“Good. I need that to be clear between us.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Affonso didn’t run off, Cross,” Calisto said gruffly, “and he didn’t leave you and Emma. He took you from her after he beat her one night, and I killed him. I would do that again, and lie to you again, as long as in thirty more years, you are still sitting across from me, and I am able to look at you.”
“Would you have ever told me the truth?”
“Someday.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, Cross. This was my greatest fear—that someday you would see me the way I saw him. A monster that made me, and took from me. I hated him because he made me love him with a lie. I hated him so much, and I never wanted you to hate me, too. Not like that.”
“I can’t hate you,” Cross admitted.
Calisto stared him down. “No?”
“How can I hate you when I have always loved you?” Cross smiled faintly. “And you’re not my monster. I’ve never had those. You were the man who chased them away when I was little, remember?”
“I do.”
Cross scratched at the underside of his jaw, and muttered, “I’m sorry I’m such a shit.”
“Yeah, but I’m not really sorry I made you this way, son.”
Later, Cross found Catherine kneading bread dough next to his mother in the kitchen. He leaned against the counter and watched the two work. They laughed at a joke he hadn’t been privy to, but he didn’t mind.
His mother looked over her shoulder at him. “You better stop standing there like you’re being paid to do nothing but look cute, Cross. You don’t stand still in my kitchen; clean or cook, pick one.”
Catherine snickered, but kept her gaze on the dough.
Smartass.
“Cross, I said pick one,” his mother warned.
He decided to move his ass.
His girl kept laughing, though.
“Yeah, yeah. Keep laughing,” he said.
Catherine made a whip sound under her breath.
Cross tickled her side as he passed.
Emma rolled her eyes, but smiled when he came to stop beside her. He loved his mother simply because she had always loved him. He kissed the top of his mother’s head, and hugged her tight with one arm.
She stilled against him. “What was that for?”
“Nothing.”
Catherine looked over at Cross with a soft smile, but she stayed silent.
“Nothing?” Emma pressed.
“I just love you, Ma. You know that, right?”
“Of course, I do. Now clean or cook. Pick one.”
“Seems we have a guest.”
Cross lifted his gaze from the menu at his father’s words only to see Dante Marcello walking through the front door of the restaurant. Calisto didn’t actually seem all too surprised about Dante’s arrival, despite his words.
“Seems so,” Cross said, going back to the menu.
“Calisto,” Dante greeted when he came up to the table. “May I sit?”
Calisto waved a hand at the table. “Right on time, Dante.”
“I see why you wanted three chairs at the table,” Cross muttered low. “Thank you for asking me to breakfast, only to do this, Cal. Really.”
Dante chuckled as he sat down. “You won’t even pretend to play nice with me, Cross?”
“Not in my family’s territory, in my boss’s restaurant, Dante. I don’t need to. We don’t like each other.”
“You never did like me or play nice.”
“You never pretended to like me, either,” Cross replied with a smirk.
Dante nodded. “That’s true. That was also my mistake.”
Calisto cleared his throat, and stood from the table. “I’m going to ask the cook to lay off the pepper this time around.”
“Tell the waitress to let him know,” Cross said.
“I’d rather do it face to face.”
Cross shook his head as his father headed for the kitchen. “Catherine is heading to your place today, isn’t she, Dante?”
“For lunch with her mother, brother, and his wife, yes.”
“Not you?”
Dante waved a hand. “We’ll see how this goes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, my wife would like for you to join Catherine, and so would I. On the other hand, I won’t intrude if you would rather I not be there given … we’re not friendly. Or, we haven’t been, I suppose.”
“It’s your house,” Cross pointed out. “I’m not inserting myself into that just to make some kind of a fight, Dante. I am an arrogant man, but not a stupid one.”
“Can we start over?”
Cross stilled in place. “I beg your pardon?”
“You and I, Cross. Could we start this over?”
“Depends on whether you mean this meeting, or—”
“I mean everything,” Dante interjected. “I think I owe you an apology, young man.”
“You think?”
“I do owe you an apology, at the very least.”
“Could we pretend like you did but actually not?” Cross asked.
“Would that make it easier?”
“To do what?”
“Keep hating me from a distance,” Dante murmured. “To be fair, I understand entirely why you hate me. I earned it after the things I did.”
“To be fair,” Cross threw back, “had it been my daughter, I may have done the same kinds of things.”
Dante smiled faintly. “Oh?”
“Likely. Although unlike you, I would have followed through and ended it.”
“Isn’t it a good thing that I didn’t end it?”
“I don’t know, Dante, you tell me.”
“For Catherine, it is. You are … everything that is good to and for her, she says. I did not listen when she told me things like that years ago. Perhaps I should have. My hubris. My mistakes. Like I said, I do understand why you hate me, and why you wouldn’t even want to sit down and share a meal. Considering.”
Cross eyed the man. “You gave me Catherine, in a way. I don’t hate you. I certainly don’t like you a whole lot, but to be honest, you haven’t given me very many reasons to, Dante.”
“That’s true. You do hold grudges like a motherfucker, though.”
“That I do, yeah.”
“I’m sorry, Cross, for all these years. For that night in your penthouse. I was so beyond the line in doing that. As a made man, and as a human. My brother, Lucian, he doesn’t let me forget that I crossed a line that night, as he shouldn’t. So yes, I’m sorry for the things I did know, and the things I didn’t know.”
“I said let’s not do the apology thing at all and pretend like you did instead.”
“And for the things I overlooked,” Dante continued, not missing a beat.
“So you’re doing that then, huh?”
“I didn’t realize how often you protected my daughter, and looked after her, but especially when I was not able to. I thought your reasons for chasing Catherine were wrapped up in … other things. Apparently, you are not the man I assumed you were, in quite a few ways.”
“Apparently,” Cross replied dryly.
“I am sorry.”
Cross straightened a bit in his chair, and glanced out the windows of the Brooklyn restaurant. Light tufts of snow fell, making a nice sight on the city street. “I appreciate the apology, Dante.”
“Would you look at me when you say it?”
“Do I need to?” Cross asked back. “I would think I have stared into your face when you were steps away from killing me. I do not need to look at you now to know you feel the things you’re saying.”
“True.” Dante chuckled. “I always thought you were such an arrogant prick as a kid. I was convinced from day one it was going to be me putting you in a grave, or you killing me.”
Cross grinned a little. “You should know I am still every bit the arrogant prick you always thought I was. The only difference now is that I’m older, and have an even shorter fuse when it comes to bullshit. Although, I do handle it differently. I’m not as prone to exploding and reacting. I’m something else entirely.”
“Violent peace. A dichotomy. The calm inside the storm.”
“Like the eye inside a hurricane. Everyone sees things calming down, and they think they’re safe to venture out again.”
“They’re far from being safe.”
“Exactly.”
“We all were that difficult, arrogant way as principes. Even your father … and even me. Eventually, that arrogance and nature becomes something else, something more authoritative. You probably didn’t even realize it, Cross, but it changes to make you into the man who will sit in the highest seat. You’ll no longer be just a prince in waiting, but a king who has already arrived. That change will come before you know it’s happened. I guarantee it.”
“I saw it coming, actually,” Cross admitted, “and I’m still not sure how I feel about it sometimes.”
“They say bosses are born in our world, Cross, as though we only sit where we do because it was given to us like a birthright. That is their mistake. Far too many forget that all of us are still made.”
Cross let out a breath. “Interesting way to see it.”
“I’ve had decades in my seat; you’re only just coming to yours. Calisto must be quite proud of you now, after everything.”
“You would have to ask him.”
“I don’t think I need to, really.” Dante shrugged his suit jacket off which let Cross know the man was staying for breakfast. “You know, for a long time, I thought you couldn’t possibly love my daughter in the right ways. Not in a way she deserved to be loved by someone.”
Cross’s gaze met Dante’s, and he held it strong. “You are wrong.”
“I know that now.”
“Out of everything you may have ever assumed about me, you are most wrong about that one. She is, and will always be, my life.”
Dante’s mouth quirked into a bitter smile. “I used to call her that when she was little. Vita mia. My life—precious life. I was never supposed to be able to have children, and I adopted my wife’s son after we married, you see. So when Catherine made her way into the world, my entire life was shook. Everything I was told couldn’t be, suddenly was.”
“I do know you love her,” Cross said.
“And so do you,” Dante replied, “differently than the way I love her, of course, but you do.”
“So maybe just let me do that, then?”
Dante nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I’m going to do from now on, Cross.”
“All right.” Cross noted his father heading back in their direction. “I suppose we can start over, Dante.”
“Could we?”
“For her, sure.”
“For her,” Dante echoed.
Calisto reclaimed his seat, and said, “I hope everything is settled.”
Dante leaned forward to place his clasped hands on the table. “Almost.”
“What’s left?” Cross wondered.
“The guns you were running for my family, and the fact we still haven’t sat down and had a proper discussion on it all.”
“Why don’t you talk to Andino?”
“I plan to, but with you there, too. The point is,” Dante continued, “you cost us a lot of money by dumping those guns. At the very least, it deserves a conversation.”
“Sure,” Cross agreed, “but I’m bringing Catherine along.”
“Why?”
“Because I want a few things clear where Catherine and Andino are concerned, especially after everything that’s happened.”
Dante’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m not sure what exactly has happened between the two, as you say, but all right. I’m … trusting your judgement.”
That was that.