“Look at this,” Catherine said in a hiss, pushing the tablet over to Cross. Sitting side by side at the restaurant table, the two scrolled down a list of names. Many, Cross recognized as either celebrities, or sports stars. A few, he didn’t. It was likely they were simply some rich fuck somewhere, or a politician he didn’t care to know. “Twelve, Cross. Twelve.”
“Clients?”
“Yes!”
“You mean—”
“Someone has stolen twelve clients from our books,” Catherine interjected with a nod, her finger tapping down the names. With each tap, her finger hit down progressively harder. “Twelve, Cross. And you know what’s worse?”
No, but he bet she was going to tell him.
“She didn’t even tell me. Ma didn’t tell me a damn thing about this.”
Cross leaned back in the restaurant chair, and scrubbed a hand down his jaw. “Well, shit.”
“Right? Fuck.”
“This is what took so long? This is why you were in L.A. for another week?”
Yesterday had been the first time he laid eyes on his wife and daughter in two damn weeks. FaceTime was not the same thing.
Catherine shrugged. “I would have been home last week, but once I got wind of this, I had to go back through the girls. I needed to start tracking which ones lost clients, when, and if Ma had been doing anything about it.”
“Or you could have asked your mother.”
“Because no, Cross, I totally didn’t think or try that at all.”
Her sarcasm burned.
Cross figured he deserved it.
“No response?” he asked, assuming.
Catherine snatched the tablet away, and powered it down. “Nothing. Radio silence. I called my dad thinking he could tell me something.”
“Did he?”
“Nope. He made it clear he was willing to chat about anything but Ma and business. Come over, he told me, but no Catrina and no business.”
“Well, shit,” Cross repeated.
What else could he say at this point?
“Miguel told me to swallow my pride, go to Ma, and apologize. He figured that’s all Ma wants me to do, anyway.”
Cross passed his wife a look. “Did you actually consider it?”
“Yes.”
That surprised him.
He loved his wife.
Adored her.
Catherine still was who she was at the end of the day. A stubborn, difficult, grudge-holding woman. A lot like her mother, actually.
Like twins.
“I take it that’s an option you can’t follow through with, for some reason.”
“I can’t follow through on something that my mother won’t allow, Cross.”
“Right. Refusing to see you, or take calls. Yeah.”
Catherine sighed, and tucked the tablet into the purse hanging off the chair. “What lesson is this going to teach me, huh? What is she trying to achieve by blocking me out?”
Cross answered before he could think better of it, saying, “She’s trying to make you respect the work she does, and the position she has. She doesn’t think you understand where she comes from, or the effort she’s put into this, Catherine. She thinks you behave as though you’re entitled to question her because of who you are. I’m not very sorry to say this, but you’re not. That’s all.”
His wife stared at him for a long while. Neither of them spoke. He didn’t need her to speak to know she was probably pissed that he called her out on things she wasn’t ready to face.
Cross had learned over the years to curb his blunt honesty when the time called for it. Sometimes, things needed a careful approach.
Not his wife, though.
For her, Cross didn’t sugarcoat shit.
Catherine let out a slow breath, still watching him in that way of hers. “I crossed a line with my mother, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, you did, Catty. I’m not sure if you crossed it as much as jumped over it, really.”
“And now she’s …”
“Teaching you a lesson you probably need to learn.”
In a shitty way, sure, but Catherine would likely come out better for it.
Catherine’s shoulders slumped a bit. Cross couldn’t have that tonight. He didn’t want her feeling down, not after being gone for two weeks. He had a feeling he was only going to get a few days with her before work consumed her again, anyway.
Leaning close enough to kiss his wife’s bare shoulder, Cross did just that. Then, he sunk his teeth playfully into the same spot. Catherine shot him a curious look, but he only kissed her skin again.
“No more of that,” he told her. “No frowning or sulking. Not tonight.”
“Cross—”
“You heard me, Catty.”
“You are impossible.”
“Smile, babe.”
She did, but he wanted more.
He always wanted more.
“Not good enough,” Cross murmured, tipping his head up to catch his wife’s lips in a kiss. Slow, and lingering. A familiar war that had his cock hardening beneath his dress pants. Under the table, his hand snaked higher on Catherine’s thigh. Between her legs, below the skirt of her dress, until damp lace met his fingers. “How are you wet already?”
“Because I have no self-control.”
“Clearly.”
Cross kissed Catherine’s mouth again as his fingers skimmed under her panties, and two sunk into her sex. Despite her gaze that darted to the side, likely checking to see if someone was watching or coming to interrupt them, he felt her legs widen under the table. The tablecloth was long enough to skirt the floor.
No one was coming to bother them.
He made that clear to the waiter when they sat down. Their glasses were filled, menus given, and they were not to be interrupted until the table was filled with the rest of their guests. He owned the place, so the employees tended to listen to his directions.
“We are in a restaurant,” Catherine said softly.
Airless, really.
Hot.
Damn sexy.
“Keep acting like that bothers you for the sake of your pride,” he said with a grin. “And I’ll pretend like you didn’t spread your legs to get my fingers fucking you a little deeper, babe.”
“You are awful.”
“Aren’t I, though?”
Cross kept pumping his fingers into her cunt. On each push, he curled his fingers so the tips dragged along her G-spot on the withdrawal. He knew exactly what his wife loved, and what would get her coming the fastest.
Leaning in, he kissed her quivering chin, then her delicate jawline, and up to the apple of her cheek. With his face covering hers from the view of the other patrons behind them, Catherine seemed fine with letting her eyes flutter close as her pussy started squeezing hard around his fingers.
“Quiet,” he warned, “and eyes on me, babe.”
Her eyes flew wide. Pretty green, and dancing with lust. Her pupils dilated wide as he felt the telltale shake in her thighs.
“Do you know how hot that gets me, Catty?”
“W-what?”
“That you’re just a bit of an exhibitionist. It gets you off like this. What is it that does it for you, huh? The thrill of getting caught, or—”
“You,” she whispered. “It’s you.”
“Is that what it is?”
“And I think you meant we’re deviants.”
“That, too.”
Catherine’s control finally snapped with a quiet gasp, and a soft, “Oh.”
He kissed her lips as she somehow managed to hold herself still through the orgasm. He didn’t miss her teeth sinking into her bottom lip, though, or the way her fingers curled firmly around the edge of the table.
“We are going straight to hell,” she told him.
Cross laughed as he withdrew his hand from between her legs. “You think?”
“Definitely.”
He looked down at his watch, and considered the time.
“Well, we’ve got another fifteen minutes before the rest of our guests get here. Care to let me finish before they do?”
Catherine’s hooded gaze met his. “Finish where?”
“Back office.”
“This place has a manager.”
Cross nodded. “And I sign his paychecks. Come on, Catty. I’ll let you suck my fingers clean when we get back there. I know how much you like that.”
She was up from her seat before he even finished.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Catherine breathed.
God, he loved her noises.
Especially when he was fucking her.
Cross had her lifted against the office wall, her dress shoved up around her hips, and her panties shoved in his back pocket. He swore it felt like the very flex of his hips took him deeper into her pussy.
Her cunt was squeezing his dick so tight. He could barely catch his breath.
Fucking perfect.
Tangling his fist into Catherine’s hair, Cross forced her head to the side to give him access to her neck. Her delicate collarbones and straining tendons called out to him. He tasted her skin under his tongue, and bit her when she asked for more.
“Come,” he told her, his next thrust taking her harder. “Come on my dick, Catty. Get me wet with that honey, babe.”
His next thrust knocked a certificate off the wall.
He wished he cared.
Right now, he wanted two things.
Catherine’s cum on his dick.
And to empty his balls.
That was it.
He wasn’t asking for much.
“Holy shit,” Catherine mumbled.
Her fingernails dug into his shoulders through his suit jacket. Her body stiffened as her inner muscles clamped down around him, and she finally let go.
She clenched her teeth and whined her way through the orgasm while he fucked his way to his own bliss. He only slowed when the tension released from his spine, and held her tight to his cock against the wall until he had fully emptied into her pussy.
He barely took a breath before a knock echoed from outside the office door.
“Fuck,” Cross grunted, and then over his shoulder, “in a damn second.”
“Boss, I need to talk to you.”
Zeke?
Cross had assumed it was the manager he kicked out earlier, but apparently not.
How long had they been back here?
Catherine blinked at him through lazy lashes, looking happily fucked and fine right where she was. “That was … I needed that.”
“Figured.”
Stepping back, he let her drop to the floor. Cross pulled her panties out of his pocket, and handed them over.
“I’m going to be dripping with you for the rest of the night.”
He considered that for a moment.
“I like that just fine, Catty.”
“Of course you do.”
Reaching over, Cross wiped away the smear of her lipstick with the pad of his thumb. With a sexy little grin, Catherine sucked the tip of his thumb in between her lips, and winked at him.
Another knock echoed.
“Cross, seriously, man!”
“Fuck off,” he hurled over his shoulder. “Knock one more time, Zeke. I dare you.”
Catherine frowned. “Zeke is your friend. Be nice. You’re just like Cece—I always have to tell you two to be nice to people.”
“People shouldn’t interrupt.”
She rolled her eyes, saying, “Mmhmm. I’m going to wash up, and I will meet you at the table again.”
Cross tucked his cock into his pants, and zipped up. Catherine made quick work of sliding her panties up her legs, and fixing her dress.
One quick kiss later, and Catherine unlocked the office door before disappearing out into the hallway. The door didn’t even close completely before Zeke stepped inside.
Cross scowled at his friend. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Zeke eyed the shattered frame that held the certificate on the floor. “Do you regularly fuck your wife wherever you please?”
“If I can.”
“Huh.”
“And mind your damn business,” Cross warned.
“This office smells like sex.”
“Good.”
Zeke sighed, and glanced over his shoulder. “You got a minute?”
“Apparently,” he said, buttoning up his suit jacket. “Here we are.”
“Come on, Cross. This is serious.”
His fingers froze on the last button.
“What’s wrong?”
Zeke wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I just …”
“What?”
“I fucked up.”
All the adrenaline from fucking his wife was gone in an instant.
Cross turned to face his friend and consigliere entirely. Zeke finally looked him in the eye, too, but just as fast, he looked away. “How?”
“I just didn’t really think something through because I wanted to fix it. I guess yeah, I fucked up, but I love her, so did I really fuck up, though?”
“Her. You love her. Zeke, look at me.”
Zeke did. “Her name is Katya.”
A Russian name.
Cross figured that was a small detail that probably wasn’t very important. Zeke was a couple of years older than him, and still unmarried. No kids. Any relationship he had was over as fast as it started. He didn’t do serious with anybody. Sure, Cross could have forced his friend to settle down, given his position in their famiglia, but he opted not to.
He assumed Zeke would eventually do that on his own.
“Katya,” Cross repeated.
“I met her a year ago when we had to deal with the Russians for a shipment that came into one of their ports. You remember that?”
“Yeah, somebody fucked up where it was supposed to be brought in.”
Zeke nodded. “So yeah, I met her then.”
“She’s involved with the Bratva in Odessa, then?”
“Daughter of one of their captains.”
Jesus.
“You didn’t think to mention you were seeing somebody to me?” Cross asked.
Zeke let out a hard breath. “Nothing was going to come of it, man. Nothing could come of it.”
“Why not?”
“Because she was set to marry some cocksucker that’s in lockup right now.”
Cross stiffened on the spot. He didn’t agree with arranged marriage, but it was still far more common than anybody in the business wanted to admit. It still happened fairly regularly.
He didn’t like what Zeke was saying, or trying to say, for that matter. It sounded like it was going to leave them in a hell of a lot of trouble.
“Was, you said,” Cross pointed out. “Was set to marry.”
“Kind of hard, now.”
“You have thirty seconds to tell me what in the hell is going on,” Cross told his friend, “or one of us isn’t leaving this office. Do not forget details. Talk.”
“You know how over the last year I’ve kind of went on and off the radar a lot? I head out of town a bit, sometimes, when I can or whatever?”
Cross said nothing.
Zeke kept talking. “I was with her.”
Still, he kept quiet.
“The only reason they didn’t marry her to that guy when she was sixteen is because he got put away for ten years on a robbery. The arrangement is still valid. I guess he’s the boss’s man—like an enforcer, but whatever the fuck they call it. She was a gift to him for being so loyal, Cross. A gift.”
“What did you do?”
“Took her.”
“When?”
“A couple days ago.”
“And then what?”
“We got married at the courthouse this morning.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
“Fuck,” Cross snarled out loud.
His fist slammed into the closest thing it could find. The wall. Plaster crumbled under the force, but damn, it felt good.
“I fucked up,” Zeke murmured.
Cross didn’t even look at his friend because yeah, Zeke fucked up.
Badly.
“Her father—and probably the fucker in lockup—is going to come looking for her, Cross. I need you to help me because I can’t give her back.”
“Love, right,” Cross said, scoffing.
“Don’t, man. I’ve never even loved anybody before her. I’ve never asked you for anything. Not as a friend, and not as my boss. Please help me.”
Cross’s jaw tightened so fiercely, his molars ached. “Where is she right now?”
“At my place.”
“All right.” Cross brushed the plaster dust off the arm of his suit jacket. “Right now, we’re going to go out, have our dinner, and say nothing about this, Zeke. My wife just got back from L.A. yesterday, and tonight is meant to be relaxing. I will fill her in on the details tomorrow. Do you understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
“Are you going to help—”
“Fuck you for even asking like you had a doubt to begin with,” Cross snarled as he pushed past his friend. “You knew I would, you asshole.”
Katya Popov—Puzza, now—kept her head down as Cross entered the living room of Zeke’s Newport home. She was a pretty thing—petite and pale, white-blonde and shaking hands hidden in her lap.
She looked like a scared little mouse. Cross never did well with skittish women. He supposed he didn’t have a choice this time.
“Katya, this is—”
“Cross, right?”
Zeke nodded. “Yeah, babe.”
She still didn’t look at him.
It bothered Cross a bit.
“Are you not allowed to look at a man or something?” Cross asked the woman.
Her eyes widened when her head snapped up. “I …” She looked to Zeke standing beside Cross, and then back to him. “Depends on the man,” she finally settled on saying.
Cross sighed, and asked Zeke, “Is she serious?”
“Yeah. I mean, not with me, but you know. Them, or whatever.”
“How the hell did you even manage to have a relationship with the girl if she can’t even look at a guy?”
“Not like that,” Katya said. “There’s just … rules about men in the organization, yes? I’m not to irritate the man I was supposed to marry. They reported back to him on my behavior and things.”
Her light Russian accent inflected her words gently, but not so much that it was distracting.
Katya’s gray eyes flicked to Zeke again. “I’m sorry. We messed up, no?”
“A bit,” Cross muttered before his friend could answer. “But it’s nothing that we won’t handle or work out somehow.”
“I don’t think you understand or know my father or his boss very well.”
Cross laughed dryly. “I know them enough to stay away.”
Zeke cringed.
“Then you probably know you will not work very much out with them, no?”
“It’ll be handled.”
That was all he could offer the woman.
Cross took a seat on the couch across from Katya. “Tell me about you, Katya.”
Her wary eyes glanced between Cross and Zeke.
“Why?”
“Because the more I like you, the less likely I am to hand you back over when the threats start coming in.”
Katya swallowed hard. “I—”
“Cross,” Zeke said quietly.
He held up a single hand, silencing his friend. “Keep in mind, Zeke, it was you who introduced issues into our famiglia, not me. It was you who put my family in danger without even considering my wife or child. You, not me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are.”
And he did know.
It still didn’t make it better.
Cross gave his attention to Katya once more. “Start talking.”
Catherine stared hard at the wall while Cross went over the details with his father about Zeke and the man’s … wife. He continued to have to remind himself that’s what Katya was to Zeke. A wife. A made man’s wife.
As pissed off as he was about the shit storm they were about to face because of Zeke’s choices, Katya was still the man’s wife.
That meant something important.
Calisto scrubbed a hand down his jaw, and the office chair squeaked when he leaned further back. “Well, this is quite the … situation.”
“Right?” Cross shook his head. “A fucking mess, that’s what it is.”
“And that,” his father agreed.
“So what,” Catherine said from beside Cross, “we just play dumb and wait for the Russians to throw a fit about all of this?”
She was not happy.
She felt unsafe.
Cross understood entirely.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m going to reach out and put some feelers before I make any decisions.”
“So yes, wait.”
“Catty—”
“Did he consider his goddaughter at all when he took and married a woman from an unstable, rival family that is known for starting street wars over the slightest thing? Did he? Tell me, Cross.”
Calisto gazed between his son, and daughter-in-law. “It’s definitely not a good situation.”
“Understatement,” Catherine barked.
“Babe—”
His wife brushed his hand off her arm, and stood from her seat. She left the office without a look back, and only a wave over her shoulder.
Cross couldn’t blame her.
“She’ll calm down eventually,” Calisto said. “It’s definitely harder on women like Catherine, I think.”
“What?”
“She’s a part of the business in a way. She’s not like your mother, Cross. A woman who turns her cheek, and minds her own business. Catherine is quite aware of the details and issues that can arise from situations like this. Emma is far more likely to bury her head in the sand until the danger passes.”
“Catherine, not so much,” Cross murmured.
“Exactly. Does Wolf know?”
At the mention of Zeke’s father, Calisto’s best friend, Cross shook his head.
“Why not?” Calisto demanded.
“I only learned yesterday, and met the woman last night. I wanted to discuss things with you, or at least, get your opinion. I told Zeke to hold back on bringing it to anyone else’s attention until I have finished working my own issues out.”
“Mmm.” Calisto leaned forward, and rested his elbows to the desk before clasping his hands together. “I get it. The more people know, the faster word will travel.”
“I need time,” Cross agreed, “especially to figure out a way to keep the both of them safe.”
“Because you intend to do that. Protect Zeke and … the girl.”
Cross cocked a brow. “Of course I do. He’s my best friend, Papa. He’s always had my back, hasn’t he?”
Calisto smiled slightly. “I know, but no one would blame you if you chose a different option, Cross. Considering the circumstances, and the safety of your own family.”
“I will figure it out.”
Somehow.
“Just remember, Cross, that when you choose to protect one man in la famiglia because of something like this, you also have to protect the rest in a roundabout way. That’s what a good boss does.”
“He takes care of his men.”
“Yes, especially if you want them to take care of you.”