Cross + Catherine: The Companion

by Bethany-Kris

  Did she know how he felt her father’s hate grow with every new morning he showed up with a hungover Catherine in his car? Did she even care at all?

  It was hard to say, and he wasn’t willing to ask. Sometimes, talking did no good lately when it came to Catherine.

  She raged, sure.

  She cried.

  But actually talking?

  No.

  Not really.

  Instead of saying anything, he simply held her.

  She was here.

  That was good enough.

  “Do you still love me?”

  Cross looked down to see familiar green eyes watching him. “Always.”

  After all, he didn’t know anything different.

  Only her.

  The Fear

  Catrina POV

  Catrina hated hospitals, and yet the cold, sterile buildings had given her some of the happiest moments of her life. Lives saved, and new births. Moments of relief, or of calm and peace. Moments that stuck to the back of her mind forever like caramel—sticky and sweet.

  It didn’t matter, though.

  Those memories were not enough to quell the coldness that slipped down her spine every time she came to this place. It was not enough to stop the dread as it drove a nail through her heart when she opened the entrance doors.

  See, for every good memory that Catrina had of hospitals, five more negative ones were just as apparent in her mind.

  A shame, really.

  Tonight, she could add another good and bad memory to the pile. Good, of course, because her daughter’s young and vibrant life had been saved. Bad, surely, because of why it needed saving in the first place.

  In a chair tucked away in the corner of the hospital’s waiting room, Catrina sat alone. Not by her gathered family’s choice, but by her own. It was easier to process the events of the night, and to deal with her raging emotions without the others around. She knew they were worried. She could see the concern and questions staring back from the gazes of her in-laws. Yet, she still had no words to say to them.

  Not yet, anyway.

  She wasn’t ready.

  Still, they wouldn’t push. She knew it.

  It was one of the many good things about the Marcellos. Having spent so many years together as a tightknit group—growing and loving—they had learned to give each other space when needed.

  Not every problem could be solved by talking. Not all wounds could be healed with an apology. Not all negative emotions could be stopped with a hug.

  Time.

  Space.

  Silence.

  Those things were sometimes their best friends.

  Like now.

  Catrina glanced down at the clipboard in her hands. More hospital forms to fill out. She should have finished with them an hour or more ago, yet here she still was, looking at unanswered questions. These were not like the medical and insurance forms she had filled out earlier when they first arrived.

  The questions were different—personal and invasive.

  She supposed that was why she hesitated on the answers. That, and she wasn’t sure she knew the answers to some of them.

  It wasn’t like Catherine was currently able to answer them.

  Or maybe … just maybe, Catrina didn’t want to know the answers to some of them. Hindsight was always twenty-twenty. That little fact was never more apparent to her than now. Now, when she did not want to look back at her daughter’s young life, and see the red flags Catrina might have missed. The flashing lights that might have warned her this horrible night was on the horizon.

  Catrina knew the signs would be there.

  She had missed them. All of them.

  She failed.

  She failed her child.

  She failed.

  Catrina let out a slow breath, and looked at the forms once more.

  Has the patient ever self-harmed?

  Has the patient ever self-medicated?

  Untreated depression?

  Trauma?

  Words like mental health, emotional instability, and more harsh realities stared back at Catrina. The question that stood out the most above the others also burned the very worst.

  Has the patient ever attempted suicide before?

  No, she wanted to write. Yet, she didn’t put anything at all. How could she when she didn’t know for sure, and couldn’t currently ask her eighteen-year-old daughter?

  How awful of a mother did it make her that she didn’t know the answers? That she was scared to ask? What would Catherine say?

  How would Catrina respond if her daughter did actually tell her the truth?

  A while back, Catrina watched—unsure of how to help or what to do—as her daughter faded further away from them, and too far out of reach. To where, Catrina hadn’t known. A dark place, surely.

  Catrina saw Catherine come closer again—be vibrant and bright again.

  Now … this.

  Now, a fresh wound on a delicate wrist. Now, a bloodstained bathroom to clean. Now, a broken young woman to somehow save from herself.

  A broken heart didn’t do something like this, Catrina knew.

  A shattered mind did.

  Hopelessness did this.

  Wounded hearts did not.

  “Mrs. Marcello?”

  Catrina looked up to find a man peering down at her. Under his white lab coat, he wore a dress shirt, tie, and slacks. A doctor, most definitely.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “I’m Doctor Powski. I was called in by the ER doctor to come down and assess your daughter’s case. I understand that you and your husband have requested she be put under a seventy-two hour psych hold.”

  Catrina flinched. “For a suicide watch, yes.”

  Powski glanced around. “Is your husband nearby so we can all sit down together and discuss—”

  “He stepped out.”

  Catrina offered no other information to the doctor. Dante wasn’t handling all of this very well. What else was there to say?

  “Okay,” the doctor said, and then he took a seat beside hers. “First, I’ll give you an update on Catherine’s current state. If you would like that, of course.”

  “Please.”

  “She’s stable now that she’s had two blood transfusions. Her counts are looking positive, as well. She did have quite an amount of alcohol noted in her blood.”

  “Likely—she downed two bottles of wine.”

  The man nodded. “I see. Well, currently she’s sedated to allow her some time to rest, and continue to get fluids through the IV. Right now, she’s in a private room on this floor, but once the paperwork is signed for the seventy-two hour hold, she will be moved.”

  “To where?’

  “Upstairs to the Psych Ward.”

  Again, Catrina flinched.

  Still, she replied calmly, “Okay.”

  The doctor openly frowned. “Can I assume by your demeanor that your daughter’s suicide attempt did not come as a surprise?”

  “What you can assume from my demeanor is that I am a very composed woman, sir, and nothing else.”

  “My apologies.”

  Catrina swallowed her nerves, and asked, “Could I see her now?”

  “Of course.”

  In the hospital bed, tucked beneath white blankets and sleeping, Catherine actually looked peaceful. As though she had no worries, and her life had not been hanging in the balance only a few hours earlier.

  The peacefulness in Catherine’s features was only an illusion, Catrina knew. As soon as the sedatives wore off, Catherine would wake up to a life that she and just tried to permanently escape from.

  “I’ll give you a few minutes,” the doctor said from the doorway. “Then we can discuss the specifics of signing the papers for the hold.”

  Catrina nodded. “Thank you.”

  The doctor closed the door as he left until only a small slit remained. In private, with no one to witness the cracks forming in Catrina’s very put together façade, the heartac
he finally started to show. It began with a shaky breath, and then the trembling in her hands came next. The first tear slid down her cheek as she looked upward.

  Her relationship with God had always been tenuous at best. A love-hate relationship that pushed and pulled too much from her heart. A give and take where she was always the one giving—it never seemed like she ever got anything back.

  That’s how God sometimes works, Cat, her husband liked to say. It’s called faith. We give it to Him without question.

  Catrina didn’t see it the same way. She had far, far too many questions for God. She didn’t even know where to begin usually.

  Not tonight, though.

  Tonight, she knew exactly what she wanted to say.

  Please, please … give her happiness and love and little pain. Please, please … give her those things, and I’ll give you unquestioned faith and trust. Please, please …

  “Cat?”

  At the sound of her husband’s voice coming from the doorway behind her, Catrina quickly wiped the few tears away that had escaped. It didn’t matter, though. When she turned to face Dante, he saw what she tried to hide.

  He always did.

  In two steps, he was with her. Holding her face in his warm hands, and dragging her close. He wiped away her second rush of tears, and kissed her lips softly.

  “It’ll be all right,” he told her.

  “Will it?”

  “Eventually.”

  Catrina let out a weak breath. “Do you remember when she was brand new—thirty-two hours of labor and four deep stiches later?”

  Dante chuckled. “Can’t forget it.”

  “But do you remember how I felt then? After we brought her home, I mean.”

  “Like a baby deer walking on new legs.”

  Catrina sniffled, and nodded. “I didn’t know what to do—how to be a mom to a brand new baby. I didn’t know how to take care of her, or where to begin. I was so … out of my element.”

  “First time I ever saw you struggle with something,” Dante admitted. “It was strange for me, too, in that way.”

  “I’m back in that place again,” Catrina whispered. “Back to feeling like I don’t know how to keep her alive, bello.”

  Dante dragged her even closer, and tucked her against his chest. There, she found safety, and home … and love.

  But where did Catherine find those things?

  Nowhere, clearly.

  The Attack

  Dante POV

  Dante paced.

  Back and forth, back and forth.

  Ten steps to the wall, and then ten steps back to the waiting room chair where he had been sitting. When nothing else could be done—when he could do nothing else—he paced.

  The hospital waiting room was too quiet. A fucking echo of silence mocking him. A half a dozen pairs of eyes watched him.

  A caged animal.

  That’s how he felt.

  Wild.

  Crazed.

  Enraged.

  His daughter—his blood—had damn near taken her own life. Downed two bottles of wine, and opened her wrist up like a flayed fish. She’d used a blade she popped out of a disposable razor.

  Pink-stained water coming out from beneath the bathroom door had alerted him. His fears continued rising, and his calls to her went unheard. His fists beat hard against the door until bruises formed and his bones ached.

  The memories were too fresh.

  He suspected it would always feel that way.

  Now, though, they only pissed him off.

  The one question that seemed to be his constant companion since he had pulled his daughter from the bloodstained bathtub was … why?

  But the very second his mind posed the question, his black, bleeding heart already had an answer. One that was all too obvious. One that only served to enflame his growing rage even more.

  Cross Donati.

  How could this not be because of him? All the bad choices made and wrong roads traveled in Catherine’s life seemed to lead straight back to that young man. Like a habit she couldn’t kick, Catherine kept going back to Cross regardless of how badly she ended up hurt in the process.

  Just two weeks earlier, something had happened again between the two. Not that Dante was entirely sure what had happened, but he knew something did. Catherine showed up on their doorstep with a bag in hand, tears in her eyes, and nothing else. She wouldn’t talk when they pressed for details or reasons. She stayed shut away from them in her old room—avoiding.

  The spiral downward had been obvious. She got worse and worse emotionally until … tonight.

  So, of course it was Cross.

  It was always Cross.

  That fucking—

  “Son.”

  Dante spun on his heels to face his father. Antony’s old eyes held nothing but sympathy and compassion. No pity—Antony Marcello pitied no one when he hated pity himself. Dante wished it helped on some level to soothe the rage festering inside as he looked at his father, but it really didn’t. If anything, the rage festered up to his heart, and grew more. It only got wider, and bigger.

  Why?

  Because of every person in that waiting room. It was not just for Catherine’s pain that had finally spilled over. It was not only for his wife’s—and his own—pain. This pain had an echo. A reverberation of pain that continued on to each person it touched in their family.

  All of them hurt for this.

  So, he let that rage fester.

  He wanted it to grow.

  Nothing else felt right.

  “You should sit,” Antony told him. “Take a moment to rest while you can. I don’t think you will find much time to do any of that in the coming days.”

  Dante shook his head. “No, I’m fine, Papa.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “I am.”

  “Son—”

  “Don’t,” Dante interjected quietly.

  For once, he needed his father to let something go. He needed Antony to let him lie about this. To let him hide his feelings. He desperately needed his father not to push him right then.

  Antony seemed to hear Dante’s unspoken request. His father nodded once, and then clapped him on the shoulder.

  “I’m going to take your mother home,” Antony said. “She does need to rest whether she wants to admit it or not.”

  “No worries,” Dante replied. “I’ll give you a call when Catherine can have visitors or something. Or, if there’s any updates.”

  “Thank you, son.” Antony frowned. “And do try to rest, Dante. You do need it, too.”

  No, he needed violence.

  Retribution.

  Spilled blood …

  He needed to get his rage out of his system, and only one person truly deserved it.

  Still, he said, “Sure, Papa.”

  One more clap to Dante’s shoulder, and his father was gone. Dante made sure to say a quick goodbye to his mother, too.

  Catrina had fallen asleep on a chair while they waited for the final word that Catherine had been transferred upstairs. A place not meant for his daughter, except she needed it now.

  Dante used his jacket to cover his wife, and brushed her stray red curls out of her face. For now, she slept peacefully, and without worry. He knew that would only last for as long as she kept her eyes closed, and stayed in dreamland. He hated that for his wife—hated knowing that she was feeling a kind of pain he could not help.

  All over again, his rage swelled.

  Only this time, there was no holding it back. There was no quelling it for a time until he could deal with it later.

  It needed soothing now.

  With one last look at his wife, Dante headed out of the waiting room. He was outside of the hospital, and halfway across the parking lot before someone finally caught up to him.

  Lucian.

  “Dante, wait.”

  He unlocked his Mercedes, and jumped in. Lucian slid into the passenger seat without a word. He didn’t even look at hi
s brother as they pulled out of the lot fast enough to make the tires squeal against the asphalt.

  “I’m going to kill him,” Dante finally said.

  He didn’t say who.

  His brother didn’t need him to.

  Their families did not hide things from each other.

  “You cannot kill Cross Donati, Dante.”

  “Can’t and shouldn’t are two very different things, Lucian.”

  “Won’t, then. You won’t kill him,” Lucian said. “I’ll make sure of it. For you, though, not for him.”

  “Put the gun away,” Lucian said from behind Dante.

  Dante knocked on the penthouse door again instead. Footsteps echoed from behind the wood.

  “Dante, do not do something you will—”

  Cross opened the penthouse door, and Dante had already cocked back his arm, and then let the gun smash into the man’s face. Being pistol whipped was one thing—being beat with a gun like it was a man’s fist was quite another.

  Split lip.

  Bruised face.

  Cross on the floor.

  That’s what Dante wanted.

  The sight of the blood already coming from Cross’s mouth and nose was good, but not quite good enough. Cross’s shouts echoed, but he didn’t fight back.

  Dante just kept going.

  Another hit with the gun.

  A kick to the ribs, and then another.

  More fists.

  More kicks.

  “Fuck,” Cross grunted, blood staining white teeth.

  Cross tried to get away by turning to his side, and Dante reared back and kicked him in the face. Blood arched, and eyes rolled.

  That might have been a bit much.

  It still felt damn good to Dante.

  “Dante, relax,” Lucian growled.

  “Fuck off, Lucian. You relax. Let it be your daughter, and you fucking relax.”

  “You can’t kill—”

  “I can do whatever the hell I want to, actually.”

  “You’re not above retribution for this just because you are a boss,” Lucian snarled.

  Cross rolled to his back again, and Dante took great satisfaction in the sound of the man struggling to breathe. Blood spatters colored his lips. Bruises marred his face. He clutched at his ribs like they hurt, too.