by Bethany-Kris
She didn’t get the chance to think on it for long. Once she was close enough, Juan took the chance to wrap an arm around her neck, and then he pulled her in for a tight hug that all but took her breath away for a quick second.
Strong arms.
Woodsy scent.
Cece’s heart skipped beats.
“Hey, Cece,” Juan murmured into her hair. “I missed you, my girl.”
Maybe it was the whole my girl thing that caused this mess that was Cece’s heart, too.
Yep.
Much more than a little crush.
Cece’s face was going to permanently settle into a scowl if she couldn’t get her raging jealousy under control. It didn’t help that Juan seemed entirely oblivious to Cece’s growing frustrations ten feet away.
Light, girlish giggles brought Cece out of her thoughts. Sure enough, she found the girl, who had approached Juan from the moment he and Cece came down to the hotel’s pool, was the owner of the stupid laughter.
Why did girls think giggling was cute?
Child-like giggles.
It wasn’t cute.
The girl was pretty, though.
Blue-eyed.
Peach and cream skin.
Blonde hair.
Total Cali girl.
Everything opposite to Cece.
Older, too.
Fifteen, or sixteen.
“You should come,” the girl said. “Oh, my God. I bet you would have so much fun with us, Juan.”
Juan shot a glance over his shoulder at Cece. She quickly turned her head to pretend she wasn’t listening to their conversation. He probably still saw her doing it.
“Uh,” Juan started to say.
Cece looked back just in time to see the girl reach out and place her palm against Juan’s pec. The girl’s white bikini was so small, it might as well not even be there at all.
Jealousy burned through Cece even hotter.
“I would really like it if you would come,” the girl said.
Cece wouldn’t blame Juan at all if he went with the pretty girl and her giggling friends waiting at the other side of the pool. He was closer to them in age, and they probably had better plans other than sitting poolside all day.
Screw it.
Cece grabbed her earbuds for her tablet, and shoved them in. If she couldn’t force herself to ignore them, then she would just drown their conversation out with loud music. She refused to even look in their direction after that.
Childish?
Maybe a bit.
It was better than her going over there to try and rip the girl’s blonde hair out of her head. Besides, she didn’t think Juan would like that very much.
Especially if he liked the girl.
Crap.
What if he did actually like her?
That kind of made Cece’s heart hurt.
This crush thing sucked.
All of the sudden, the sounds of the pool filled Cece’s ears as her earbuds were tugged away. A shadow darkened over her form as Juan came to stand next to her reclining lounger.
“Hey,” he said.
Cece tried not to frown. “Hey. I guess you’re going to hang out with your new friend, huh?”
Juan’s brow dipped. “No way, Cece.”
Her heart perked.
Stupid, traitorous heart.
“No?” she dared to ask.
He grinned. “Nope—today’s all for you. I promised.”
“Yeah, you did.”
“You okay?”
Cece glanced over at where the girl had rejoined her friends. “I am now.”
Juan nodded. “Huh.”
“What?”
“You look like you smelled something bad.”
Cece shrugged. “No, I just—”
“I didn’t mean to make you jealous.”
Her first instinct was to deny his words—she didn’t want him to know she liked him that way, partly. Another part of her did want him to know exactly that.
This teenaged girl thing was hard.
The way Juan looked at her made Cece stop and think before she said anything at all. She thought about her mom, too, and what Catherine always told her.
Petty girls made scenes.
Petty girls lie.
Petty girls play games.
Queens didn’t need or do those things.
“I don’t like seeing you with other girls,” Cece settled on saying.
Juan dropped into the lounger beside hers. “All right.”
“All right,” she echoed.
He looked over at her, saying, “It’s always just me and you when it’s us, Cece. I promise.”
Her daddy once told her to find a boy who kept his promises because those were the kinds of boys who grew up to be good men.
She knew that she had found that boy.
Juan.
They still had years to go yet, though.
The Guns
Cross POV
Cross wasn’t the type to have spells of bad days. A day here or there, maybe. Something that put him on edge, and made getting through the day a taxing event. Everybody occasionally dealt with something like that.
But several?
In a row?
That just wasn’t Cross’s style. And yet, that was exactly how he had been feeling for almost two weeks now. Like there was some kind of shitty mood he just couldn’t seem to shake. A stink to his mind that was clouding up everything else around him.
The proverbial rain cloud was following him around day in and day out.
How fucking cliché.
Cross drove into his Newport garage, and was surprised to see his ten-year-old son’s head pop up from under the hood of Catherine’s car. He gave his son a look when their gazes locked through the windshield.
Naz should have been in school.
Although, Cross supposed he really wasn’t all that surprised to see Naz under the hood of a car tinkering. The kid was good with his hands. He had been taking shit apart since he learned how to walk. It took a few years for Naz to learn how to put things back together, though.
Naturally, Naz’s interests moved to focus on certain things. At only ten, he could rebuild a carburetor, or an engine. He had mastered the art of rebuilds on old, vintage cars—something Cross thanked Zeke for.
His boy could fix just about any electronic that was put into his hands, and he was already beginning to code. He liked to spend time with one of Cross’s guys who had a knack for hacking. Something Naz found challenging enough to keep his attention for longer than five seconds.
And all of this?
It was before Cross even got into Naz’s taste for guns, sports, and more.
Yeah, there was more.
Cross had to keep Naz busy—constantly. Otherwise, trouble found Nazio quickly when he was bored, or worse, his hands were left idle for too long.
It also probably explained why his son wasn’t at school at the moment. Likely. He got bored. They sent him home.
Naz was smart—too damn smart. Gifted kind of smart.
Every parent thought their kid was a special little star. No other kid could compare to their child. Sure, Cross thought the same thing about his kids, too.
The difference?
Naz was an intellectual fucking star.
His IQ tested on part with Albert Einstein.
Add in a heavy dose of arrogance, a touch of swag, and those goddamn Donati genes to give him good looks, and Naz was trouble walking. Thank fuck, puberty was still a couple of years away yet.
It was the only thing saving them.
Karma had come hard for Cross.
Damn, he loved his kids, though.
Cross stepped out of the Rolls-Royce, and rested his arms along the roof as Naz approached. His son was still all tall legs, and long arms, but he would fill out soon enough.
“What did they do—send you home again?” Cross asked.
Naz wiped his hands down on a rag. “With another stupid pamphlet for that schoo
l.”
Cross frowned at the way Naz twisted his words when he spoke about the school for gifted children. The district, his teachers, principal, and more had been pushing this goddamn institution on Naz and his parents since shortly after he entered Pre-K, and they realized he was not like the other kids as far as intelligence went.
Maturity-wise, though?
Naz was just like every other kid his age. He was not suddenly ahead of every other ten year old in most other aspects—except for intelligence—simply because he was brilliant. Sure, he could memorize everything he ever looked at and read, but he was still just ten years old.
Still a boy.
Naz didn’t want the special school. He wanted to remain with his friends—with kids his own age that he had known since being a toddler. Being around other kids who were brilliant like him didn’t really appeal to Naz, either, when the adults around him tried using that like dangling bait as a reason to get him to enroll in the school for the gifted.
Just because Naz was a fucking genius—by all measurable standards—didn’t mean he was also socially awkward, and needed to be put away with other people like him.
Quite the opposite.
People flocked to his boy. Naz also wasn’t so arrogant about his intelligence that he shoved it in other people’s faces like some might.
In fact, he never did that at all.
To those who didn’t know Naz, he seemed like a regular kid doing his own thing. It was only once someone spent a little bit of time with him, and saw him at work did they realize, holy shit, this kid is something else.
“To be fair,” Naz said as he tossed the rag away to a nearby metal table, “I did hand in every assignment the math teacher had planned for the rest of the year.”
Cross’s brow shot up high. “School just started three weeks ago, Naz.”
When did his kid even find time to do that?
Oh, yeah.
His boy slept four hours, and acted like it was a ten-hour sleep.
Naz shrugged. “Yeah, well …”
“How did you even get the list of assignments the teacher had planned? And for the whole year? Really?”
His son looked away at that question. “Plausible deniability.”
“Naz,” Cross warned.
“The assignments were on a district sheet of what they must teach—what the students must learn from semester to semester. The shit they test us on, you know. They even have assignments they must give out to us—they have to follow it, Dad. Maybe I hacked into the teacher’s—”
“Naz!”
“In hindsight,” Naz said, holding up a hand, “that was a bad idea.”
“You think?”
“I can tell Jaz that I got hacking down, though,” Naz said, grinning.
Cross sighed. “So did you get sent home, or did you get expelled?”
“Two-week suspension.”
“Oh, Naz, that’s going to go on your record.”
He didn’t really give a shit that Naz got suspended. He cared that hacking into the computer system would be listed as a reason why.
“Actually, I think they might let me work on coding their security, and conveniently drop that little part on my suspension form,” Naz said.
Huh.
“Well, all right.”
Naz smiled, and tugged his ever-present beanie from his head. “The gun run was today, right?”
Instantly, Cross’s bad mood was back. “Yeah.”
He ran the gunrunning operation for the Marcello family. He simply didn’t run the guns anymore.
“How did it go?” his son asked.
Naz’s excitement and interest was so bright and clear, that it made Cross smile. Just because he was in a pissy mood about once again sending the guys off on a run that he couldn’t join didn’t mean he had to pass that over onto his son, too.
“So far, so good. I don’t expect to hear anything more from them until the guns land in port, and they’re onto the next phase.”
As usual.
They would be successful.
He trained them, after all.
His team was Ace.
And all too often—like today—Cross wished he was out there with them on the run, too. He missed the rush he used to get from it. The thrill it provided like none other. Being the man behind the scenes, was not quite the same thing as being the man behind the wheel, so to speak.
He didn’t regret his choice to stop running guns for even a second, of course. His reason for quitting back then had been more than valid, and appropriate. He had been too hot of a figure in the North American gunrunning scene to continue. He was—essentially—a loaded gun ready to blow. Every run he took after that last one was playing with fire. It would only be a matter of time until he had gotten caught.
Cross was not willing to take that risk when it meant he might end up leaving his wife and children without him while he spent twenty to life behind bars for some fucking guns. His family, and their life, would always be worth far more than gun metal, and a goddamn thrill.
But … nostalgia could be a mean bitch.
Hence, his bad mood.
Cross opted to change the subject back to the school thing with his son as to get his mind and mood away from gunrunning. “How mad is your mother about this suspension?”
“She gave me that look.”
Cross laughed.
Yeah, every mother had that look.
“All right. Thanks, son.”
He patted his son on the head as he passed him.
“Hey, Dad?”
“Yeah, Naz?”
“When can I go on a run, too?”
Cross turned on his heel to eye Naz. “Not at ten.”
“Eleven?”
Jesus.
“Give me a line here, kiddo.”
Naz rolled his eyes. “Thirteen, then.”
“Eighteen,” Cross countered, “and I want to see some direction in school other than you getting suspended every couple of months.”
“Sixteen.”
Man, this kid …
“Fuck no, Naz.”
“Sixteen,” Naz repeated, “and I will try that school. Try, Dad.”
Cross’s brow flew up. “You know that your mother and I—”
“I know I don’t have to go to it.”
“Good … okay, as long as you know that.” Cross scrubbed a hand down his jaw, and decided on another offer for his son. “Seventeen—sixteen only if you graduate early.”
“You know I could graduate by thirteen.”
“Cece will be in her final year, though.”
Naz scowled. “Fine—seventeen, but sixteen if I graduate early.”
Cross knew throwing Cece in there would keep Naz in line. He was way too protective of his older sister. The idea of her still being in school while Naz was not would drive him practically insane.
“You can quit that school whenever you want, and return to a normal district,” Cross said.
Naz nodded. “Good because I probably will.”
Cross chuckled. “Just … finish school, son. Get some years under you yet. You have got lots of time to figure out the rest. What if you end up wanting to be a scientist—or even a surgeon?”
Naz made a face. “I don’t think those things are in my blood.”
“You can do anything—blood or not.”
“Can I?”
Why did this conversation feel so familiar to Cross?
Ah, yes.
Because this had once been him with his father. And the words Calisto had told Cross all those years ago were still very present in his mind. He never forgot them because they validated everything he knew about his father, and the love the man had for him.
And that was all before he even knew the truth about his paternity.
“Naz, you can be anything. You are that amazing. And I am going to be proud regardless of what you do because you are mine, and that’s never going to change. You don’t have to be like me, son.”
/> Naz smirked a bit. “I’m too unique to be you.”
Yeah.
A fucking star.
“So, deal?” Naz asked.
Cross nodded. “Deal.”
Cross found his wife sitting in her library. She didn’t look up from her laptop as he took a seat beside her on the couch.
“Did you talk to Naz?”
“He told me what happened,” Cross replied, leaning back into the cushions and staring at the ceiling. “Amongst other things.”
“What other things?”
“He’s going to run guns.”
Catherine passed him a look. “He’s ten.”
Cross shrugged. “I can see it.”
“How was work?”
“Terrible. The run is going wonderfully. The guys are great. Money is coming in.”
“And that’s terrible, huh?”
“I hate being the man behind the scenes, Catty,” Cross murmured. “I want to be the one running the guns. Nothing new, babe.”
Catherine frowned. “The king in the shadows.”
“Something like that.”
“It won’t be that way forever, Cross.”
“What?”
Catherine shook her head, and smiled in that knowing way of hers.
“What?” he asked again.
“Someone is going to have to teach Naz. You. I know you, Cross—you’re never going to sit on the sidelines when it comes to Naz. You never have. You can’t.”
Cross grinned. “Probably not, no.”
“See.”
“You’re not mad at the idea I might start up again? It was you who wanted me to stop, after all.”
“Ten years ago,” Catherine said. “Enough time has passed.”
“Have I told you how much I love you lately?”
Catherine rolled her pretty eyes. “Yes, but tell me again.”
Cross leaned over on the couch, caught his wife’s chin in his hand, and pulled her in for a searing kiss. “I found the most perfect woman for me—you. My wife who always knows what’s in my head, and where I need to go. Usually before I even know it.”
“You do that for me, too,” Catherine pointed out.
“Maybe, but … I don’t know, I needed this.”
“What, this chat?”
“With you, yeah. About everything.”
Catherine laughed. “We certainly don’t need you finding trouble because you’re bored. Sound familiar?”
