by Bethany-Kris
“I might have taken the coward’s way out, Cross, but so did you.”
Cross inched slightly closer to Catherine, never dropping her gaze. “When have I ever acted like a coward where you were concerned? Come on, tell me.”
His challenge couldn’t be missed.
Catherine rose to it with a smile.
“You left me,” she said, poking him with every single word she said. “You put my ass in an elevator, and told me to fix myself. You told me to get better, to figure my shit out, and to learn to love who I am. And what else did you say, Cross? You tell me.”
He didn’t blink. “You know why I did that. I told you that day why I was making you leave. You were never going to get better holding onto me like a fucking lifeline, babe.”
“No, not that you did it. Not that you broke my heart, but don’t for one second think I’ll ever forget about that, either. I needed help; you forced me to get it. Not that, okay. It’s what you didn’t do, Cross. You said you would be there. When I was good, when I was ready and knew what I wanted, you would be waiting for me. That’s what you told me, and it nearly killed me when I found out what that really meant. You promised. Always, right?”
Catherine scoffed hard. “You made a fucking joke out of what we were. I found out your lies hurt a hell of a lot more than mine ever did.”
“Catherine—”
Her eyes burned with unshed tears, but she refused to let them fall. She didn’t cry in front of anybody, and certainly not this man. Not again. Never again.
“I went back. I came back like you told me to months later, and where were you, Cross? All that work I did to get myself out of that black hole, and every step forward I took after everything was for nothing. All I needed was one rejection from you without you even having to say it, and I was fucked all over again.
“You think I owe you shit?” Catherine asked, ignoring the way her throat burned with her anger and words. “You used the one thing that you gave me when you took everything else away, and you ruined it. You gave me hope even when you were breaking my heart, and you couldn’t even give me the decency of telling me the truth. Always was nothing more than a fucking lie with you, Cross Donati. I know that now. You taught me that better than anyone. And for that, you can go straight to hell.”
Catherine was done.
With this day, their conversation, and Cross.
She grabbed her driver’s door, and swung it open. Cross only seemed to come out of his daze when she moved to close the door as she sat down in the seat. Instead of her arm, he grabbed her wrist that time.
“Wait, Catherine, please,” he said, leaning down to look her in the face.
She refused to cry. She wouldn’t even let her lips stop pressing together for fear they might tremble. “Let me go.”
He didn’t.
She tugged, and her jacket slipped up.
Cross’s warm thumb pressed into the soft, thin skin of her left inner wrist. She was acutely aware that she hadn’t slipped on any jewelry to hide her tattoo that morning. She had been running short on time. Her tattoo was firmly on display, and half covered by his thumb.
Catherine’s gaze darted down.
Cross followed her stare.
Carefully, his thumb swept to the side of her skin like he was doing a double-take of what he was seeing. His fingers pressed slightly harder, while the rest of him froze. She didn’t want to have that conversation, either.
Catherine tried to tug her wrist out of his hold once more. “Please, just let me go.”
He said nothing, but the sweep of his thumb over the black ink of the small cross made her start to shake. It wasn’t that he touched the tattoo, but that the pad of his digit lingered on the spine of the cross. He could feel it. She could see it in his eyes.
That scar she covered.
The pain she hid.
The story she didn’t tell.
Cross’s gaze darted up to hers. “Catherine—”
“Don’t say anything.”
“You know I can’t do that, babe. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You don’t get to know, Cross.”
“When?”
That was all he asked.
Nothing more.
Catherine clenched her teeth to keep the words inside, but somehow, they still slipped out. “A couple weeks after you made me leave. My depression got really bad, and it just happened.”
“A couple weeks after,” he echoed.
“It wasn’t because of you.”
Everyone always wanted to feel guilt for someone else’s choices where suicide was concerned. That wasn’t how it worked. Only the person who made the choice held blame. No one else.
“A couple weeks,” Cross murmured, staring straight into her goddamn soul.
“Yeah.”
“That’s why he did it.”
Catherine frowned. “What, who?”
“Your father.”
“What did my dad do?”
“That bastard,” he whispered.
Cross finally let her go. Catherine tucked her arm into her chest, and hid her secrets once more.
“I … uh, have to … go,” Cross mumbled. “Yeah, I have to go. I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, babe.”
He walked backward, and nodded like he was trying to convince himself of what he said. Still, in his eyes, Catherine saw pain and hate and violence shining back. A promise of his chaos sure to come.
“Cross, wait,” Catherine said.
He had already turned his back to her. He didn’t answer her call, or her following shout. In seconds, he was inside his vehicle and the lights flashed when the engine growled. She watched his Rover’s tires smoke on the way out of the lot.
Your father.
Why he did it.
Bastard.
Those words drifted through her mind again.
Something was very wrong.
Cross’s penthouse was too quiet. He tried to stay out of it as much as possible. He would sleep wherever the fuck he could just to avoid coming home. His parents’ place. Zeke’s apartment. The goddamn hotel down the street.
Anywhere but here.
It was just easier that way. Easier to pretend like he had done the right thing by making Catherine leave; easier than walking floors that were meant for both of them, and not just one.
He wasn’t even sure how long it had been now since he put her in that elevator. A week, but probably closer to two. He spent his days doing everything and anything except thinking about his place, her, and all the rest. He exhausted his mind and worked his body to the bone so that when night came, he dreamt of nothing.
He didn’t want to hurt in his dreams, too.
Cross eyed the boxes in the corner of his place. Catherine’s things. Someone should have come and picked them up by now, yet no one had.
That could have been partly his fault.
He’d changed his number because he figured if he heard her voice even once, his resolve was going to come crumbling down.
She needed help. She needed to get her life together. She needed him to make her do it because she was never going to do it on her own.
She needs you, he thought.
Cross pushed those thoughts down. They were punishing, and he was already hating himself enough. He already ached without adding more to it.
A knock on the penthouse door made Cross lift his head from his hands. His phone rested on the couch beside him, unblinking with a missed message or call. Nothing to say someone would be coming over.
He was avoiding people as much as he could. It was possible that whoever was at his door wanted to check up on him. His step-father, maybe. Or Zeke. He kept his conversations with everyone stilted, short, and never too deep.
They knew something was wrong.
Cross wouldn’t let them pry.
The second knock came stronger—persistent. He pushed up from the couch with a sigh, ignoring the tiredness weighing down his body and mind.
Later,
when asked, Cross would say his exhaustion was the only reason he didn’t check the peephole. He probably still would have opened the door even if he had looked.
Cross blinked out of the memory, and tried to loosen his grip on the steering wheel. His white-knuckled grip was the only true sign of his rage. Everything else was blank and cold. That was how he learned to deal with his rage, after all.
To shut off.
To go quiet.
Silence in screams.
Calm in chaos.
Indifference in restlessness.
It had taken him years to finally settle the wild boy he had once been. All the men around him growing up who told him rage and fast violence would make him weak had been right. It made him a target because he could be easily provoked, and quick to react.
Now, he could stare a man in the face while they erupted with their weaknesses, and smile. Their loss was his gain. They never saw his violence coming.
Calmly vicious. Silently seething. Indifferently cold.
For the most part, Cross took great pride in that. Today, however, he was struggling to keep it together.
His cell phone rang, and he didn’t even look down as he hit the Bluetooth button on his Range Rover. “Yeah, speak.”
“You called me first, man,” Zeke said through the speakers.
Cross took a sharp turn, not even checking his rearview mirror or turning on his blinker. He didn’t even know where he was going. All he knew was that he was heading back to the center of the city. “I need you to find out some information for me and fast.”
“How fast? I’m not a fucking miracle worker, Cross.”
“This shouldn’t be too hard,” Cross muttered.
“What is it?”
“Make some calls.”
“All right.”
“And find the Marcello Don for me,” Cross said. “Ten minutes, Zeke. I want a location in ten fucking minutes. Don’t test my patience today. It doesn’t even exist.”
He hung up before his friend could ask questions or refuse. He wasn’t explaining shit.
Cross stroked his bottom lip with his thumb, and he swore he was thrown back to that day in a blink all over again. Like he could taste the blood in his mouth from his busted lip.
A gun to the face hurt like hell.
Cross opened the penthouse door only to find a gun at his face. No, not pointing at him. Smashing into his face like a bag of fucking rocks. The hard, cold metal busted his lip open on impact, and loosened a few teeth. Blood bloomed in his mouth.
The shock of the attack sent Cross sprawling backward with a shout. His back hit the floor hard, and knocked the air right out of his lungs.
It only took him a couple of seconds to gain his bearings and realize what was happening, but it was seconds too long. Cross found he couldn’t fight back because his attacker was already on him again.
The butt of a gun to the face.
A boot to his ribs.
Another hit to the face.
A fist.
A kick.
Another, and another.
“Fuck,” Cross grunted out.
He turned on his side, pretty goddamn sure that kick had cracked his rib. He spat the blood in his mouth to the hardwood floor. One more kick came to his face, and sent his head snapping back with enough force to make his neck strain.
“Dante, relax,” came a kind of, sort of familiar voice.
“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, and every single breath hurt. It probably didn’t help that his breaths were coming out short and shuddering. Like he couldn’t catch it well enough to make any difference. The blood in his mouth kept coming, making him choke. His vision blurred, but he wasn’t sure why.
He could barely see at all.
Still, the form up above him became clearer the closer the man came. Dante Marcello leaned over Cross with his gun already aimed. Cross looked down the barrel of the nine-millimeter and found he didn’t know what to say.
For the first time in his life, he was speechless.
Dante pistol whipped him in the mouth one more time with the barrel. Cross finally learned what gun metal tasted like in those moments.
Cold.
Rusty with his blood.
Hard.
Lonely.
Unsure.
Cross exhaled another sore breath.
This was not what death should feel like.
The ringing through the speakers of the Rover brought Cross from his thoughts with a bang. He hated how his mouth tasted like blood—rusty and tangy—for no particular fucking reason except his memories.
That had been almost seven years ago.
It should be over.
Out of his head.
Yet, it still felt like yesterday.
“I made some calls,” Zeke said over the speakers.
“And?”
“Dante’s in uptown Manhattan at one of his brother’s restaurants. Cazza, or something? Supper with his wife. My contact said the brother may or may not be there, too.”
“Which brother?” Cross asked.
“What in the hell is going on, man?”
Cross kept his gaze on the road, and his hands tight to the wheel. “Just answer my damn question, Zeke.”
“Hey, at least give me a heads up if some kind of bad shit is about to happen, Cross. I could skip over there and maybe try to save your dumb ass from getting shot.”
“Nobody saved me years ago,” Cross replied.
Zeke grunted under his breath. “Shit, nobody knew that was going to happen, either.”
“Which brother?”
“Lucian, I guess. The underboss.”
Cross hung up the phone.
He was looking at familiar roads. His mind was seeing a familiar scene. He didn’t see the white Lexus following close behind in the rearview mirror.
Cross choked on blood.
Dante laughed.
“All right, Dante, you made your point,” Lucian said. “Let’s go.”
Dante was only looking at Cross. He bent down on one knee, grabbed Cross by the throat, and forced him to look in his green gaze.
Eyes that were familiar.
Eyes that matched the woman he loved.
Eyes that looked like they wanted to kill.
“This is your one and only fucking warning,” Dante said.
Cross swallowed saliva and blood. It made him want to gag.
“Stay the fuck away from my daughter from here on out,” Dante said through clenched teeth. “Don’t you ever even breathe in her direction again, Cross. Stay far the hell away. You come near me or mine again, and I will ruin you and yours. This city will crumble from what I will do to your family. In fact, make it easy on all of us and get the hell out of this state. Understood?”
Cross just blinked.
He was too stunned to do anything else.
What had caused this?
Cross didn’t invite this.
“Understood?” Dante spat out.
“Yeah,” Cross croaked.
The gun shifted suddenly, and the noise deafened when it fired. Cross felt pain rip through his shoulder that instantly made him grab at the wound. Something hot, wet, and sticky slipped through his fingertips.
Dante let him go. “So you’ll have something to keep from this meeting. A reminder, if you will. A gift.”
“Dante,” Lucian hissed one last time.
Cross still couldn’t move when he heard the door slam shut seconds later.
Cross shook the memory off as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. He ignored the chill in the mid-September wind as he headed across the street. He hadn’t even shut off his Rover, and actually left it running right whe
re he parked it.
A horn blared as he walked through traffic.
Cross flipped up his middle finger.
He didn’t look at the car.
“Cross!”
The voice calling his name was familiar, and oh, so sweet. Unfortunately, stopping to answer her call or talk would mean calming down and taking time to think about what he was going to do.
Cross couldn’t afford that.
He didn’t want to think.
Or feel.
Right then, he had one fucking thing on his mind. One man to find who had shit to answer for, and that was it. Nothing, and no one, was going to stop him from getting this done.
It was a long time coming.
Almost seven long years.
Cross took the uptown Manhattan restaurant’s steps two at a time. He kept his head down, and acted like he didn’t hear the second shout of his name.
“Cross, wait!”
He pulled open the restaurant’s doors.
“Cross!”
“Cross. What the hell?”
He groaned, tender and sore.
He was pretty sure he was dead.
“Shit, man … can you get your eyes open at all”
Cross tried to blink, or pry his eyes open, but it only hurt more. He could taste dried blood on his lips and old blood inside his mouth. “Fuck, that hurts.”
“Holy Christ, I bet,” Zeke muttered. “No wonder you were passed out. You’re bleeding all over the damn floor.”
Something touched his burning shoulder.
Cross jerked away with a shout.
“Okay, that’s bad. That bullet graze is long and deep. It’s still bleeding, Cross.”
“Just don’t fucking touch it.”
“Someone’s going to need to get it closed.”
His friend sounded so far away, yet still close.
“I mean, I guess your nose isn’t broken. That’s a plus.”
Zeke’s attempt at humor did make Cross chuckle even though he still couldn’t open his eyes. He didn’t think that particular thing was good. The laughing made his chest hurt like hell, though, and he coughed through the ache.
“Ow, fucking hell,” Cross mumbled.
“Who came in on you like this?” his friend asked.
Easy, careful touches pressed on Cross’s face.
“How long have you been on the floor?”
