Revere: A Legacy Novel (Cross + Catherine Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

  “Dante, it’s been a few years since we had a face to face, no?” Rhys Crain’s voice echoed through the speaker into a silent room. “As long as business is good between us, we never needed a meet, I suppose. Nature of the beast, my man.”

  A shuffling sound followed, and then a hollow chuckle.

  “Your daughter—she’s quite a beautiful thing,” Rhys murmured. “I was told she takes quite a bit after her mother. Catrina, I believe your wife’s name is. A vicious little Queen Pin. How cute.”

  Cross’s gaze found the woman in question standing on the other side of the kitchen island. She had been sipping a glass of wine. At the mention of her name, Catherine’s mother stiffened, and her knuckles went white around the glass.

  Rhys’ voice brought Cross back to the message at hand.

  “Listen, Marcello, your daughter really has nothing I need or want. I could certainly use her for something, but she’s a bit too Italian for my tastes. What I want are the guns I was promised. See, those guns have a place to be, and hands to be in. They’re going to make me a lot of money when they’re on the ground being put to use. I had some research done—seems the man you were using to run me the guns has ties to your daughter as well. Cross, they told me. Imagine, the gunrunner they use to ship my guns to me. What were the odds? I needed to make a damn good point here, didn’t I? Get me my guns.”

  Rhys barked out a date, and added, “You know where you can usually find me, Dante. Do make sure my guns are delivered.”

  Then, the call clicked off. Everyone in the room stayed silent, waiting for someone else to speak. Cross didn’t plan on being the first one to do so. At the moment, he didn’t have anything to say.

  Dante’s blazing green eyes turned on Cross. “Guess what I don’t have on hand right now?”

  Cross dragged a hand through his hair. “The guns he wants?”

  “Oh, I have lots of fucking guns stored all over this city, but not the kind you dumped. I have those assault weapons coming in next month to stock up, but that’s not when he wants them.”

  Yeah, that was bad.

  “What a terrible way to spend the Christmas holiday,” Catherine’s grandfather murmured.

  Everyone turned to look at the man.

  Including Cross.

  It was the first time he realized how close to Christmas they actually were. This was not how he wanted to spend it this year. Not when he had Catherine back finally. Except … she wasn’t back at all now.

  “Who is this man?” Calisto asked, taking everyone back to the conversation at hand.

  Dante sighed heavily. “No one.”

  “Someone, clearly.”

  “An associate,” Dante countered. “We all have them, don’t we?”

  Calisto still didn’t look like he was buying it.

  Lucian, the Marcello underboss, spoke up. “As far as we know, Rhys Crain is essentially a gun supplier to war-torn countries. He supplies anyone from terrorists to guerillas. He also likes to antagonize issues in those areas. Typically, he has some kind of gain to be had in the countries he supplies. Investment in corrupt government, or whatever powers are keeping the unrest at a dangerous level. He’s very rich, and very dangerous.”

  “So are we,” Catrina said quietly.

  “Pardon?” Lucian asked.

  “I said, so are we.”

  “So he wants some guns,” Wolf muttered, glancing between the Marcello family members. “Let’s get him his fucking guns.”

  Dante coughed out a bitter laugh. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I don’t have the fucking guns he wants. I can’t get them in the time that he wants them. We’re—”

  “I can get those guns,” Cross interjected, “or at least half of what he wants. I mean, it’s something. We can deal with whatever else after, as long as we have AKs and ARs for him to look at. Fucking dismantle them, and he won’t know the damn difference about how many there are.”

  “And after?” Dante asked sharply. “When he does realize we fucked him over on the shipment this time around?”

  Giovanni, the Marcello consigliere, cleared his throat. All eyes turned on him. “What if we made sure he never got the chance to know we fucked him over? Permanently.”

  Dante rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Tell me how we’re going to do that, Gio.”

  “Give me some time to figure it out and I will.”

  “We can all work on that,” Calisto said, looking to his son, “as long as you’ve got some kind of guns to run to him in the meantime, right?”

  Cross nodded.

  Dante shook his head. “Don’t even think about it. You’re not going to be the one running the guns this time around, Cross. You fucked this up once, and now we’re here. We don’t have the option for you to fuck it up again.”

  “You know why I did that, Dante.”

  “Fact remains—”

  “You’re a fucking idiot if you think I’m just going to sit around and hope you bring Catherine back to me in one piece,” Cross said calmly. “I have never known you to be a stupid man, Dante.”

  Dante glared.

  Cross held strong.

  “She’s my daughter,” Dante finally said.

  Cross nodded. “I know, but she’s my heart. I’ll get you the fucking guns—I’ll run them. You just tell me where, and make sure that man never comes down on us once it’s all been said and done.”

  “I—”

  “We can do that,” Catrina interrupted her husband.

  A look passed between Dante and Catrina.

  Then, the Marcello boss turned on him. “Twenty-four hours. Get those guns in port.”

  Cross was already heading out of the room before Dante had finished his order. He needed to move his ass because the clock had started, and time was running out already. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands as the voices behind him lessened as he came closer to the front of the Marcello mansion.

  One person had followed him.

  Zeke.

  His friend hollered after him, but Cross was too busy running shit scenarios through his head. He didn’t even hear Zeke behind him until his friend shoved his back into a wall.

  Zeke grabbed Cross’s face, and forced him to look at him. “Relax, huh? You’re not even hearing anything right now, Cross. You don’t work well when you’re being stupid.”

  He was so numb.

  So cold.

  So pissed.

  “Kind of can’t right now,” Cross managed to get out.

  His friend’s fingers dug into his skin. “It’s going to be fine.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Hey, we’re going to do what we have to do, and run some fucking guns. That’s what you do anyway, right? This time, you get a nice little gift when you get there. Figure it out. I’m going to do whatever the hell you need me to in the meantime; I got your back. You just do you.”

  Yeah …

  Cross could do that.

  Maybe.

  “I have to go back to Chicago,” Cross said. “Except I was just told not to step foot back in that city for a long time.”

  Zeke’s brow furrowed. “What, why?”

  “I screwed them over.”

  “Shit.”

  It didn’t matter.

  “Chicago has guns, and I know how to get them. That’s where we need to go.”

  Zeke grimaced. “Let’s try not to get killed before we can even get Catherine back, all right?”

  “I need those guns. I’m going to get those damn guns.”

  “Holy shit,” Zeke muttered as his eyes stretched wide. “You’re sure there’s enough guns in these crates?”

  Cross shrugged, taking in the back of the eighteen-wheeler and the three crates filled with disassembled assault rifles. “Probably not, but we just need to drop guns and get the hell out of there, right? This was supposed to be a run for next month. We were taking it down close to the Mexico border, and then pack some of it on planes. A bit of it was heading into the und
erground tunnels beneath the border for travel, too. This is one of two. They were waiting on the other half before we headed out with it.”

  “Where were they going from the plane?”

  “I don’t know. My job was going to be to get them on the plane. I only focus on what I am told to do, nothing else.”

  “All right, so what now?”

  Cross clapped his hands together. “Now we get this truck out of here and on the road. We’ve got fuck all for time, so let’s try not to get pulled over speeding back.”

  “Because that would be bad,” Zeke mumbled.

  “Really bad.”

  For everyone.

  “How are you going to explain this to Chicago, man?”

  Cross hadn’t really thought of it. He simply knew where the Outfit kept their guns hidden, how to get inside the warehouse, and a few other details about this particular shipment to benefit him.

  “I think I might just let Dante handle that one,” Cross admitted.

  “A war between New York and Chicago. That sounds fun.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  Except … he knew it was a damn good possibility.

  Catherine was worth it.

  “Okay, we’re just wasting time,” Cross said.

  The longer they stayed there, the better chance they had of getting caught by someone from the Outfit. He hadn’t been all too surprised to find the warehouse wasn’t being watched, but that was only because Theo DeLuca, the man who trafficked guns for the organization, had his rules.

  One of those was keeping the locations of the guns a secret as much as possible. Only a handful of people ever knew what was happening with the weapons during runs, and where they might be being held until they started moving again. The weapons didn’t need to be constantly babysat if no one knew where they were to steal them. Cross, on the other hand, always knew because Theo trusted him.

  He sent a silent apology to the man. It was what it was. He had to do what he had to do.

  Cross turned and jumped out of the back of the truck, landing on the cement floor almost soundlessly. Zeke quickly followed. Cross pointed across the warehouse to a small office that was blocked off by a few cardboard boxes.

  “That’s where the keys for the rig are. In the desk, left side, top drawer.”

  “I mean, at least we know the Outfit is not going to report the damn thing as missing in an hour or something,” Zeke said to himself as he headed for the office. “It’s probably already hot as hell.”

  Cross didn’t deny his friend’s assumptions.

  Zeke was right.

  While Zeke searched for the keys, Cross headed to the back of the warehouse to unlock and open the bay doors. He pulled the chains to lift the heavy doors, and froze in place.

  Tommaso Rossi stood on the other side with his arms crossed over his chest, and his gaze stabbing with accusation. “Cross.”

  Shit.

  “Tommaso.”

  “Camilla says hello,” his brother-in-law said.

  Cross scratched at the underside of his jaw. “I meant to come over and have dinner the other day, but shit happened.”

  “Shit like my father telling you to get your ass out of this city?”

  “Kind of like that.”

  “Yet here you are,” Tommaso said.

  “Tom, let me ex—”

  “I don’t think I need you to. It looks to me like you’re about to steal our guns.”

  Cross tipped his head to the side. “Well, yeah?”

  The truth was supposed to set a man free, after all.

  Tommaso did not look impressed.

  “Theo has a guy come around and check on the warehouse once or twice a night, but the guy asked me to do it for him tonight as he had a thing to handle. I did not think I would find you here.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “I doubt that.” Tommaso let out a hard breath. “What, was fucking us over on gunrunning not enough for you? You figured why not sneak in and steal their shit, too? Jesus, I didn’t peg you for the type, Cross.”

  “You know I’m not, man.”

  Tommaso had to know that about Cross, if nothing else. The two young men had worked together since before Tommaso even had his goddamn license to drive. It was Cross who championed Tommaso to Camilla when his sister wavered on settling down, or running scared from her feelings. They had known each other for a decade.

  Tom was one of the very few people Cross considered a friend. He didn’t have a lot of those. They were more trouble than they were worth.

  “Then what are you doing here?” Tommaso asked.

  Cross shrugged. “I need guns, and you have them.”

  “Cross—”

  “Tom, I don’t have a lot of time. I need you to look the other way, and pretend like you didn’t see me here. Just let me take the fucking guns, and we can work the rest out at another time.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Right now? Yeah, a little bit.”

  Tommaso scowled. “How about this? You get your ass out of our warehouse, and I won’t tell the boss what I found you doing. Then, I won’t have to explain to my wife how I got her big brother killed. That sounds like a fair trade to me.”

  “Sorry, can’t do that.”

  “Cross, we good, or …?” Zeke hollered out from the office.

  Tommaso’s glare turned back on Cross. “You brought someone else here?”

  “Yeah, a friend. Mind your fucking business. I told you to look the other way.”

  “And I told you I can’t—”

  “Tom, they have Catherine,” Cross interrupted quietly. “I know you don’t know a whole lot about my personal life because I don’t share that shit, but here it goes. Catherine Marcello is my life. Everything about it, she is it. Personal. Public. Love. Hate. Every single little thing about me, is that woman. She has been my whole life since I was fourteen years old. Always. And they have her. I need guns; you have them. So right now, I need you to let me take them, and we can deal with the rest later.”

  Tommaso stilled on the spot.

  Cross chose to keep talking. “The thing is, I fucking like you. I like you a lot. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gotten the chance to marry my little sister. You know what I don’t like enough about you to do? Sacrifice Catherine. So here’s the thing, man. You might not want to explain to my sister about how you got me killed, and that’s fine. But I will absolutely explain to her why I killed your ass tonight. I will do it with a smile. She’ll hate me for it, sure, but that’s okay.”

  “Cross—”

  “I don’t have time to explain more,” Cross barked out, “so look at it like this. If you were me and Catherine was Camilla, I would expect you to do exactly what I am right now, and nothing less. Wouldn’t you do that?”

  Tommaso clenched his teeth together, and glanced away. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Because you would.”

  “You’re killing me here, Cross.”

  “Tom, please.”

  Tommaso cussed low, and waved an arm at the eighteen-wheeler behind Cross. “You’ve got two hours, and then I’m making a call.”

  “Thank you.” Cross smirked, adding, “Have your father call Dante Marcello, though, and not me. I’m not cleaning up this one. Neither one of us are bosses yet, right? Let the bosses fight it out.”

  “You’re such a shit. Make sure you’re out of this city when I make that call, Cross.”

  Oh, he definitely would be.

  “Nice boat,” Cross said.

  The sixty foot luxury yacht aptly named Beauty would do the job.

  Giovanni Marcello smiled. “I’ll let my father know you approve.”

  Up above, Cross watched Andino and John Marcello work with the other guys that were loading dismantled weapons. The guns would be moved beneath deck, and then all should be fine, if they could get out of port first.

  Cross headed back to the table that had been set up for him, and started working on
the route for his run. It as a delicate endeavor—gunrunning always was. The runner had to have a Plan A, a Plan B, and if all else failed, a Plan C. Usually, each plan had a different run route, a method of escape, and more.

  He just didn’t have time for all of that, and it left him with more anxiety than normal. His runs were clean and successful because he took the time to plan everything. Every mile, storm, gas station, and more. So much more.

  That couldn’t be done here.

  Wordlessly, Catherine’s other uncle—Lucian—slid paperwork across the table to Cross. “Coastguard info for tonight—approximate times and likely locations. We’re running a bit short on time for a proper bribe and all.”

  Cross looked over the info. “This will have to do.”

  He went back to the map.

  Calisto and Wolf came up to the table. His father said, “How many men are going to be on the boat with you?”

  “I don’t want to antagonize Rhys when we get there,” Cross said, “or make him feel threatened. Me, and the Captain. That’s it.”

  “That seems … dangerous.”

  “Very,” Cross agreed.

  What choice did he have?

  “It’s fine,” Giovanni said to Calisto, “we’re going to have a boat in the water down on the other side of Mexico, anyway. We’ll fly down, be there before he even gets to that area. We’ve got a contact with some of the shit we need, anyway. The satellite phones will keep us in touch with his boat—as long as we get into the water and stay a few miles back from him, all should be fine.”

  Cross wasn’t really listening. He was more concerned with his run, and the exchange that he would be doing, than whatever the rest were planning. He couldn’t pull off their plans, after all, only his own.

  “You stole guns from the Chicago Outfit?”

  Dante’s roar felt like drums beating in the back of Cross’s skull. His fucking vision swam with the things right in front of his eyes starting to melt together. He was dead on his feet, and the last thing he needed at the moment was someone shouting at him.

  “Tell me why you would steal guns from Chicago!”

  Cross rubbed at his eyes, blinked a couple times, and surveyed the map spread out over the metal table. He had a route to plan, and a single, small private island circled on the map was the place he apparently needed to get to. Or, that’s what Lucian explained when they finally got the eighteen-wheeler backed into the port.