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

by Bethany-Kris

  She was given nothing to distract herself. No books, games, television, or otherwise. She had nothing but her thoughts to keep her company.

  That, and her fears.

  Catherine found it odd that despite the amount of men she had witnessed when she first came onto the island, the place was strangely quiet. It was eerie, really. Occasionally, she would peer out the window to look at the back side of the island. It seemed the men who guarded the place rotated. Half of them on the front, the other half on the back.

  “Food,” Rami said from the doorway. “Move, now.”

  Catherine stared at him. “I’m not hungry.”

  She said that every time Rami brought her something to eat, although he didn’t look to be holding any food this time. She did drink the bottled water, but only if the cap had not been tampered with.

  He shrugged. “Boss says if you not eat here, you eat with him. Get up.”

  Catherine considered refusing, but she had the distinct feeling that Rami would simply drag her from the room. She pushed up to stand on tired legs, and followed Rami out of the bedroom. She rubbed at her wrists, thankful at least that her bindings had been cut off the first night.

  She didn’t pay much attention to the decoration of the house, or the paintings on the walls. She didn’t care for the intricate tiles on the floor, or the furniture in the rooms she passed by. None of it mattered—she just wanted out.

  “Here, boss,” Rami said.

  Catherine was shuffled into a dining room entryway. Rhys sat at a long cherry-stained oak table, with a napkin tucked into his collar, and a steak knife and fork in his hands. He pointed his knife toward the seat at the very end of the table, opposite to him.

  “Sit, Catherine,” he demanded.

  She quickly moved to the seat and sat down, staring at the plate that had been set out for her. Steak and vegetables—cooked perfectly, by the looks of it.

  Her stomach growled, but her mind refused.

  She was not eating for this man.

  “It’s the twenty-third of December today,” Rhys noted.

  Catherine only stared at him.

  “What were you expecting to do for your holidays, young lady?”

  Loving Cross.

  Eating good food.

  Church, church, and more church.

  Presents.

  Family.

  Happiness.

  “Anything but this,” she settled on saying.

  “You’re not hungry?” Rhys asked as he cut a piece of his own steak.

  “No.”

  “You haven’t eaten in … three days, now.”

  “So?” Catherine asked.

  “Are you one of those girls who equate your worth to the size of your waist?”

  Catherine’s gaze narrowed. “No.”

  “Then what it is?”

  “I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t eat from the paw of a wolf.”

  “Ah, I see.” Rhys grinned, and took a bite of the steak. He chewed and swallowed. “Starve, then.”

  “I’ll do just that, thanks.”

  “Rami says you’re not sleeping when he checks on you,” Rhys noted.

  “Rami should worry less about my habits if all you plan to do is kill me once you get your guns.”

  Rhys tipped a hand to the side, uncaringly. “Might as well enjoy your last days, no?”

  Catherine refused to reply.

  He didn’t seem to mind.

  “Tell me what it was like growing up with a mob boss for a father,” Rhys murmured.

  Catherine avoided his gaze. “I don’t think so.”

  “What about your boyfriend—Cross, right? Donati, they said his last name was. Another mafia child. Or as you people would say, a principe della mafia.”

  “Again, no,” Catherine said.

  “You won’t even indulge my conversation?”

  “No.”

  “And why not, girl?”

  Catherine met his gaze, unafraid. “Because you don’t deserve to know those people, our lives, or who they are to me. I would eat shit before I would ever tell you a single thing about the people I love, or why I love them. Okay?”

  Rhys let out a hard breath. “I should have taken your mother—his wife—and not you. You’re too difficult, girl. You make everything a pain. I can’t stand it.”

  Catherine scoffed. “If you think I’m bad, you really don’t want to meet my mother. She would put me to shame, and do it with a smile.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Sure, if she didn’t rip your throat out first.”

  Catherine shivered on the edge of the dock. The tide was starting to come in, and the sun was setting. It left a chill in the air like nothing else. She didn’t have much of a choice but to sit there and deal with it, considering her wrists and ankles were tied.

  At least they weren’t tied together.

  She tried to force herself to stop jittering, but it seemed impossible. Glancing over her shoulder, she found all the men of Rhys’ arsenal had come out to stand along the beach with their weapons in hand.

  Except a couple …

  A couple of the men were loading what looked to be fucking grenade launchers. The large, frightening weapons made Catherine sick to her stomach.

  Rami peered down at her. “Remember, girl, quiet.”

  Catherine nodded.

  Honestly, she didn’t see what choice she had.

  Rhys chatted with a couple of the men near the end of the dock, and for the most part, he was in a happy mood. Mostly.

  “I don’t like the time of day he’s making the drop, boss,” one of the men said.

  “It’s fine,” Rhys replied, waving the statement off. “Just get my guns off the boat, and we will worry about the rest. Was there any other word from the Mexican ship about anything else we might need to know?”

  “According to our contact, the yacht is alone in the Gulf, and it came down from the States that way. From the position they gave at the time, he should be getting here anytime.”

  “Good, good.” Rhys clapped his hands together. “How many people on the boat?”

  “The guy said Thermal Imaging could only find two.”

  “The Marcello boss listened, then.”

  “I guess so,” the man replied.

  “Too bad it doesn’t matter,” Rhys said with a laugh.

  Catherine stared back out at the water.

  Her heart was breaking.

  Surely this wasn’t the end.

  After everything, it couldn’t be like this.

  Cross was coming, though.

  So, Catherine waited.

  The familiar yacht dropped anchor a good hundred feet from the dock Catherine was still sitting on. She remembered spending several days of summer on her grandparents’ yacht, but the sight of it with darkness looming all around did not bring her a sense of comfort like it might have any other time.

  Already, several of Rhys’ red and black boats were heading out on the water. Catherine wasn’t bothering to look at them; a better sight was near.

  Cross stood on the bow. His arms folded over his chest, and he stared back at her, unmoving. She found a desperate urge rising in her chest to shout out to him; to warn him of the plan she knew was unfolding without his knowledge. A plan that would leave them both dead.

  Rami standing above her, with a gun pointed at her head, kept her quiet.

  Rhys came up to stand at the edge of the dock with a megaphone in hand. He turned the megaphone on, and put it up to his face to speak.

  “Guns first, young man, and then the girl.”

  Even from her distance, Catherine could see Cross nod once.

  Then, he turned away and disappeared to somewhere else on the boat. Catherine’s heart sank as she suddenly realized her one chance to warn him might have been entirely lost in that one second. It was very possible that one of Rhys’ men might kill Cross the very moment they were on the boat with him.

  Catherine didn’t know for sure, but it wa
s enough to make her stomach churn. So much so, that she felt what bit of water she had sipped on that day climb up her throat without any kind of warning. She barely had time to turn to the side before vomit and bile spewed from her mouth, off the side of the dock. Still, some got on her cheeks and hands.

  Rami grunted disgustedly above her. Wordlessly, and without permission from Rhys, he bent down and undid the rope from around her wrists. He pointed at the water where her vomit was already washing away.

  “Clean, now.”

  Catherine glared at the man.

  She had a good mind to ask if he could say more than a couple or a few words at a time.

  She stayed quiet instead.

  Slowly, she washed the sickness from her face and hands, using the salt water to hide her shakiness. She took her time because she worried the moment she was finished, Rami might tie her wrists up again. She wondered how long she could fuck around with the ropes off.

  Maybe then …

  Catherine glanced at the yacht again, only to see Cross had come back to the bow. Rhys was shouting orders through his megaphone as the red and black colored boats docked along the low lying stern of Beauty.

  Cross didn’t move an inch, instead staying right where he was, and keeping his gaze firmly locked on hers. Like he was waiting for something—a sign, maybe.

  Anything.

  Catherine wondered … if this was her one chance to warn him, and if she did, what good might it do them? There was no one there but them. His one boat, to Rhys’ fleet. His one man, to Rhys’ army.

  Hell, if they were going to die anyway, Catherine kind of wanted to make sure she at least went with him. Touching him. Holding him. Near him.

  Anything except like this.

  Cross’s head turned to the side just a bit, as though he could hear something from behind him. Catherine’s gaze darted to the men still on the boats at the yacht’s stern, only to see their heads were also turned to the side, and looking somewhere in the distance.

  She looked up.

  Rhys’ was barking for someone through the megaphone.

  Rami’s gun was pointed away from her, and his gaze was on the yacht.

  Catherine took her chance.

  She was up on her feet and stumbling the last two feet to the end of the dock before she could even think about it. Despite her ankles being tied, she managed it without someone yanking her back. She jumped just as she felt Rami coming behind her. His mother tongue spilling from his lips.

  Catherine screamed just before she hit the water. “It’s a trap, Cross!”

  And all she felt was ice.

  The water was cold; so goddamn cold. It took her breath away, and stung her skin. She spread her arms wide, seeing blackness all around because of the night sky. She tried to kick her legs, and forgot that they were still tied for the moment.

  Still, Catherine broke the surface.

  She sucked in air, and went back under.

  All she knew was the direction she wanted to go, and so she did. Catherine flicked her tied legs like a mermaid might flip a fin, and swam. She stayed under the surface until her lungs were fucking burning and she couldn’t hold off on getting air any longer.

  She came up with a gasp to break the surface.

  “Swim, babe!”

  Catherine blinked.

  Cross’s voice echoed along the water.

  “Swim!”

  She swore his words carried with the waves of the water that kept trying to push her back under with the current. She couldn’t see with the waves hitting her face, and the darkness, but she thought he was in the water, too.

  Maybe.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  Catherine swam.

  She heard boats going, and engines purring. She looked up only to see the bow of her grandparents’ yacht on fire, and then a second later, something blew into the side of the boat, rocking it and tearing another fiery hole straight through it.

  Catherine remembered those grenade launchers the men had.

  Her stomach rolled again.

  She kept swimming.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  Salt water choked her.

  Her vision wouldn’t clear.

  She kept swimming.

  Catherine felt a hard wave come up as a boat engine suddenly became very loud. She saw the light blue boat—a speedboat the same color as the ocean in the daylight—a second before arms were reaching over the side. She was pulled from the water and into the boat in a heartbeat, and suddenly she could breathe again.

  Her back hit the deck.

  She sucked in air and spat out water.

  Her gaze locked on Zeke.

  And then her father.

  “Get him!” Zeke roared. “Get him out of the fucking water! Get him now!”

  “Catty … dolcezza, look at me,” Dante murmured.

  She locked gazes with her father. “Cross.”

  “Worry about you right now, huh?”

  A pattering sound beat against the side of the boat, making every single person on deck hit their knees. Gunfire, she realized.

  “Jesus Christ, somebody get him out of the water,” she heard Zeke hiss.

  Catherine stared up at the sky, all black and dotted with stars.

  There was something else up there, too.

  A white splash against the dark background.

  A plane, maybe?

  She tried to focus, to take in details. The plane was a hell of a lot closer to the water than it should be. Maybe fifty feet, or a bit higher. A Cessna, probably. She only thought that was what the plane was because of the large open door on the side—like the ones they used for sky diving.

  “Calisto’s plane is coming in from the east,” she heard her Uncle Lucian say. “Giovanni’s from the west.”

  Catherine focused on the plane again just in time to see large barrels be shoved one after the other out the side of the plane. What in the hell were those things? Why was there a whitish smoke trailing behind them as they fell?

  “Jesus, I said—”

  “They’ll get him,” Dante interrupted Zeke. “Don’t be stupid and jump off the boat right now. They’ll turn you into shark bait with all the bullets flying.”

  Catherine rolled over to her knees and looked over the side of the boat. Another speedboat, blue like theirs, was circling back fifty feet away. She glanced back to the island just in time to see the barrels hit the ground.

  One on the house.

  One closer to the beach.

  One further to the west side of the island.

  All exploded on impact.

  Bright yellows and reds.

  It shook the fucking earth.

  Catherine’s air caught in her chest.

  “Get down!” Dante shouted.

  Catherine was dragged down to the deck of the boat, and pinned under her father’s body. She heard something pepper the side of the boat, but she didn’t think it was bullets that time.

  “Fertilizer and diesel did the trick,” Lucian mumbled from the front of the boat.

  “Shit, I can’t decide right now if the nails for shrapnel was a good idea or not,” her father replied.

  “Where’s Cross?” Catherine asked.

  “Still in the water, sweetheart.”

  “Where?”

  She didn’t get an answer.

  She wondered if they knew.

  “There’s Gio’s plane,” Lucian murmured.

  Catherine looked up to see another plane coming in from the opposite direction. Again, too close to the water. Again, door wide open.

  “Cross!” Zeke roared.

  “Get down!” Dante shouted back.

  Zeke jumped over the side of the boat as the second slew of barrels were pushed out the side of the plane. Catherine closed her eyes, covered her eyes, and prayed.

  She was supposed to be Cross’s God, wasn’t she?

  That’s what he said.

  She was the thing he most revered.

  So she
prayed.

  She hoped God answered.

  Catherine found she was still praying to Cross. He was the only thing she knew how to revere, too.

  Cross tried to take in air, and only aspirated on water. Gunfire echoed all around him, and the colors of fire lit up the sky as explosions made the waves choppier. Chaos and confusion surrounded him.

  Every time he thought he was gaining his bearings, another swell of water came, and he would be pulled back under. The current was too strong. The waves, too high. The water was too black.

  He couldn’t breathe.

  He couldn’t see.

  He couldn’t swim.

  It didn’t help that his shoulder was aching for a reason he didn’t know, and he couldn’t fucking find Catherine. He couldn’t even call out to her.

  Cross tried to break the surface one more time as another wave crashed over him, but he only swallowed more sea water.

  Exhaustion swelled through his body like the water sucking him deeper. Days of no sleep were finally starting to catch up to him. As hard as he tried to get higher, he could tell he was sinking lower.

  He was sure, as his vision failed and water rushed his lungs, the earth finally quieted around him. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was silent again.

  Yet, he only thought of Catherine.

  “Come on, come on … fuck, come on, Cross.”

  The sound around him was muffled, as though someone had put ear muffs over his ears. Cross didn’t like that at all.

  “Get in this fucking boat, Dante!” a woman screamed.

  “I’m coming, Cat. It takes more than three seconds to move fifty feet, okay?”

  Cross could taste salt in his throat, and it burned. He wanted to gag, but the reflex just wouldn’t come. He tried to take a breath, but it felt like something was caught in his esophagus, and blocking the pathway for air.

  “Cross! Cross, please!”

  Why was she crying like that?

  Why was Catherine crying?

  “Move,” a familiar voice uttered.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Zeke mumbled.

  “That’s the fucking problem. Move.”

  Hands on his chest pushed hard.

  Hard enough for him to feel it.