Page 163 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“Still would have made you pick those cards up with your teeth.”

Zeke didn’t deny it, and went back to shuffling the cards. Cross kept one eye on his friend, and another on the meeting happening just across the dimly lit bar. Being eighteen and just three days away from his high school graduation, Cross wouldn’t have thought that watching a drug deal go down was what he would be doing.

Well, he wasn’t so much watching as making sure bad shit didn’t happen.

Rick—the enforcer that never used to leave Cross the hell alone when he was younger—laid out six bricks of wrapped methamphetamine to the table. Side by side, the bricks sat untouched by the gang leader wanting to buy the drugs.

Although, Rick wasn’t an enforcer anymore. As far as Cross understood, being that he was only a foot soldier who wasn’t supposed to know the inner family business of made men, Rick had earned a better title. A Caporegime, or just Capo, to people like Cross and anyone under the guy.

“Cutting it close for time here, aren’t you?” Zeke asked.

Cross ignored his friend’s question, and what it meant.

Eyes on the table, Cross, always.

Zeke was not like him, in a lot of ways. He’d spent the majority of his younger and teen years doing whatever the hell he wanted, instead of being mentored by his father to be a made man. Cross was pretty sure his mentoring started when he learned to walk and talk.

The bar was a regular place for drug deals and other business. One of the many places Wolf owned, alongside Cross’s step-father. Every Capo in the Donati family owned their own businesses to do work out of, too.

The bar usually opened around twelve in the afternoon, and didn’t close until three in the morning. It wasn’t unusual for a couple of people to be scattered around inside, drinking or watching the shitty television up in the corner that always had one piece of the screen that was black.

Cross and Zeke sitting in the corner certainly didn’t look suspicious to the gang leader, or it probably didn’t make him concerned. They were the only two in the bar that afternoon, though. Zeke was old enough to be inside drinking, hence his bottle of beer. Cross, on the other hand, simply looked old enough to be a patron.

He drank water because he had to drive.

“Cross,” Zeke said, “seriously, look at the time, man.”

He wasn’t looking anywhere but at Rick and the gang leader from the corner of his eye. Rick tapped the wrapped meth bricks with one finger, and nodded when the other man shrugged. The gang leader bent down to grab something from the bag at his feet, and from the other side of the table, Rick likely couldn’t see what the guy was going to pull out.

Cross could see, though. That’s why he was there. To watch a made man’s back.

Nothing more.

“Four G’s?” he heard the man ask.

“Four,” Rick confirmed.

Money, Cross thought. The gang leader should have pulled out money.

Cross saw a gun come out instead. He didn’t even think about it. He just reacted to what he knew was going to be a bad situation for all four men in the bar, and the old barkeep snoring away on his stool behind the cash register.

The gold-tinted Eagle his step-father had given him for his eighteen birthday months ago came out from behind his back, and pointed across the room at the threat without him really considering the actions. It was second nature—instinct. Cross flicked off the safety, and cocked back the hammer just as the gang leader lifted his own gun to point at Rick.

A single bullet plugged into the guy’s temple barely even a half of a second after Cross pulled the trigger. The Eagle was one vicious weapon, with a kickback that could injure a weak wrist, and a force that could send a body flying.

That’s exactly what it did.

The gang leader’s temple blew apart, blood gushing, and brain matter spraying.

Zeke slammed back into the chair he sat on at the same time the barkeep fell off his stool with a painful grunt as he hit the floor.

“Holy motherfucker,” Zeke said low, his eyes stretching wide. “How can you be that fast, and with that good of an aim? Jesus. You get to be one or the other, but not both, asshole. It’s not fair.”

Practice. And a really good appreciation and understanding of guns. Years’ worth of both things.

“Can’t help you’ve got shit for aim,” Cross said instead of explaining his skill.

Rick’s gaze slid to Cross’s from the other side of the room, appreciation and thanks being conveyed without actually saying it. He didn’t need to say it, really. Rick was the Capo, and Cross was the solider. He was given a job to do, and so he did it. He didn’t have to like the prick he was working for, but he did have to respect him.