Page 6 of Always: A Legacy Novel

As though he was stained, too.

“Because you’re almost fifteen,” Calisto said quietly. “That means I don’t see you as much. I don’t get very much say, and there’s no leash short enough to keep you where I would like to have you, Cross. It means even though I have told you again and again what you should or shouldn’t do, where you should or shouldn’t go, and all the rest, I still need to sometimes make sure you’re still listening.”

Well …

“All right,” Cross said.

But he still wasn’t okay with it.

Not entirely.

“What did you mean about the other thing?” Cross asked.

“Pardon?”

“Ideals, you said.” Cross subtly nodded toward the girl that was leaving the stage in preparation for another girl to come and take her spot. “What did you mean?”

“Women aren’t property, Cross. Too many men who hang around these places, and too many in our business, like to believe women are something to be owned. They make a show out of their women; they display them like trophies. As though they’ve won them; it’s not a competition. You earn a good woman by being a good man, that’s it. You can’t do that by treating a woman like your personal toy because then she becomes that ideal to those around you who are watching.”

Calisto sighed, and rested back in his chair. “Make men wish they were you; make them wish they were lucky enough to be you. As for women? Make them want to be with you, or want to be the woman standing next to you. But you don’t do that by putting a woman on display like a trophy you didn’t earn. Got it?”

Cross nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”

“It’s just like Wolf said, huh? You’re not interested in the show here at all, are you?”

“The show?”

Calisto sat straighter in his chair. “The girls, Cross.”

“Not really. What’s to be interested in? They’re letting it all out, anyway. I’ve seen tits and ass before. It’s not new.” Cross went back to his gun on the table. “And like you said, they’re not my type.”

Calisto laughed under his breath. “True. How did football tryouts go yesterday? Ma took you, right?”

“I killed it.”

Calisto smirked. “Didn’t expect any different. First string?”

“Quarterback.”

His step-father whistled low. “Well done. You know they’re probably not going to put you on first string when you enter the upper Academy next year for tenth grade.”

His private school only went from grades sixth through ninth before the higher grades, tenth through twelfth, were separated into what the school called the upper Academy. The upper grades were in an entirely different section, with private grounds and wings from the lower grades, effectively cutting off the younger kids from the older. The school as a whole was just known as the Academy of Westforth.

“It’s just that most of the time, younger grades get placed on second string.” Calisto made a dismissive noise under his breath. “If they even get picked at all.”

Cross shrugged. “I hope they like losing, then.”

“Arrogance is unbecoming.”

“I don’t know, I think it works for me.”

Calisto shook his head. “You’re fucking terrible, Cross.”

Wolf came up to the table, and set the glass of what looked to be vodka down in front of Calisto. “Yeah, but that kind of works for the little shit, too.”

Catherine Marcello’s favorite spot in her family’s large home had always been her parents’ office. It was a comforting place for her because she had spent so much time inside it. As a child, she used to hide under her father’s desk and play for hours on end until one of her parents came to find her. Despite having a house with too many rooms to fill, her parents—Catrina and Dante—shared an office space.

But she wasn’t a child anymore at thirteen-years-old.