Page 101 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“Sure, babe. Do you—”

“You should have told me,” Catherine said, cutting off Cross’s words. “Back then, I mean. You were the only one who knew, or had an idea, that I was struggling with the lies I was juggling and the act I put on. You should have told me.”

“Maybe you should have tried being honest, too.”

Catherine didn’t deny it. “You still should have told me, Cross.

Cross opened his mouth to say something, maybe ask if another day would be a better time to do this, but Catherine’s glare quieted him instantly. She knocked on the door of Andino’s Brooklyn brownstone. It took another thirty seconds of knocking before Andino finally came to the door.

He opened it up with a, “What the fuck, you can’t call or something?”

Catherine pushed past her cousin, forcing the door wide open, and making Andino take a wide step back. She gave Andino a shove on his bare chest, and pointed a finger at his face. “You … you fucking asshole.”

“Hey, don’t come here to my home calling me names, Catty.”

Cross stepped into the hallway of the brownstone, and closed the door behind him. Andino passed him a look, and the man’s gaze narrowed.

“You told her, then?”

Cross shrugged. “Guess so.”

Catherine stepped in front of Cross, and back in the line of her cousin’s vision. “Don’t even pay him any attention. It’s me you need to be talking to, Andino.”

“How dare you?” Catherine shrieked.

Cross cringed. Catherine only got loud when she was at her limit.

“I beg your pardon?” Andino asked.

“You know why I’m here. You know what you did … what you’ve been doing!”

“Catherine, it’s not even a big deal. So your parents know you’ve been hustling for me, whatever. Who gives a shit? They clearly don’t. They just kept quiet because they wanted you to tell them. I went along with it, all right. That’s it.”

“No, that’s not it,” Catherine muttered, stepping up to her cousin again. “That’s not even close to being it, you prick.”

She poked her finger into Andino’s chest hard enough to make the guy flinch. As big as a linebacker, Andino easily towered over Catherine in height. He had a good eighty pounds of muscle on her slim one-hundred-twenty pounds, too. Yet, in the face of her rage, he took a hesitant step back. Cross didn’t blame him.

“You’ve listened to me say over and over again how anxious it made me to even think my parents would find out that I was hustling drugs,” Catherine hissed. “You played along with that, Andino, you joked with me about it, and fed those fears to get a rise out of me. Or, that’s what I thought. Because we’re family, right, so you didn’t mean me any harm. You couldn’t, but you did. You did that shit not because you knew how I felt, but because of what you wanted.”

“I—”

“Money,” Catherine interjected with another sharp jab of her finger into Andino’s chest. “That’s what this was about for you. Not the fact that telling me could have saved me a lot of unnecessary worrying and work hiding what I was doing all these years. No, you didn’t tell me because you liked the money I was making.”

“Exactly that,” Andino said simply.

Catherine straightened like someone had shoved a rod up her spine. She dropped her hand. “You’re not even ashamed of it.”

Andino lifted a single shoulder like it didn’t matter. “Nope. You’re fucking predictable, Catherine. All you would need was the slightest idea that your daddy didn’t like what you were doing, and you would fuck off somewhere else. Or even better yet, you’d run to your mother and get in on her shit. Here’s the thing, I wasn’t letting that happen. So yeah, I played along. Yeah, I worked your fears a bit to make sure you kept your business with me separated far away from your parents. And fuck yeah, I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

Andino smirked, adding, “This is my crew, Catherine, and my money we’re talking about. It’s business. I supply you. I keep you going. You make me money. That’s how it works, and I want it to keep working. There’s nothing else to be said about it.”

Catherine nodded, and took a step back. “Well, fuck you, Andino. I’ve got news for you—I’ll never deal for you again. Not after this. I promise you that.”

“Catty, you don’t get it. That’s not how it works in this business. You don’t get to just drop the person that’s kept you above water and helped you make a name. You owe me for getting you where you are, sweetheart. You can be pissed off about it all you want. Still, when next month rolls around, make sure you’ve got my money, and you’re picking up your next package to run.”

“Hey,” Cross said, stepping in between the two. His gaze locked on Andino’s. “If she’s done, man, then that’s the fucking end of it. Let her be done if that’s what she wants.”

“That’s not how it works, Cross, and you know it.”