Page 11 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“Yeah, shit.”

He had done that.

Andino. “I’m cashing that in, Cross. When can you meet up with me?”

“How urgent is it?”

“I can wait a bit, but not too long.”

“Next week?” Cross asked.

“Next week is perfect. I have a restaurant I work out of most of the time. I’ll message you the address, and you figure out a time.”

Andino hung up the call without a goodbye. Cross didn’t really mind on that end, but he wished Andino hadn’t called at all.

Cross’s life was busy. He filled his days with noise, people, and work. He filled his nights with the same things. That way, he didn’t have to think about an eighteen-year-old girl he’d left behind. A girl he pushed away hoping she would save herself in the process.

Catherine.

Once, his mother had told him something he never forgot about love. Love is strong—like death. Cross had gotten the Italian version tattooed on his ribcage almost seven years ago.

L'amore é forte come la morte. How appropriate. How deafening. How punishing and suffocating and true those words were. How raw and beautiful and awful. It only made sense to put the words permanently on his body, and then he would be forced to see them every day, even when he didn't want to. Not forget, no. Just see. He couldn't forget her, after all. He never had.

Cross would love Catherine Marcello forever.

Even if she didn’t know.

Even if she didn’t care.

Even if she didn’t love him.

Always.

That was his promise. He didn’t know how not to keep it. He had simply chosen to love her from afar. So far, in fact, that he was pretty damn sure she didn’t even know he was there anymore.

A week later, Cross stepped inside Andino Marcello’s restaurant. He wasn’t sure how he knew Catherine was inside too, but he did. He just knew. All those years without being close to Catherine had not desensitized the way it made Cross react, even when he couldn’t immediately see her.

His fucking hair stood up on end. His nerves twisted. His heart raced.

Like she was a drug, and he itched for a fix.

Cross’s gaze skipped over the people eating, and sure enough, he found Catherine in a corner booth. She was older, sure, but her features hadn’t changed a bit. Long, wavy dark hair. Legs that looked best naked and wrapped around his head or waist. Slim with curves that could make any fucking dress she wanted look like it cost a million bucks. High cheekbones, a heart-shaped face, striking green eyes, full lips that naturally fell into a pout, and a delicate nose that set her pixie-like face beautifully. Collarbones peeked out from under the blouse she wore.

A face like her mother’s. Those eyes and that hair was all her father.

It was her beauty that disarmed people. It was easy to see beauty, and ignore the dangers it hid. Cross was no exception, although he figured he knew more of Catherine’s secrets than her dangers.

He swore to God, if Andino Marcello was trying to set some kind of nasty shit up on him with Catherine, Cross would kill the fucker. A war between crime families be damned.

Still, even as the wariness settled into his gut, Cross couldn’t help himself. His feet moved before he could think twice about it. He headed in Catherine’s direction.

Her head was stuck in a textbook. Given it was August, he figured she must be taking a summer class. Although if she was at Andino’s restaurant, a place Cross knew the guy used for business meetings, maybe she was still hustling drugs for her cousin, too.

Catherine just took a bite of her pasta dish when Cross spoke. “I thought I recognized that face.”

Familiar green eyes widened as Catherine’s head lifted. Like an ocean—beautiful, yet dangerous beneath the surface. She met Cross’s gaze with a shock that told him she probably wasn’t expecting to see him there, either. All that time, and he still found it difficult not to forget all the other people around them, not to mention the world, when she was looking at him.

Why was he so fucked with this girl?