Page 139 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“No,” Dante admitted.

“Yes, you do. You just didn’t know why, Daddy.” Catherine glanced down at her wrist, and stroked her thumb over the tattoo one last time. “He made me leave that last time. He knew then that nothing he could do was going to help me. He couldn’t keep being the one thing that made me happy because eventually I was going to start sabotaging us, too. I already started to, really, and he saw it before I did.”

Catherine blew out a shaky breath, saying, “So he gave us a chance to get it right later. He broke my heart to make me get better because I never would have been able to do it on my own. Not when it was easier for me to expect him to do it like he always had. All the times he lied for me, hid things for me, covered for me … all of it, he stopped.”

“Like what things?” Dante asked. “Tell me what things, Catherine.”

Now or never …

“Why didn’t you ever tell me that you knew I was dealing for John and Andino?”

Dante stiffened in place.

“I mean, I know we sort of talked about—”

“You came here and yelled at us, but did not let us speak,” her mother corrected.

“True enough, but my question remains the same.”

Catrina coughed from her spot on the couch.

“Well?” Catherine asked when everyone stayed quiet.

“Because I didn’t want to influence you,” Dante admitted. “I didn’t want you to feel like the path your mother and I walked was one we expected you to walk, too. I wanted you to make that choice on your own, without input from someone like me.”

“Were you happy that I was doing it?”

“I am happy you found something you were good at—something you enjoyed. I would have been just as pleased had you found the same talent cooking pizza in a restaurant, Catty.”

“Why do I feel like you’re leaving something out?”

“Because I was not happy that you continued to try and hide what you were doing, and that it’s taken you all this time to finally tell me you were doing it.”

“So why didn’t you speak up, Daddy?”

“I told you—”

“Yeah, because you didn’t want to influence me. I was sixteen when I started; I’m twenty-five, now. That’s a long time. Don’t you think had I not liked it I would have stopped? Don’t you think your influence would have been pointless by now to my choices?”

“I think that had I brought it up no matter the time you may have felt as though I disapproved. I didn’t want how I felt about any part of it to sway how you chose to conduct your business. I do the same thing for your mother.”

“Except you know what Ma does … or did,” Catherine said, shrugging.

“Does,” Catrina corrected, “only from afar, now.”

Catherine wasn’t interested in semantics with her parents. “You allowed me to keep hiding it, and so I did, without knowing that you actually knew. That’s what Grandpapa means when he says you and I have made this mess we’re in. He’s right. And Cross, too. He was right when he said you react to the things I lie or hide from you. I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“So don’t,” her father said.

“As long as you don’t go for the easy target, Daddy. See, Cross is the easy target for you. When things happen, you blame him. When I can’t handle my own shit, you blame him. When I am unhappy, when I make bad choices, or anything that you disagree with, as long as he is within shouting distance of me, you blame him. It’s not him. It’s me.”

“I know I’m not the easy target,” Catherine said, sighing, “but it’s not him. It’s me. I also know you’ve done that—blamed him for things—because I have not allowed you to do differently. I’ve hidden things and lied because I was terrified of disappointing you in some way, and by default, all you saw was him in the way. All you thought was that he was the one being a catalyst to my behavior and bad choices.”

Dante’s gaze dropped from her. “Not always, Catherine.”

“Yes, always.”

“Catty.”