Page 148 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

Cross flipped a page, and admired the rose-gold tinted sniper rifle on the page. A custom gun, it seemed, and he wondered the price tag to have it made. “Told her what?”

“About us. Our … well, shit, saying it’s a secret seems juvenile, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what it is. A secret you kept from me for my entire fucking life. Call it what it is.” Cross didn’t bother looking up from the magazine as he spoke. “Yes, I told her. I am not the one in this family that lies, Papa.”

“I don’t lie, Cross.”

“You did. For years.”

“Because I had no other choice.”

“Mmm.”

“Cross, give me the decency of your attention when we speak. Not even as a boss and his man, but as a father and his son. Look at me.”

He did.

Cross didn’t like what stared back at him.

Pain.

Calisto was in pain, and that hurt Cross, too.

It was easier for him to stay mad and bitter when he didn’t have to face the reality that these years of secrets and lies had been just as hard on his father.

Not his cousin.

Not his uncle.

Not his step-dad.

No, his father.

Made from his blood, from his heart and soul. Him and Calisto, they were the same. Cross just wished he had already known that detail.

“I had no other choice,” Calisto repeated, “because I wanted to protect Emma first. We were such a fucking mess back then—her and I made a lot of mistakes, and we played a very dangerous game for years. I thought it wouldn’t matter, really.”

“It wouldn’t matter if you didn’t tell me that you were my real father—that I was a product of your affair?”

“No, I didn’t. I loved you anyway; I was going to love you regardless, and I did. All your life, Cross, you’ve always been treated as though you were a child born from my blood because you were. The rest was details. I thought if I loved you enough, if you already felt like you were actually mine, then the truth wasn’t going to make that much of an impact.”

“It did, though.” Cross sighed, and tossed the magazine aside. “So lie to everyone else, but not me. Why me, too?”

“When was I supposed to tell you, Cross?” Calisto asked, holding his hands wide. “When you were just a child, and wouldn’t understand? Or why not when you were a teenager, and couldn’t listen long enough to hear what was actually being said? Should I have told you in your more difficult years, so that I could put a strain between you and me? When all I had to keep control of you was the trust you had in me? When should I have told you?”

Cross stayed quiet.

“Tell me,” his father demanded.

“I hated a man I didn’t even know for years simply because I thought he left me and my mother,” Cross said. “I hated Affonso because you told me to.”

“You should hate that man. He was a goddamn monster.”

“Should I?”

“I did,” Calisto murmured. “I still do.”

“Why?”