Page 155 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“Cross is the best gunrunner on this continent at the moment. Ask Vegas. Ask Chicago. He worked with the best, and now he’s the only one who exclusively runs their guns. He’s been doing this for almost ten years, and he makes clean runs every single time.”

“Except this one,” Dante murmured as his gaze turned on Cross. “It was a big run to start fucking up on, let me just say.”

Still, Cross kept quiet.

“So what exactly did you gain here, Andino?” Dante asked sharply. “You did cost me the deal. We have most definitely lost Rhys as a client for the future, and you’ve severely pissed me off. So what did you gain?”

Andino shrugged. “Those are details.”

“Important details!”

“You’re not helping,” Cross told Andino.

“And you,” Dante said, “start talking, Cross.”

“It’s all been said, I think,” Cross replied.

“What happened on that boat?”

Cross’s gaze slid to Catherine, and then quickly went back to Dante. “Rhys sent men who were not regulars, as I’ve run guns for him before. I was below deck with the ones that needed to transfer the weapons from the yacht we had to theirs, and shit happened.”

“Like what?”

“It’s not really—”

“One of the guys found me in a part of the boat where he wasn’t supposed to be,” Catherine interjected before Cross could refuse to tell Dante what happened. “I was out of sight, like Cross told me to be to stay safe, but the guy was where he shouldn’t have been, too. He attacked me, so I killed him.”

Cross’s dark gaze fell on Catherine. Despite his calm demeanor, she could see he still held guilt for what happened. It wasn’t his fault; it wasn’t hers, either. It just happened—there was little to no morals in most criminals, and she was not surprised that a situation like that came up. There had been a reason why Cross wanted her to stay hidden out of sight, after all.

Dante let out a harsh breath. “I take it, the others reacted when their man was found.”

“I couldn’t come back with guns. We already had it worked out with officials at the port to have the boat searched coming back in, but not on the way out. Those guns couldn’t still be in there. The rest is history. I made a choice, and I would make it again if it meant the same outcome.”

“I understand that, Cross.”

Her father looked to her, but quickly went back to the two men.

“Yet, this is also business, and so we have to figure that bit out, too,” Dante finished quieter. “I have a man who doesn’t seem to understand that when I put restrictions on who he can and cannot work with, he is to follow those. And I have a gunrunner who now owes me a quarter of a million for a run he chose to botch. Not to mention the ruin of a client connection that could have made us millions over time.”

“For me, though,” Catherine said, “and because of me.”

Dante held up one hand to his daughter, and she recognized that action as him shushing her without saying a word. His attention stayed on the two men twenty feet away from him. “I do understand why, but that doesn’t negate business.”

“Of course not,” Cross agreed.

“Let’s talk business, then, and how you plan to correct what was done.”

“I can’t correct it; what’s done is done, Dante.”

“Boss or Don, Cross.”

“Not mine,” Cross replied. Although, he said it with more respect in his tone than Catherine ever heard him speak to her father.

“See,” Dante said to Andino, “this is why you were told not to work with him.”

“And because of Catherine,” Andino replied. “Let’s not forget that piece of information, too.”

“Yes, well—”