Page 157 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“I disagreed, Cross. It’s my call to make.”

“It won’t be after today,” he replied coolly.

“That’s enough,” Dante murmured, taking a couple of steps forward. “What did I miss here?”

“Catherine brings in a lot of money for me,” Andino said. “Like anything else with this business, someone does not simply come and go when they want to. I can’t help how these things work.”

“That’s my condition—take it or leave it,” Cross said.

“Does she want to continue dealing?” Dante asked.

“Not for Andino.”

“What about me?”

The quietly posed question had everyone turning to the only other woman in the warehouse.

Catrina.

She looked to Dante, and then to Catherine before asking again, “What about me? Could she work for me if she chose to?”

Dante cleared his throat. “Regina, another time, maybe?”

Catrina lifted a single hand high. “Now is as good as ever. Should she want to continue, but not with him, why not for me, Dante? I won’t always want to do even what I do now. You get to retire, and so should I eventually. Why not her, hmm?”

Cross glanced over at Catherine.

She only nodded.

Her entire life had been an effort to not be her mother. Mostly, because that was all anyone had ever assumed of Catherine. That she was Catrina’s little queen. That she was her mother’s daughter. She had fought against that, even to her own detriment. The truth was simpler.

Catherine knew … She was far more like Catrina, with just enough of her father to color her up, than anyone could possibly know.

Her mother was self-taught, self-made, and a goddamn queen.

Catherine was no different.

“Well?” Dante demanded. “What of it?”

“As long as it’s not Andino,” Cross said, “then the rest is up to Catherine.”

Dante smiled. “I think we have a deal, then.”

“Why are you going to Chicago again?” Catherine asked from the edge of the bed.

She resisted the urge to pull Cross onto the bed with her. Especially given how damn good he looked in the suit he wore. Cross tried to get away with wearing his usual dark wash jeans, T-shirts, and leather jackets far more often than he bothered wearing suits, or even a blazer. She quite enjoyed the site of him in dressier attire when he did wear it.

Like now …

Cross shoved clothes into a small duffle bag, and then slipped his fingers under her chin to make her tip her head back. Once he seemed to be pleased how she was, he dropped a sweet kiss to her lips. “Because I owe explanations to people there, that’s all. Business is business, and it’s best to finish that all out on good terms.”

Catherine picked at her manicure. “Are you going to miss working for them?”

“Chicago and Vegas?” Cross shrugged. “As long as I get to run guns occasionally, I really don’t give a shit what I do in between, or who I do it for. Guns are guns, Catty. I don’t care about the man supplying, or buying. I just want to be the man running them because I’m good at it, and I like it.”

“I just wondered because you have worked for them a long time.”

“I mean, I don’t expect them to be real pleased about what I’m doing and what I’ve got to say, but there’s not much they can do. It’s like what I told your father. Nobody is my boss. I’m just there to do a job. With Chicago, I come and go as I please. When I say I’m done, I am done.”