Page 16 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“That’s how I know nobody else is going to fuck it up for me,” Cross replied.

Andino’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “Good enough. I’ll give you a call when I have more details, all right?”

“Fine by me.”

Cross stood, and headed for the door. Something he’d asked Catherine lingered in his mind and made him hesitate to leave. He asked her to go out with him that weekend, and she hadn’t gotten the chance to respond. He wanted to know her answer.

“Andino?” he asked.

“Yeah, Cross?”

Cross rattled off seven digits he had never forgotten. Andino stiffened in his seat as though he recognized the phone number.

“You still know her number?”

“I know everything about her, Andino.”

Including things no one else did.

“Huh.”

“She’s never changed it, then?” Cross asked.

Andino cleared his throat. “No, Catherine just upgrades the phone.”

“Thanks, man.”

“Don’t get your ass killed by my uncle before you can even run my guns, Cross.”

He would try.

No guarantees.

A crime boss, a Queen Pin, a lawyer, and a resident doctor all sat down at a dinner table …

No, it wasn’t the start of some joke. It was Catherine Marcello’s life.

She tried to pay attention to the conversation happening between her parents, her brother Michel, and his wife. Something about Michel’s residency, and his wife’s next criminal defense case. It wasn’t that she usually zoned out at family dinners, but her mind was somewhere else.

On a dark-eyed, black-haired sin.

On old heartbreak and first loves.

On the past.

On Cross Donati.

She had managed to go years without thinking about Cross in any real depth. Sure, whispers of memories were there in the back of her mind, but she preferred to shove them aside.

After everything … she didn’t have a choice.

Catherine wasn’t ever going to be left broken by that man again. She understood why he left her all those years ago, but it was what came after when she was finally ready to start over with him again that damn near killed her.

She had been good back then. Months and months of therapy with Cara Rossi. Honest, hard therapy that forced her to take a real look at herself in the mirror for the first time in years. It made her see the reflection staring back, own it, be responsible for it, and like it.

Then, all it took was one single day to push Catherine back several steps all over again. Cross promised—always—and he lied.

Catherine was supposed to be the liar.