Page 161 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

“So now here we are,” Catherine said softly.

“It’s like a circle of sorts, isn’t it?”

“As long as it all works out.”

Catrina laughed lightly. “I have no doubt that it will. You are my daughter, after all. I really didn’t expect any different, even if I tried to convince myself otherwise. Your father used to tell me all the time that you were just like me—she’s yours all over, Cat. He liked to point it out only to poke at a fear of mine, I think. One of the few I actually had.”

“And what fear was that?”

“I suppose that you would be like me, which terrified me to death and he knew it. He simply didn’t know why. I could not protect you from the darker parts of being this person. Sure, we’re beautiful on the outside. It’s pretty to see us work, isn’t it? Still, we’re targets, and sometimes we can’t avoid being hit.”

Catherine frowned. “I never thought of it like that.”

“I regret not indulging you more, or allowing you into that part of my world, if only because I may have saved you the heartache of being hurt.”

“I’m okay now, Ma.”

Catrina nodded. “Now, yes, but you weren’t once.”

“Now is what matters.”

“Now is definitely what matters,” her mother echoed with a faint smile. “What do you plan on doing with the rest of your life?”

Catherine’s gaze widened. “Uh …”

“That is not an answer. College, what of it? You should be graduating this year, but we know it’s going to be at least one more. Where is your focus, school or hustling? Or both?”

“It was both,” Catherine said.

“Except it’s really not because clearly you focus on one much more than the other. The bigger problem is, I think you and I both know which one you enjoy the most, and the one you excel in.”

Yeah, Catherine did, too.

She’d known it when she was sixteen and hustled for the first time. She had simply done the same thing her mother had by attempting to be two people, only to realize she was doing that for others, and not for herself.

“And there’s nothing wrong being good at this, and wanting to make something of it,” Catrina added quieter, “but you give your all to one thing, Catherine, and succeed. You spread yourself thin, and—”

“I fail,” Catherine interjected.

Catrina leaned forward, and steepled her fingers together. “I control thirty women across the United States. I’ve trained them, I supply them, and they answer to only me. I would like for you to be one of them.”

“Is that all?”

“For now. You have a lot to learn, and I am the one person who is capable of teaching it to you in a way that will resonate and stick, reginella.”

“They’re all going to call me that, aren’t they?”

Catrina smirked. “Count on it. Are you interested?”

Catherine didn’t even have to think about it. “Very.”

“Grazie for seeing me today,” Cross said.

“Of course, Cross.” Tommas Rossi barely glanced up from homework he was surveying on the table. The man had one son, and two daughters. Tommaso, his son, was the only one out of school, well into the family business, and married to Cross’s sister. “This looks good, Rebeka. Now, go find your mother and tell her I will be a few minutes late for dinner, please.”

The teenage girl preened up at her father. “Yes, Daddy.”

Once she was out of sight, Tommas turned and waved a single hand to silently demand Cross follow. The old Trentini mansion—although, Cross knew the Outfit boss only allowed people to keep calling it that because of his wife, a born Trentini—was a two wing, tri-level monster. A person could get lost inside it. Cross had only been inside a handful of times, as usually his business was better done in warehouses when he was in Chicago.