Page 165 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

Dante’s blazing green eyes turned on Cross. “Guess what I don’t have on hand right now?”

Cross dragged a hand through his hair. “The guns he wants?”

“Oh, I have lots of fucking guns stored all over this city, but not the kind you dumped. I have those assault weapons coming in next month to stock up, but that’s not when he wants them.”

Yeah, that was bad.

“What a terrible way to spend the Christmas holiday,” Catherine’s grandfather murmured.

Everyone turned to look at the man.

Including Cross.

It was the first time he realized how close to Christmas they actually were. This was not how he wanted to spend it this year. Not when he had Catherine back finally. Except … she wasn’t back at all now.

“Who is this man?” Calisto asked, taking everyone back to the conversation at hand.

Dante sighed heavily. “No one.”

“Someone, clearly.”

“An associate,” Dante countered. “We all have them, don’t we?”

Calisto still didn’t look like he was buying it.

Lucian, the Marcello underboss, spoke up. “As far as we know, Rhys Crain is essentially a gun supplier to war-torn countries. He supplies anyone from terrorists to guerillas. He also likes to antagonize issues in those areas. Typically, he has some kind of gain to be had in the countries he supplies. Investment in corrupt government, or whatever powers are keeping the unrest at a dangerous level. He’s very rich, and very dangerous.”

“So are we,” Catrina said quietly.

“Pardon?” Lucian asked.

“I said, so are we.”

“So he wants some guns,” Wolf muttered, glancing between the Marcello family members. “Let’s get him his fucking guns.”

Dante coughed out a bitter laugh. “Didn’t you hear what I said? I don’t have the fucking guns he wants. I can’t get them in the time that he wants them. We’re—”

“I can get those guns,” Cross interjected, “or at least half of what he wants. I mean, it’s something. We can deal with whatever else after, as long as we have AKs and ARs for him to look at. Fucking dismantle them, and he won’t know the damn difference about how many there are.”

“And after?” Dante asked sharply. “When he does realize we fucked him over on the shipment this time around?”

Giovanni, the Marcello consigliere, cleared his throat. All eyes turned on him. “What if we made sure he never got the chance to know we fucked him over? Permanently.”

Dante rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Tell me how we’re going to do that, Gio.”

“Give me some time to figure it out and I will.”

“We can all work on that,” Calisto said, looking to his son, “as long as you’ve got some kind of guns to run to him in the meantime, right?”

Cross nodded.

Dante shook his head. “Don’t even think about it. You’re not going to be the one running the guns this time around, Cross. You fucked this up once, and now we’re here. We don’t have the option for you to fuck it up again.”

“You know why I did that, Dante.”

“Fact remains—”

“You’re a fucking idiot if you think I’m just going to sit around and hope you bring Catherine back to me in one piece,” Cross said calmly. “I have never known you to be a stupid man, Dante.”