Page 183 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

None of it mattered.

Only them.

Calisto took the cup of coffee from his wife, and rested back in the corner chair, looking far more relaxed than he had in days. Emma then headed for her son’s direction with her little yappy Yorkshire dog tucked in under her arm like a football. The dog only stayed quiet when his mother was holding it, but she loved it so no one ever complained.

Cross already knew that telling his mother not to fret and worry would do him no good. So, he allowed her to prop his pillows behind him, and kissed her cheek.

“Do you want something to drink or eat?” she asked him.

“A whiskey would be great, Ma.”

Emma scowled at him. “No, and you can stop asking for that every morning because I am not bringing it to you.”

“Fine, coffee, I suppose.”

“Grab him one of his magazines, too, Emmy,” Calisto put in. “A guns one from my office. He’ll mutter less to himself if he has something to look at.”

“I can do that.”

Cross gave his father a look when Emma patted the top of his head like he was a sick little puppy. Then, she was gone from his old bedroom.

He sighed, and scrubbed a hand down his face. “The pneumonia has almost cleared from my lungs. You better ease her into the reality that I’m going back to my place soon.”

Calisto smirked into the rim of his cup. “I think I’ll let you handle that, actually.”

Prick.

Cross still loved his father to death, though.

Recovering in the Donati home was his compromise to this mother and father. Swallowing all that salt water, and then the long trip home, had allowed pneumonia to settle into his lungs by the time he was back in the great state of New York. It also gave a nasty infection the time to settle in, too.

They wanted him at a hospital.

Cross didn’t want to be at a hospital.

Their home it was.

Compromise.

He had been there for a week, now.

Cross picked up the photographs Calisto had given to him just before his mother came into the room. He quickly flipped through the images. Two light blue boats peppered with bullet holes and embedded with nails. An island with a property blown to pieces. Dead bodies, and pieces of bodies—a grisly sight—spread over the beach and in the shoreline. A burning yacht sinking, and red and black boats turned over.

“You all could have told me what you were planning,” Cross said more to himself than his father.

Calisto chuckled. “Cross, even we didn’t know what we were planning until we got down in Cancun and started working contacts. Dante was able to get boats and a couple of guns; I knew a guy who did some skydiving and had planes. Catrina knows an old friend in that area that is handy with homemade bombs.”

Cross looked over the pictures again—specifically, the ones of the blown up house and torn apart bodies. “Those barrels did a hell of a job.”

“Right?” Calisto smiled, then it faded fast. “I am never flying again.”

“It’s not the same thing. You were in a Cessna with a wide open door, not your usual private jet or passenger plane.”

“Still not flying again.”

Cross rolled his eyes upward. “Well, you’ll have at least two more flights to go through, I guess.”

“Why’s that?”