Page 6 of Revere: A Legacy Novel

Catherine ignored the tear that slid down from the corner of her eye.

“He’s always saving. She’s always lying.”

“Always?” Cara asked.

“Always,” Catherine assured, “until the end, anyway.”

There was nothing like a call from a frantic woman in the wee hours to get a person to break every traffic law known to man. Cross Donati made it from his penthouse in Manhattan to the suburb in Newport in half the time it should have taken to drive the route.

In all his twenty-six years, he couldn’t remember a time when he had driven that fast. He didn’t think he hit the brakes once, not until he parked in front of his parents’ home.

3:00 AM blinked on the dashboard of Cross’s Porsche. It wasn’t often he brought the car out to play; he preferred his new Range Rover because cars moved when a vehicle that big was coming through. However, the Porsche had the speed.

And probably a nice scuff under the bumper from coming off that bridge too fast, he thought as he stepped out of the car.

It didn’t matter.

Cross had more pressing issues to deal with at the moment. Inside his parents’ home, he found chaos and madness.

Glass shattered in the entryway. An oversized vase tipped over, and glass beads spilled throughout the hallway. An overturned coffee table. Papers scattered between the living room and kitchen.

Cross figured he could help his mother clean up that mess later. Probably in the morning once everything calmed down. This wasn’t the first time. It likely wouldn’t be the last.

He followed the shouts to the back of the house where the large library and music room sat on one side, and his step-father’s office sat on the other.

“Cal, just listen to me—”

“He took him, Emmy. He fucking took him.”

“No, you’re confused again, that’s all. Look, Cal. Look at the pictures on the walls. They’re different, aren’t they? They’re not the same. They’re our children.”

“I have to find his paperwork. Something in there …”

Calisto’s ramblings trailed off as Cross stepped into the office doorway. Instantly, his mother’s worried gaze flew to him, and wetness edged the line of her lashes as she held back tears. His step-father yanked out drawers on his desk, and dug out papers. He threw files, uncaring of the mess he was making.

Or maybe he didn’t understand at all.

“None of this makes sense,” Calisto snarled as he flipped through papers.

“Ma,” Cross said quietly, “head upstairs for a bit, okay?”

Emma shook her head. “It’s fine.”

“Ma.”

“Cross.”

“Ma.”

“He’s just mixed up again, that’s all,” she whispered.

Except … it wasn’t just being mixed up this time, Cross knew. It couldn’t be, not when Calisto was physically acting out by breaking things or whatever else in his frustrations.

Almost four years ago, Cross was living in Chicago and had been for three years by that point, when he got the first call. Something was very wrong with his step-father. He came home, no questions asked. What he found at home, and what he learned his parents had been hiding from him, damn near killed him.

Traumatic head injuries from Calisto’s younger years had left the man with an unhealed lesion on his brain, and an aneurism that occasionally leaked. That created pressure on Calisto’s brain, which started causing what the Donatis simply referred to as episodes.

Almost always, when an episode happened, Cross found his step-father was mentally thrown back into his past. His twenties, sometimes earlier, and other times, his thirties. There was never any rhyme or reason, and they couldn’t predict when the next episode would happen. It just did.