Page 63 of Cross + Catherine: The Companion

A loud clang followed by the unmistakable pop going off broke Cross from his daze. A break he had taken away from those idiots to try and at least relax for five goddamn minutes, so he didn’t kill one of them.

A shout echoed.

Then, a curse.

“Oh, my fucking God,” one of the guys mumbled loudly.

“What now?” Cross groaned.

Because apparently, he couldn’t even have those five fucking minutes to himself. He should have known better, frankly. Like damn children, these fools couldn’t be left to their own devices. They had to constantly watched—babysat like babies.

“Boss, boss!”

Cross pushed away from the office wall, and headed for the door with a sigh. No, even calling them children was too nice, honestly. His two kids were far better behaved than these fucks, and Naz was still just a newborn, for Christ’s sake.

“What the hell do you guys need now?” Cross asked as he came out onto the warehouse’s main floor. “What are you all standing there for?”

Five of the fucks stood in a semi-circle facing Cross.

He noticed a problem instantly.

“Where’s the other fuc—guy?”

Fuck One—the idiot with the issues learning how to load bullets and handle a gun was standing in the middle with a semi-automatic hanging from his limp hand. He looked as though he had seen a ghost.

White all over.

“What happened?” Cross boomed.

Maybe if he spoke louder, they would listen better.

Doubtful.

The five men—all with wide eyes—moved slightly further away from the fuck with the gun. None of them particularly looked like they trusted the guy all that much at the moment. Which was strange because one thing the six idiots did have was comradery between them. That would have been great if they all had even an ounce of common sense to add in with it, though.

Something they didn’t have.

At all.

Cross came closer.

Finally, he saw what they had been standing in front of. Or rather, what they all had been trying to hide from him.

He also found the missing fuck.

Dead on the warehouse floor in a pool of his own blood. The guy’s face was blown off from the chin upward. He still had one eyeball left, but it was half hanging out of his face, and half resting in brain matter splattered on his cheek and the concrete.

Jesus Christ.

“S-s-s-sorry,” the idiot with the gun mumbled. “I d-d-didn’t mean t-t-t-o. I j-j-just—it went off! I w-w-waved it, and—”

“Figured out how to get the bullets in, did you?”

The guy swallowed his next reply instead of speaking and stuttering even more than he already was. He could probably tell just by Cross’s cold, calm demeanor that he was in for a world of trouble if he didn’t shut up right now.

Smart, really.

Cross was too exhausted for this today. He really just wanted to go home, and salvage the rest of this awful fucking day with his wife and kids.