Page 96 of Cross + Catherine: The Companion

The Run

Naz POV

“Naz, do you have a minute?”

Seventeen-year-old Naz glanced up from the pieces of his laptop he had scattered across the metal table. He regularly put the computer through so much abuse that he liked to take it apart, clean what he could, and replace what he needed to.

“What’s up?”

His father leaned further inside the garage’s doorway, and looked over the mess on the table. “Is that … what is that?”

“Pieces of my laptop,” Naz said.

Cross nodded, but still looked entirely unsurprised at the admission. “You should run that cleanup program on your mother’s computer—make sure there’s no backdoors or open windows somewhere again.”

Naz got what his father said … or rather, what he didn’t say. Pretty regularly, Naz ran a program he created on his family’s computers to make sure the securities and encryptions for their illegal businesses were not in any way compromised. It also made sure to keep their backdoors or unseen windows of opportunities on the computers—so to speak—firmly closed when business was done on the dark web.

One could not be too safe.

Not in their business.

“I was going to run it later,” Naz said.

Cross nodded. “Good.”

“So, what’s up?”

His father brought out a folder from behind his back, and grinned. He waved the folder in the air like it was some kind of prize.

Naz stood up straighter instead of leaning against the table like he had been. “What’s in that, now?”

“Something you have been asking about for a while.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, principe.”

Naz lifted a brow, and then reached out to snatch the folder from his father. Cross quickly pulled the folder out of Naz’s reach with a chuckle. He didn’t even blink a lash at the sight of Naz’s glare.

“Patience, son.”

Naz scoffed. “Donati men have no patience.”

Cross tipped his head to the side. “True, so here.”

Naz took the folder when his father passed it over. Quickly, he opened the folder to scan the contents. All the while, his father kept grinning like he was the cat who had caught the goddamn canary or something.

It didn’t even matter how smug his father looked because Naz was too caught up in the information he found in the folder.

“Holy shit,” Naz said.

“It’s only small,” Cross was quick to point out.

“Really, though?”

Naz looked up.

His father only shrugged.