by Bethany-Kris
“So you took care of it.”
Cross nodded. “I guess.”
“And the pictures?”
Cross pulled a phone from his jacket pocket. “Android, no cloud, no backup. All messages sent have been checked. All the pictures have been deleted.”
“Good,” Calisto said.
“I’m going to drop it off to Tommy and get him to double check before I destroy the fucking thing, but I’m sure it’s good.”
“All right. And what about you and Catherine?”
“What about us?”
“Are you together now, or …?” Calisto let his question hang open for his son to answer or not.
Cross just stared at his father, bored. “I told you, we don’t have to be. I’ve always got her back, no matter what.”
Yeah.
Ten years for Cross and Catherine.
Calisto would bet his fucking life and fortune on those ten years.
Maybe even less.
“Your Rover keys will be on my desk when you get home; you are free to do whatever the hell you want on your suspension, Cross,” Calisto said. “But try to stay out of more trouble, please, and for your mother’s sake, tone down on the suspensions and fighting. She frets, and then I have to listen to it day in and day out, I swear it’s going to give me a fucking stroke.”
There was absolutely no way in hell that Calisto was going to punish his son for this. The school could do whatever they wanted, but Calisto was of a different mindset. He also understood why Cross, Catherine, and the boy who got a well-deserved ass-kicking didn’t speak up. The foolish kid didn’t want to get in trouble for what he had done, and Catherine probably didn’t want her parents finding out the truth.
Cross, on the other hand, kept his mouth shut for Catherine.
Ten years.
“I’m serious, Cross,” Calisto said as he walked out of the office with his son. “Tone it down a little.”
“Will do.”
“Perfect.”
That was the end of that.
Dreaded Moments
There were moments in every mother’s life that she waited for, in a constant state of dread, even when she was happy. A midnight phone call, an accident at home, or … something. It all revolved around her children, and an event that might take them before their time.
The circle of life should be that children buried their parents, not the other way around. But sometimes, life was cruel, and what should be ended up much different than what anyone wanted or planned for.
It had always been a fear of Emma’s that she might be the mother to get that late-night phone call, or find an officer standing at her front door.
Her fear had only increased as she watched Cross and Camilla become older, growing from babies, to teens, and then into new adults just starting their own lives. The fear grew because, as her babies got older, she found that she had less control, less contact, and less influence. She could no longer choose their playmates or watchers. They suddenly had social lives that did not include her. She had to rely on Cross and Camilla to do all the things for themselves to keep safe that had once been the responsibility of her and Calisto.
Emma wasn’t sure her children could always do that.
Well …
At least, not as well as she did.
Still, Emma had done her best to step back, and hope for the best that she never had that call come in, or a visit.
And when it did finally come one warm, August night, Emma realized how entirely unprepared she had been for it. She raced to the hospital with her husband, where her son had been admitted, and found that she couldn’t breathe. She was like a frozen statue, cold and unmoving, being shuffled from spot to spot while she waited for some kind of news about her nineteen year old son.
Unable to speak to ask her own questions, Emma opted to listen to the conversations happening around her instead. Calisto—always calm and in control no matter the situation—fielded questions and provided health information. He even went with a nurse to donate blood for their son in case more transfusions were needed.
Across from Emma in the family waiting room, sat a dishevelled, stunned eighteen year old Catherine Marcello. Emma still didn’t know what had happened to her son, but she certainly couldn’t be surprised to find out that Catherine had been with Cross during the event.
The two had been on again, off again from the beginning of their very early teen years. Sometimes, the two were more off than on. But for the last year, while Catherine began her first year of university, the two had been very much on, as far as Emma knew. The two shared a very expensive penthouse that Cross owned in Manhattan, although Emma found that Catherine was rarely around whenever she visited her son.
Sometimes, it was hard to know what was going on, because Cross kept his personal life very quiet and private. He had always been like that, Emma thought, likely because Calisto had warned their son not to make a spectacle out of the women he chose to date or otherwise. Occasionally, Cross brought Catherine over to his parents’ home to have dinner, but that was really the extent of Emma’s interaction with the young woman.
At the same time, Cross had never brought any women home to meet his parents. He’d never mentioned any woman he was dating, not even in an off-handed manner, except for Catherine.
It was almost as if her son didn’t think any woman was worth his time or effort to meet his family, or for him to talk about.
None, that was, except for Catherine Marcello.
Nearly a half of a decade of an on again, off again relationship. All that time of Emma only being able to name one girl her son had been seriously involved with.
In that moment, Emma did a double-take of Catherine.
The young woman was quite beautiful, as she had always been. She held a striking resemblance to her red-headed mother, yet had taken her father’s vivid green eyes and brown hair. Emma certainly didn’t wonder why the young woman had caught her son’s eye. She was a beauty; a proper Italian beauty, with her olive complexion and sweet smile. But it was what was beyond the physical appearance that made Emma curious.
What was inside Catherine’s mind and heart?
Were those the things that kept Cross running back to Catherine time and time again?
Were those unknown things what her son loved about Catherine Marcello?
Were those what made him love the girl?
Emma didn’t know.
And that bothered her.
Emma readied to speak to Catherine, but didn’t get a chance to say a word before a whole new group of people flooded the waiting room, loud and worried. Marcello people. Catherine’s parents. An aunt, and an uncle or two.
Emma decided to stay in her seat as the young woman was surrounded by her family, their concerns and questions spilling out one right after the other.
“What happened?” Catrina, her mother, asked.
“Are you okay, dolcezza?” came the concern of her father, Dante.
The others managed to get their questions in, too. For the most part, Catherine stayed quiet, her gaze stuck on the doors where the doctors and nurses kept coming and going from. None had come to give any updates on Cross’s condition, and the one time they had, Calisto had left with a nurse to donate blood.
He was a perfect match for Cross, after all, being his father. Even if the rest of the world didn’t know it.
“Catherine,” the girl’s father said, “I need you to talk to me.”
“I don’t … know,” Catherine mumbled.
Dante frowned, and took a seat next to his daughter. “You were going to that party, right?”
Catherine nodded. “Yeah.”
“Something happened there?”
Again, another nod.
Dante attempted to probe his daughter for more information, but continued to come up with little to nothing in response. Eventually, the girl’s mother stepped in.
“Come on, Dante, let’s step outside for a minute.”
It wasn�
��t long before the Marcello family cleared out of the waiting room. A few others followed. Calisto’s men, likely, wanting to talk to Dante. It didn’t leave Emma and Catherine entirely alone, but the few people left were huddled in the corner, involved in a quiet conversation.
“I’m sorry,” Catherine whispered.
Emma glanced up at the young woman. “Pardon?”
Catherine repeated her apology, but Emma still didn’t have a clue what the girl was actually apologizing for.
“I can’t explain to them what happened,” Catherine said with a shake of her head. “We weren’t even where I told them I was going. It wasn’t Cross’s fault, not really.”
Emma’s brow furrowed. “You didn’t go to a party, then?”
Cross was nineteen, which meant he didn’t report to his parents regarding his whereabouts and what he did or didn’t do. Maybe he did report to Calisto, occasionally, but certainly not to Emma.
“Not a party,” Catherine admitted. “There was some things going on, a fight he wanted to see, and a race after. I wandered off when he was talking to somebody. I shouldn’t have wandered off, not without Cross.”
Emma was not a stupid woman, and she didn’t live with her head stuck in the sand, either. She was well aware that Cross, like his father, dabbled in the illegal side of life and business more often than not. She understood perfectly well that there were plenty of things that Catherine probably wasn’t saying.
It was a part of their life.
It was a part of being a woman involved with those kind of men.
And Catherine, like Emma, had grown up in that life.
“You wandered off,” Emma heard herself say faintly.
Catherine nodded, and wiped at her eyes with the heel of her palms. “Some creep cornered me, and then another one came out of fucking nowhere.”
Emma cringed, her heart squeezing painfully. “Oh, sweetheart.”
“Cross came out of nowhere, too. He got a hold of the one; I thought he was going to kill him.”
“But?”
“I only saw the knife when it was too late,” Catherine mumbled.
Emma blinked, finally understanding, finally knowing. She wished that knowing why and how lessened her anxiety, but it didn’t.
“I’m so sorry,” Catherine said for a third time. “I shouldn’t have wandered off.”
For a long while, Emma simply sat in silence, unsure of what to say. Catherine was the one to speak again first.
“I just … they’ll be so angry that I was with Cross when he was working and—”
“I get it,” Emma interrupted. “But the bare bones of the story, your parents should know.”
Catherine shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”
“And Cross …” Emma trailed off, meeting Catherine’s watery gaze. “Well, he’s Cross.”
A small smile lit up Catherine’s features. “Yeah, he is.”
That smile, and Catherine’s quiet understanding of Emma’s vague statement about her son said a hell of a lot more than the young girl possibly could on her own. Probably more than even Cross could, too. At least where her son’s private relationship with Catherine was concerned.
Emma didn’t need to explain to Catherine about Cross, because she already knew.
Knew that he was strong.
Knew that he was stubborn.
Knew that he would be okay.
And that knowledge, that deep, hidden understanding, didn’t simply show up one day. It took real love to know someone so well, that all you needed was to hear their name to feel it in your soul.
Emma knew that kind of love.
And it was fucking terrifying.
“Ma?”
Cross’s tired murmur broke Emma from her daze. She stopped her tinkering with the hospital room’s blinds, and looked over at her son. Propped up in the bed, wearing one of his charming, disarming smiles, Cross sighed.
He’d been awake for a while, but not in the mood to talk. The nurse that had come in earlier to change the bandages on his left side had gotten a taste of the rare Donati attitude. Something that rarely reared its ugly head, especially with Cross.
Emma figured she could attribute that attitude to the deep stab wound in Cross’s side that had nicked a vein and a kidney. Not to mention the fact that Cross continued to refuse any sort of pain medication for relief.
“You’re looking happier,” Emma said.
Cross shrugged. “If you say so. Where’s Cal?”
As Cross had gotten older, he’d varied between calling Calisto his dad, papa, or simply Cal. Sometimes, it depended on his mood, and other times, who was around.
“He went out to grab me some lunch,” Emma said.
Emma continued closing the blinds, needing something to do with her hands. Anything to keep her mind occupied.
“Ma.”
Emma stilled again. “Yeah?”
“Stop fretting.”
“I’m not. I’m—”
“Fretting,” Cross muttered. “I’m okay, Ma.”
“Now,” Emma stressed, “Now you’re okay, Cross.”
“I’ve been okay for two days, actually. Release is in my very near future.” Cross grinned, but it didn’t help Emma’s anxiety. “Please stop fretting, Ma.”
Emma’s arms fell limply to her sides, and she had all she could do to stop herself from crushing Cross in a hug. Another hug, because she had done that many times already. Her nineteen year old son had not been impressed.
“You don’t understand, baby.” And then, quickly, before Cross could give her one of his looks for calling him a baby, Emma added, “And I know you’re not a baby, Cross. You’re a young man, but you can be fifteen, or fifty, and you will still be my baby. So it’s not that easy for me not to fret, as you say.”
Emma blew out a breath, glancing at the hospital room doors and wondering where her husband was. He should have been back by now. “I spent so many years teaching you not to do unsafe things; don’t run with scissors, don’t climb too high. Be smart, make good decisions. And Calisto, he’s done that with you, too.”
“I know,” Cross said.
“We do that because we live anxiously now, waiting and not wanting a phone call like we got the other night.”
“Ma—”
“So no, I’m sorry to say it’s not as simple as me stopping the fretting, Cross. And if it bothers you that I worry, or that I haven’t given you five minutes to breathe, then tough shit.”
Her son’s eyes widened, but he didn’t say a word.
“I’m your mother. I spent thirty-two weeks carrying you before I brought you into this world. Thirty-two weeks that nearly killed me for more reasons than you will ever know. Now, I have loved you for every single day of your nineteen years. I have fed you, cleaned you, rocked you to sleep, and let you grow. You were the one to put me through that phone call I never wanted to get. You can deal with my fretting.”
Cross nodded once.
Smart man.
“You got it, Ma.”
“Good.”
Emma moved closer to Cross, patted his bruised cheek softly with her palm, and then stepped back from him just as quickly.
“I’m sorry for scaring you, Ma,” he said softly.
“Say it a few more times, and a little louder for the people in the back.”
Cross chuckled. “Milk it up, Ma.”
“Oh, I plan to.”
Emma went back to flitting around the room, moving papers and distracting herself.
“But I would do it again,” Cross said suddenly, “and I’m not sorry for that, Ma.”
Emma froze at those words.
She had watched Catherine Marcello come and go, come and go, and come and go some more from Cross’s room. It was the only moments when Emma allowed herself to leave her son in peace and privacy.
“I know you would,” Emma said.
“Do you?” her son asked.
She turned to face him.
“L'amore é forte come la
morte. Love is strong—like death,” Emma murmured. “It almost makes love sound grim, or morbid even, but …”
“That’s because it’s true.”
Emma shrugged helplessly. “They are the only two things in life that have nearly the same profound effect on us all. Like without love, death is near. And with love, we might not mind death for love. I just didn’t realize it until the other night that perhaps you did love Catherine. You’re always so quiet about her, and that.”
Cross smiled. “Of course I love her, Ma. I have always loved her. I always will, even if she doesn’t love me.”
That, Emma understood, too.
Camilla + Tommaso
“Hey, uh, boss. Could I chat with you for a minute?”
The unfamiliar voice made Calisto look up from the paperwork on his desk. It wasn’t often he chose to work outside of his home, but sometimes a change of venue was a good thing. It kept him on his toes.
He expected to see one of the restaurant workers in the doorway, but that was not who he found.
“Tommaso,” Calisto said, surprised to see the twenty-one year old Chicago Outfit principe standing in his business. “I heard you were in town.”
“Dad thought I needed a break.”
“We all do occasionally. How is your father?”
“He’s Tommas Rossi. How do you think?”
Calisto laughed. “As thick-headed and stubborn as ever, then.”
“He can be. So do you have that minute, or …?”
“Come on in. Close the door.”
Tommaso did as he was told, and Calisto took the moment he had to give the young man another once-over. It had been two years since the last time he had seen Tommaso. Calisto had been on a business trip to Chicago, and Tommaso was celebrating his nineteenth birthday.
As far as Calisto knew, Tommaso had made friends with the Marcello family in New York while traveling with his father, a boss of another criminal organization. And since Calisto’s son, Cross, often hung around with Andino Marcello, he and Tommaso had struck up a friendship as well.
Calisto never stepped in to stop Cross from making friends, connections, or allies within other families and organizations. It would only benefit his son in the future to have those contacts should he need them.