by Bethany-Kris
“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.
Anything but this.
He wasn’t asking for a lot.
Coming close enough that he could snatch the gun away—Cross really couldn’t afford to have the idiot shooting someone else at the moment—he removed the weapon, and felt slightly safer with it being in his own grasp.
“What did you think would happen if you waved a loaded gun around?” Cross asked.
“I … don’t know,” the guy said lamely.
“You don’t know.”
It wasn’t even a question.
“No—”
Before the guy could even finish his sentence, Cross lifted the rifle, and pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through the fool’s face, and sent his head snapping back in the most morbid way with a sickening crack. Blood and matter spewed from the now-gaping hole in the man’s face. His body quickly hit the floor with a dull thud.
Dead.
Just like that.
Easy.
Two less fucks for the world.
Cross felt no guilt. Frankly, idiots like that could not be afforded the privilege of walking and breathing the same air as other people. Or worse … spread their seed of stupid on to a new generation. Foolishness bred only more foolishness.
He considered his actions a gift to the universe, really.
Silence echoed in the warehouse after Cross shot the guy. He didn’t think any of the others even took a damn breath for a whole minute or more—the first time all day that they had actually decided to close their yapping traps.
Which was smart, really.
At the moment, he was three seconds away—or less—from killing the rest of them, too. It was really only going to take one of them pushing him just the right way, and that was going to be the fucking end of it.
No excuses.
Sighing, Cross discharged the magazine from the rifle, and then removed the stock, too. Now practically useless, and not very dangerous, he set the gun on a nearby table before he faced the rest of the stunned men.
Four fucks left.
For now.
“Get out,” Cross uttered.
Deathly calm.
Entirely cold.
The four didn’t need to be told again. They scattered like frightened rats in a dank back alley that just had a light shined on them.
Cross didn’t move until the last one was out of the front door. And only then did he pull out the phone from his slacks pocket. Dialing a familiar number, he put the phone to his ear, and listened to it ring.
Finally, the biggest Fuck of the hour picked up the phone. “Cross. How’s things?”
“Andino,” Cross replied dryly. “Two of your men are dead. The other four will be returned to you in small little pieces that you’ll be able to put together like a puzzle for their casket viewings should you send them to me again. I hope you understand.”
For a long while, Andino was silent. Then, quietly and slowly, the man started to chuckle. Cross had no fucking idea what was so funny.
“I wondered how long you would last with those idiots,” Andino managed to mutter through his laughter.
“You sent them to me knowing what they were like?”
“I hate cleaning house,” Andino admitted. “Plus, some of them might have just needed a good scare to set them straight. You’re good for both things.”
Rage swelled through Cross.
“Andino?”
“What?”
“If you ever waste my time again, I will cut your fucking heart out, and mail it to your wife while it’s still fresh enough to bleed when she opens it up. The next men you send to me for this better be more than worth my ass getting out of bed. Under-fucking-stood?”
Andino sighed. “Well, you’re no fun.”
“Don’t ever fuck with me and my guns again.”
The Mother
Cece POV
“I miss when you were younger,” Catherine said.
Cece peered up from the tablet in her hands to find her mother staring at her from across the aisle of the private jet. Other than the dark hair and brown eyes she had taken from her father, looking at her mother was like staring into an older mirror. A reflection of herself stared back—the same bow-shaped lips, delicate features, high cheekbones, and wide eyes.
“Why?” Cece asked.
Catherine smiled softly. “Things were simpler—easier, maybe. When I had to pick up and go for business, I could just take you right along with me. You were always happy to go, too. Now, you’re thirteen, have school, and—”
“You could always homeschool me,” Cece suggested.
Her mother lifted a single, perfectly manicured brow high. “Really?”
Cece made a face. “Well, maybe not. I guess I wouldn’t get to see most of my friends nearly as much as I do now.”
“If ever,” Catherine added.
“Yeah.”
Catherine gave a little sigh, and stared out the port window of the plane. “I know you’re pretty set on … doing this with me. Being like me, I mean.”
Her mother was always careful with her words. She chose each statement she made like someone might overhear it. Cece had become used to communicating this way with her ma—and even her dad—over the years.
It was just their way.
Their life.
“This is all I ever wanted, Ma,” Cece said.
To be like her mom.
And her grandmother before her, too.
A Queen Pin—the queen.
It was in Cece’s blood. It was what she was born to do. This was her birthright. She had grown up under the fee
t of some of the most powerful and amazing woman she had ever known. Her mother and grandmother commanded.
They ruled.
They were feared.
Respected.
“Maybe this is all you’ve ever wanted to do,” Catherine replied, “because it’s also the only thing you have ever known, Cece. Have you ever considered that side of the coin?”
Cece shrugged. “So?”
Her mother laughed lightly, and glanced upward. “So, my little smartass, I feel like you might be a bit biased.”
Again … so?
Cece just stared at her mother, and said nothing. Catherine continued to stare right back entirely unfazed.
“Do you know that I am trying to let you have as normal of a life as I can possibly give you?” her mother asked. “High school, prom, friends, boys … I want you to enjoy these things, Cece. I want you to appreciate having these experiences, and this time before your focus changes to business entirely.”
Because it would happen.
Eventually.
Cece heard what her mother didn’t say.
“I know, Ma,” Cece said.
Catherine looked back out the window. “Good.”
“Isn’t that strange, though?”
“Hmm?”
“That you miss when I was little, and you could take me everywhere. But now you kind of wish that I would slow down. That’s what you mean, right?”
Catherine’s smile was soft as she looked back at her daughter. “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
“So is it—strange?”
“Normal, I think. All things considered.”
Cece smiled, too. “You know, Ma, if you asked me to choose any other normal thing, or the chance to be with you … I would pick you.”
“You would, huh?”
“Always. You’re my ma.”
Catherine was quiet for a long time, but her gaze never drifted away from Cece for even a second. She could tell her mother was trying to find something when she looked at her—something that wasn’t clearly visible, but had to be there, nonetheless.
It was not the first time her mother did something like that. Sometimes, when Cece was hiding a secret, it was like her mother just knew she was holding something back simply by looking at her.
“What?” Cece asked.
Catherine shook her hear. “I was just thinking that years ago, this could have been me and your grandmamma. Different circumstances, though. Entirely different.”
Oh.
Now she was really curious.
Her mother and grandmother didn’t talk a lot about how exactly Catherine had come into the business with Catrina. Cece always just assumed it was like her and her ma—she grew up in it all, saw the business happening around her, and naturally, gravitated toward the same path because this was what she was meant for.
Was it the same for her ma?
Cece leaned forward a bit in the seat, unable to hide her curiosity. “Why is it different?”
Catherine waved a hand between them. “When I was your age, I used to have to snoop through my mother’s office and things just to find out any little detail about her life beyond the woman who ran our household. She was my mother—my father’s wife. She was the woman who tucked me into bed, and read me stories.”
“But?”
“But I also knew that wasn’t the end of her tale. I knew she was more—something else entirely when she left our home for weeks at a time. But whenever I would ask, she shot me down. She didn’t want me to know what she was doing, or who she was.”
Cece frowned. “But why?”
That didn’t sound like her grandmamma at all.
“I guess because my mother wanted to be one thing to me, Cece. Just my mother. And she thought hiding things or refusing to indulge my curiosity in this business would be enough to keep me away from it.”
Cece’s brow furrowed. “Clearly it didn’t.”
“Nope.”
“So, she … changed, I guess?”
“Nope,” her mother repeated, laughed. “My cousins brought me in on their business. I was a dealer behind my parents’ backs for years. A decade, probably, before they found out. I was into my twenties when my mother finally got that this was what I was good at—college wasn’t for me, and I wasn’t going to be anybody’s dumb little house wife turning cheek to their business. No, I was meant to be … something else. Something more like my mother.”
“A queen,” Cece said.
Catherine stared at her daughter, silent.
Cece stared right back.
“Like me and you,” Cece added quieter.
“Is it like me and you?”
“I know what I want, Ma.”
And Cece could only hope that someday, she would be just like her mother—that she would stand tall and proud like her mother.
Beautiful. Magnificent. Amazing.
Strong. Powerful. Resilient.
Smart. Refined. Elegant.
“You will be,” Catherine said, as though she could read her daughter’s mind.
“What, Ma?”
“Amazing—like the ones who came before you, Cece.”
Cece had big shoes to fill.
It didn’t scare her one bit.
The Crush
Cece POV
“Oh, good,” Cece’s mother said as the two came to the exit door of the plane. “Miguel made it in time. I hate when I have to call in a driver.”
Cece followed her mother out of the plane, and found Catherine’s right-hand man wasn’t waiting alone. He’d brought along his oldest son—Juan.
Instantly, a hot flush climbed up thirteen-year-old Cece’s cheeks, and then raced down her throat as she caught sight of Juan leaning against the black Mercedes.
It wasn’t even her first time seeing Juan. She had known him for practically her entire life. He was two years older than her—fifteen—but he never made Cece feel like the annoying little girl he got stuck looking after whenever their parents had to do business.
They were friends.
Sort of.
Cece didn’t know when—or how—it happened, but sometime over the last year, she stopped seeing Juan like just a friend. Maybe it happened while he was growing taller, and filling out. Or maybe it was when his dark eyes started to always follow her whenever she moved.
It could have just been the fact Cece started noticing boys in general. Juan just ended up being the only boy she really cared to notice.
He was handsome, too.
Russet skin, and amber eyes. A baseball player with the grace and agility to prove it, not to mention the body …
Embarrassment crept up Cece’s cheeks again.
Dammit.
“Cece?”
It was only her mother saying her name that brought Cece out of her head. Apparently, she had all but come to a standstill on the bottom of the jet’s stairs.
Probably while staring.
At Juan.
Ugh.
“Yeah, Ma?”
Catherine glanced up the stairs to the jet, and then back to her daughter. “Did you forget something on the plane?”
“No,” Cece said quickly.
“Is something wrong?”
Cece’s gaze darted over her mother’s shoulder to see Juan talking to his father. “No, Ma, nothing is wrong.”
Just a little awkward.
The butterflies were back in her belly, too.
God.
Catherine followed her daughter’s gaze and then she grinned. “Ah.”
That stupid blush came back again at full force. She could actually feel the way the blood rushed to the surface of her skin to show off her shame. She might as well have just turned into a goddamn tomato for as red as she probably was.
Cece tried to play it off by coming down the last steps, and pushing past her stone-still mother. Because what else could she do?
“Leave it alone, Ma,” Cece said.
Catherine laughed, and grabbed her daughter’s wr
ist to keep Cece from going any further. She pulled hard to swing Cece around. Like this, Cece had no choice but to look her mother in the face—Catherine could see everything Cece was trying to hide, then.
“Wait a minute,” her mother said. “So … Juan, huh?”
Cece made a face. “It’s just a stupid crush.”
“Does he know?”
Her laughter tasted a little too bitter on her tongue.
“Ma, I don’t think he notices me at all.”
Catherine frowned, and took one step closer to her daughter. The way they were positioned kept Cece from view of Juan and Miguel.
Well, her face.
They could only see her back.
“Hey, now,” Catherine said.
“What?”
“Look at me.”
Cece did.
Catherine winked. “You are too beautiful, and far too amazing for someone to overlook you. You stand out—you fucking shine.”
Cece grinned.
Her mom nodded. “And trust me, Juan notices you, too, Cece.”
“You think?”
“I know he does, but I also know he’s a decent young man with his head on straight, and his heart in the right place.”
“What does that even mean?”
Catherine bent down to stare Cece head-on at eye-level. “It means … you won’t be thirteen forever, but right now you are—he knows it.”
Oh.
“Now,” her mom said, “smile.”
Cece did.
“And go say hello,” Catherine added. “He’s just a boy at the end of the day. And you? You are the most amazing girl. Got it?”
She nodded. “Got it, Ma.”
A little pep talk from her mom went a long way when it came to Cece. Catherine seemed to know just what to say, or just what Cece needed to hear to make everything better somehow no matter what.
She loved her ma.
Always.
The two crossed the tarmac to where Miguel and Juan broke out of their conversation to greet them. Juan turned a blinding smile on Cece the moment her eyes met his.
Jesus.
Were crushes supposed to make you feel lightheaded?