by Bethany-Kris
Catherine shoved the blade of her favorite knife as deep into the side of the man’s throat as she could get it. Just as fast, she pulled the blade out. Blood arched across the room in the spray it created. It dotted the wall, the bed, and her.
“Fuck you,” Catherine repeated, staring into wide, terrified eyes.
She bet that’s exactly how she had looked just moments before.
It looked far better on him.
Instantly, his hold on her released, and she felt his hand and cock between her thighs disappear as he grabbed for the wound in his neck. Falling to his side on the bed, his stab wound bled through his fingers, pumping red ribbons in heavy, thick lines. At least he had rolled over on the bed so that his blood was spilling right onto the sheets and mattresses. He opened his mouth to speak, but gurgles and blood came out instead.
Catherine slipped off the bed with the bloody blade still in her hand. She watched his crazed eyes follow her as she moved toward the door. It was an odd sight, him bleeding out and his breaths rattling with bubbles of blood and missed air.
Morbid, even.
Still, she felt nothing.
Even her fingertips were numb.
She walked backward slowly, still keeping one eye on the fucker across from her. A hand touching her back made Catherine turn fast with her knife ready to kill.
Cross instantly took a huge step back and tossed his hands up in the air. “Hey, it’s all right, babe. It’s me. It’s okay.”
Catherine realized then that her hands were shaking and tears streaked down her cheeks. “I … I …”
Why couldn’t she talk?
Why wouldn’t her words form?
Cross stepped closer, and wiped at her cheeks with his thumbs. She felt the blood smear from his actions as he looked her over. “We don’t have very long, okay?”
Catherine nodded.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I was listening to music. He came in.”
Cross looked over her shoulder as one last, loud breath rattled from inside the room followed by a perversely loud gurgle. Catherine held onto Cross’s wrists, and the blood from her knife smeared down his arm. She knew what he was seeing. Messed sheets. Her ruined panties on the bed. The guy’s lower half bared from his shorts being shoved down.
“Did he—”
“I stopped him before he could,” she interjected quickly.
“All right, so right now, we need to move fast,” Cross murmured.
“Why?”
“Because his friends are on upper deck right now. Or at least one is. The other two were on the other boat. Someone is going to start looking for him, and that’s going to be very bad for us.”
“I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry. I messed up, didn’t I?”
“You didn’t do anything, babe. I promise.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Hide,” Cross whispered.
Catherine glanced up at him. “What?”
“I need you to hide.”
Cross shoved the clip into his gun as Catherine disappeared behind the cabin door reserved for the captain’s private quarters. Knowing the one asshole was already dead in the other bedroom, he headed for the stairs. He would only get one shot out with his gun before Rhys Crain’s men would start reacting.
It was not a good situation.
Cross should be scared shitless.
Really, he was just enraged.
Rhys had sent a whole new group of men to pick up the drop. From the jump, Cross took note of the difference in the men from the last group he worked with for Rhys. They were rude, demanding, and difficult. One had grabbed a bottle of vodka from the yacht’s wet bar, and another had took a piss over the railing.
Behavior that was unsettling.
Still, Cross had directed them to the smuggled guns hidden in the one room and inside the ship’s hull. He had done what he needed to do because the sooner it was over, the sooner he could get Catherine back to safer ground.
Apparently, he should have forced her to stay on the beach.
Fucking assholes.
Cross came up on deck and kept his gun hidden just behind his back. Three men. Across the way, with about ten feet between their anchored boats, one man slipped out of Cross’s view as he headed below deck. He didn’t know where the other guy was that had been on the other boat when he went in search of fucker number four that suddenly went missing without his friends noticing.
The man on the yacht worked to untie the planks they had set up between the two ships. It was made up of boards and tied rope. The makeshift ramp had been set on the stairs to easily walk back and forth while the guns were moved from one ship to the other.
One down, Cross thought.
At least, the guns were on the other boat. That was going to make things … easier. Less clean up, anyway.
He lifted his gun from behind his back just as he noticed the man he couldn’t find on the other boat come back from the bow section. He saw Cross’s gun. It was too late to change plans, now.
“Hey!”
The guy working on the ramp turned to look at Cross.
He just pulled the fucking trigger.
Blood and other matter sprayed as another gunshot rang out. Instantly, Cross hit the fucking deck, and reached for the gun that was tucked into the dead man’s waistband. He kicked the ramp off between the two boats to keep the other fuckers from coming onto his yacht, and rolled over to his back.
“You’re a dead man!”
Whatever.
Cross ignored the threat.
Already he had the guns pointed toward the one man he knew was on deck. The guy fired a shot just as Cross aimed. The bullet plugged into the deck next to Cross’s leg. He didn’t even fucking flinch.
“You’re a shit shot,” Cross said.
He definitely wasn’t, though.
The guy tried to duck around a railing on the deck of the other boat, but Cross saw that coming. He adjusted his aim at the same time and fired.
The bullet ripped into the man’s shoulder, and sent him sprawling forward. Cross took a second shot without hesitation, and already had his arm with the other gun outstretched and pointing in an entirely different direction.
Once he saw the shot hit its target—right in the back of the guy’s head—he looked where he needed to for his next shot. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen a flash of black clothing.
“Drop the fucking gun,” the man ordered.
Cross’s brow furrowed for a second. He stared ten feet across from him to where the guy was aiming at him with an assault rifle.
“Shoot,” Cross urged.
The guy didn’t move, and his finger wrapped the trigger.
“Come on,” Cross taunted.
Nothing.
Cross laughed at the fucking absurdity of the fool looking at him. He knew exactly what the guy had done—likely pulled out one of the very few assault rifles from beneath deck that had actually been fully assembled. Andino wanted it that way so the idiots could see some of the guns, or whatever else.
“That’s one of the guns I just smuggled here, asshole. It’s empty. What, you forget your gun today?”
He didn’t give the guy a chance to respond before pulling the trigger on the shitty little nine-millimeter he had taken off the first man he killed. The bullet plugged into the man’s face. The rifle in his hands flew one way, and he fell the other.
Cross was up on his feet in a second. He kicked the dead man on his yacht overboard. He didn’t have time to be fucking around, and he couldn’t go back into port with blood and bodies on his boat.
“Fuck,” he snarled to himself.
Back down below deck, he shouted for Catherine. She came out of the captain’s quarters as he disappeared into the bedroom.
“Cross?”
“Open some of those liquor bottles,” he called back.
Quickly, he wrapped the corpse on the bed in the gray blankets like a burrito. He probab
ly weighed a good one-seventy without the blood soaked blankets. Heaving the deadweight over his shoulder, he grunted from the effort it took to just get the guy out the damn door.
Catherine’s eyes widened as he came out of the hall. From behind the wet bar, she froze in her work of opening liquor bottles. “What are you doing?”
“Getting him off this fucking boat.”
“And the others?”
“Did you hear the shots?”
She nodded.
“Yeah, well … stay below deck,” he muttered.
She didn’t need to be seeing that bloody mess next door.
“Grab some of those tea towels, cut ‘em into strips,” Cross told her, “and stuff them into the liquor bottles. Make sure one side of the towel is soaking into the liquor, and a dry piece is sticking out the top.”
Catherine looked up from the bottles. “Like a Molotov cocktail?”
Cross smirked. “Just like that, babe.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“Use them to help sink a boat.”
“And then?”
Cross laughed.
What else could he do?
“We’ve got a plane to catch in the morning, so we need to get back to port after we get this mess cleaned up. I can’t hand over a bloody boat to the captain when we get back.”
Catherine swallowed hard. “Do you want me to start cleaning up in the bedroom?”
“Can you handle that?”
She didn’t even flinch. “I can do anything.”
He didn’t doubt her.
“Yeah, start in the bedroom, babe.” Cross moved toward the stairs leading to the upper deck, but hesitated on the first one. “Catty.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
He found her staring at him.
Catherine nodded once. “I am.”
“You’re sure?”
“I promise, Cross.”
“I want to go back to Cancun,” Catherine said. “You know, without the whole shooting people, burning boats, and all that mess.”
Cross laughed. “Yeah, let’s hope not all our vacations turn into that.”
“We could have stayed on the island for a while, though.”
“It couldn’t be forever. I told you that before we left, babe. It was just one run. Besides, after what happened on this run, I’m not sure I want you going on another one just in case.”
“It was a nice thought.”
It was, but that just wasn’t how it worked. Nothing good would come from Cross taking Catherine away, even if it had only been for two weeks, given how delicate things had been with her family. Sure, Catherine was an adult, and she was given more freedom than most, but he didn’t think that would factor into Dante’s rage at all.
It was only a little about Catty, after all. It was a lot about how much Dante hated Cross.
The jet began to taxi on the private strip toward the hangar, and already, Cross could see the cars waiting. Some he recognized; most he did not know. He’d told his father he was coming back, that the run had failed, and gave Calisto the date and time when the plane would land.
It was too many vehicles to be only Calisto’s, though.
“Oh,” Catherine said lowly.
She’d seen the cars, too, it seemed.
“Probably a little pissed you forgot to call for two weeks,” Cross joked.
His attempt at light humor did little to shake the nervousness from Catherine’s face.
“It’ll be fine,” Cross said.
Catherine only sighed in response, but she did hold his hand against her cheek before kissing the inside of his palm. “He’ll be angry with me—I lied again. Only because I didn’t want to fight that I was going with you, though. I’m tired of fighting.”
“Dante loves you, my girl.”
Just in a different way than how Cross loved her.
The thing was, Dante would never admit that Cross did love Catherine; that he cared enough for her to protect and provide and adore her the way her father had for all these years. Cross was not good enough in Dante’s opinion; he would never be.
But what could he do?
“Just do as he wants,” Cross told Catherine, “and give me a call when you have time. Or give me what I want, and what you want, and come home. Where you belong, Catherine.”
“Cross—”
“You know what I want, Catty. You. With me. Always.”
Catherine sighed. “If I can get out of the house, you mean.”
“He’ll never lock you away—he loves you too much to cage you in.”
Catherine frowned. “He did lock me in once.”
“Again, because he loves you.”
“For now.”
“Stop that.”
“Well—”
“Stop, Catty. Your father reacts to your lies or the things you hide from him, and he wouldn’t have to react at all if you simply didn’t lie or hide it from him in the first place.”
She didn’t respond.
Cross didn’t need her to.
The one thing he refused to do where Catherine was concerned, was lie to her, or even sugarcoat his opinion.
Catherine was tougher than she appeared to be. Far stronger than she wanted to admit she was. His girl didn’t need to be coddled. Her spine was still growing where her parents were concerned, but he had a feeling it was about to grow a fuck lot faster.
Shit, even Dante, as tightly wound, severe of a man as he was, could appreciate the beauty that came with loving a difficult woman. He’d married one, after all, even if Catrina Marcello put on a good mask for the crowd. Her exploits were infamous in their circles, and it wasn’t as though her husband could pretend that he didn’t know about them all.
Catherine wasn’t much different.
All too soon, the jet had taxied in, and the stewardess and pilot came out to see Cross and Catherine off the plane. He helped Catherine with her small carry-on, and grabbed his own to carry with the same hand. It was awkward, but he needed at least one free to keep a hold on his girl.
He always needed to have a hand on her in some way, even if it was just his palm against her lower back. It made him … grounded.
Steady.
The door to the jet was opened after the exit stairs had been locked in place at the side of the plane. Through the porthole windows, he could plainly see a number of people exiting the waiting vehicles, including Catherine’s parents, and his own father in another black sedan.
No one looked particularly pleased.
“Fuck,” Catherine muttered, seeing the same thing he was.
Cross pressed his hand to her lower back a little firmer. “Smile. Everything is always far better when you smile, Catherine.”
“Your charm is great in bed, but not so great when pissed off people are just a hundred feet away.”
He smirked, unable to help himself. “Well, we can do the charm in bed thing later, if you want. Come home, my girl, and I’ll make it happen.”
Catherine smacked him in the stomach with the back of her hand just as the door to the jet was opened by the stewardess. Light streamed in through the gaping hole, blinding him momentarily. It didn’t matter, as Cross’s attention was back on Catherine, as though the people waiting for them outside simply didn’t exist in that moment.
He slid his hand up to the back of her neck, tangled his fingers into her hair, pulled her into his side, and kissed her forehead, lingering there like that for as long as he possibly could.
“I love you, Catherine.”
Catherine sighed, her lips curving into a sweet smile as she looked up at him. “Everyone saw that, Cross. It probably didn’t help our case.”
Like he fucking cared. They made it back alive, and in one piece. Kissing Catherine after all that was the very least he was going to do with her once he got the chance.
“They don’t matter.”
She did.
Only she ever mattered.
“You can exit the plane now,” the woman said behind them.
Cross nodded once, and pushed against Catherine’s lower back to make her move forward. She did without a fight, thankfully, staying by his side as they moved down the stairs. He handed over her luggage as her father and his own stepped forward, coming close enough to likely hear whatever goodbyes were said.
“The black Mercedes at the end is taking you home,” Dante said, not even giving Cross a passing glance as he spoke. “Your mother will be going with you.”
Catherine frowned. “All right.”
“Get going, Catty.”
She gave Cross a look, and he winked. “All is well.”
Or it would be.
Catherine gave his hand a squeeze, and then she was gone from his side. Cross didn’t bother to speak until he watched his girl get into her car, followed by her mother, and the vehicle was out of his sight entirely.
“Dante—”
The man held up a single hand, stopping Cross’s father from saying anything more. “I will speak. You will listen.”
Calisto scowled. “As long as speaking is all we do.”
Dante laughed dryly. “We’ll see.”
Cross set his small luggage to the tarmac. “She didn’t tell me that you didn’t know until recently.”
Angry, green eyes turned on Cross in a blink. He swore if Dante were capable, he would have killed him dead just by glaring at him.
“Do you honestly believe that I would allow my only daughter to travel out of country with a gunrunner for two weeks while he was partaking in an active fucking deal?”
Cross looked to his father. “I didn’t know you knew that was happening.”
“He asked why you were in Cancun,” Calisto said, “and I told him since Andino also has a hand in the whole thing.”
“Yes, so it’s better you don’t lie,” Dante said lowly. “Seems there’s been a bit too much lying already happening between Andino, you, and my daughter.”
“I didn’t know you knew about the deal that was going down.”
That was the truth.
He hadn’t planned on offering the information, either.
Clearly, Calisto had different plans.
“Is that supposed to make it better?” Dante roared.