Revere: A Legacy Novel (Cross + Catherine Book 2)

by Bethany-Kris

  Men moved around him, chatting and working. Crates of guns were loaded onto the boat. Zeke stayed close to Cross’s side the entire time, keeping one eye on him, but never speaking. Cross was grateful. He didn’t want to talk; he needed to plan.

  “Cross, you should speak to him,” his father said from across the table.

  “Kind of busy.”

  “You made a bit of a mess in Chicago.”

  “Still kind of busy,” Cross told Calisto.

  “I swear to fucking God, Cross—”

  Cross spun on his heel, and ignored the way the floor swayed beneath him. He came face to face with a raging Dante, but he didn’t even flinch at the sight of the man’s anger. “I need you to shut up right now.”

  Silence covered the entire port, and all the men working around the area.

  Dante’s gaze narrowed. “I beg your fucking pardon?”

  “You heard what I said, and I need you to do it.”

  “Do you realize what you just did?” Dante asked, suddenly calm in a frightening way. “I have managed to avoid giving Chicago even an ounce of legroom where New York, our families, and our business is concerned for my entire reign as a Cosa Nostra Don. You have effectively ruined that by forcing me into some kind of peace-making with Tommas Rossi. I could kill you right now.”

  “Except I have guns to run, so fuck off somewhere and let me do that.”

  “You are—”

  “I have been awake for over forty-eight hours and counting. The last thing I need or want is you barking down my goddamn neck, Dante. You gave me a job to do, now let me fucking do it.”

  Cross turned back around, and gave all of his attention to the map on the table. He dragged his finger from their current port, and continued out until he knew they would be in international waters. “I just need to get to here, and then we make sure we stay in international waters until we’re down in the Gulf. I didn’t realize his island was that close to the last drop, but I guess I know now why he asked for the guns to be brought there. Easy for him.”

  “We’re not finished talking about this,” Dante said.

  Cross still didn’t turn around. “Oh, I am entirely done talking about it. I did what I needed to do, and now you can pull your weight like we all know you can.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Everybody knows you head the Commission between all the syndicates in North America,” Cross muttered, “and now is the perfect time for you to start throwing your title around. What is it again?”

  “You know nothing, Cross.”

  “I think I do.”

  “Capo di tutti capi,” Calisto said, glancing at his son. “The boss of bosses.”

  Cross nodded. “Yeah, see, my whole life has been men repeating to me that I needed to respect the Marcellos. Give them their space. Understand their rank. Know my place, especially against them. What was it you always used to tell me, Wolf?”

  His father’s underboss coughed. “Uh …”

  “It’s the respect of the matter, right?”

  Wolf nodded once. “It always is when the Marcellos are involved.”

  “Because,” Cross said, turning on his heel to face a very quiet, yet pissed off Dante, “you are the capo di tutti capi. Use it for once in your life. Otherwise, fuck off and let me run some goddamn guns. It’s what I do best.”

  That, and loving Catherine.

  Cross went back to the map. “Twenty minutes, and I want to be on the water.”

  “We can make that happen,” Lucian Marcello said quickly.

  “What about once we get there, and the trade has happened?” Cross asked. “We’re supposed to just assume Rhys won’t attack us when we’re leaving?”

  Calisto shrugged. “You get the guns there, son, and let us worry about the rest.”

  He could try.

  Cross had never been good with trusting others to get shit done.

  Catherine, Catherine, Catherine.

  His heart was thrumming her mantra.

  He supposed he didn’t have any other choice.

  “Girl,” the man said, his rough accent heavily coloring his bad English, “you get out of car, or I make you.”

  Catherine glared at him. “Fuck you.”

  “Nasty words for girl with hands tied,” he said.

  “Fuck. You.”

  The two other men who had been driving in the vehicle with them chuckled as they exited from the front. None of them, including the man who was talking to her now, paid her very much attention the entire drive. She wasn’t even sure where they were.

  A private airstrip, by the looks of it.

  A jet sat waiting fifty feet away.

  “One time more, girl,” the man warned, “or I make you.”

  “I guess that’s what you’re going to have to do then, asshole.”

  He sighed as though she was a small child in need of a spanking. His icy brown eyes held no hint of emotion, and his face was as blank as stone. All of the men had been like that, even when they busted the windows out of her car, pulled her out fighting and screaming, and made her cut herself on the glass. Her arm was still trickling a bit of blood from the cut on her elbow.

  The bastards.

  Catherine was dragged from the back of a black SUV by her hair. She should have known better than to fight the man, as it had done her no good when they first grabbed her, nor when she was stuffed inside their vehicle. They simply stared at her like she was a bug bothering them, tied her hands in front of her, and tossed her in the back seat.

  Her cussing, name calling, and shouting had done nothing. Not for them, anyway. They chatted away in a language she didn’t understand and couldn’t place as the tallest of the three drove the SUV.

  Three hours later, Catherine’s scalp stung as she was dragged across the tarmac.

  “Stupid girl,” the man with his fist in her hair said. “You listen, no hurt.”

  He pulled her up to her feet, and Catherine ignored the way her skin had been scraped on the black tarmac. Aches and pains were a part of this game, and she was not going to give these men even a fucking inch of her to use to their advantage.

  Not her pain, fear, or anything else.

  It was almost like she could hear her mother and father in her head, telling her what to do or not do. Would they fight? Absolutely. Would they bend to anyone’s will? Absolutely not.

  She was their daughter, after all.

  She could also hear Cross, different from her parents, but still the same in a lot of ways. Strength, defiance, and all fight.

  So fuck these men.

  She would give them her anger.

  Catherine spit at the man when he stared her in the face. He didn’t even blink at her spittle landing on his nose, not even an ounce of rage of disgust. He simply kept looking at her.

  What the fuck were these people?

  Machines?

  “You listen, no hurt. You hurt boss man, you hurt. Understand?”

  “Get a fucking English lesson,” Catherine snapped at him.

  “Get manners.” The man’s lips flattened into a thin line. “Spoiled girl.”

  “The girl has a name—Catherine.”

  “Don’t care,” he muttered, and then dragged her the rest of the way to the stairs leading up to the plane. “Name is little important.”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Shut now.”

  “What?”

  At the top of the stairs, standing in front of the plane’s open door, he turned and stared hard at her. His fingers came up and pinched her lips together. “Shut now, girl.”

  Rage spilled through Catherine’s veins. The very second he released her lips from his fingers she jerked forward, intent on driving her tied hands into his face. If nothing else, at least she could say she did that.

  Catherine didn’t even get her bound fists higher than her breastbone. The guy caught her hands, twisted them painfully, and put her to her knees without as much as a blink. She let out a cry, despite
how hard she tried to hold it in, as her wrists cracked from how far he had twisted them sideways.

  “Girl, I am angry, now. You stop.”

  He didn’t bother to give her the chance to respond. Catherine was dragged inside the plane, past a watching pilot and flight attendant, and further into the private jet. It all happened so fast that all she could take in was the white leather of seats and port-style windows before she was tossed like a useless ragdoll to the floor in front of her captor.

  Catherine blinked rapidly, trying to gain some bearings.

  A low chuckle above her made her look up. Cold blue eyes stared back at her. The man was tall—well over six and a half feet. His chest was as wide as a fucking barrel, and his arms bulged against the tight fit of his Armani suit. A diamond encrusted, gold watch caught the overhead cabin light, and gleamed brightly.

  The toe of his shined black shoe came forward, and ticked Catherine under her chin to force her head even higher. “My, you are a pretty thing, aren’t you? Pretty ass, pretty mouth, and pretty fucked, at the moment.”

  Catherine let out a shaky breath, and managed to hide the disgusted shiver that crawled through her body. She did not like the way this man looked at her, never mind how he spoke about her.

  “Cat got your tongue?” he asked.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “That’s your question?”

  Catherine nodded.

  “Out of everything you could possibly ask,” he murmured, “that is your question?”

  “Why not?”

  “I would think asking me who I am might be a good start.”

  “That’s a bit vain of you to think I care who you are, isn’t it?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I am an important piece to the puzzle, Catherine.”

  “Good. You know my name.” Catherine sneered. “As long as you know who I am and where I come from, I don’t give a fuck who you are.”

  The man smiled. “Shame.”

  His shoe hit under her jaw, and sent her sprawling to the floor as blood bloomed in her mouth. Catherine tried to spit it out, but only choked when his shoe stepped down on her throat with enough force to take all her air away and hurt like a bitch.

  She clawed at his leg and shoe, desperately trying to take in a breath.

  He simply laughed above her.

  “Scratch my shoes, pretty girl, and I’ll have you lick them clean before you buff them out.”

  “Go to hell,” Catherine hissed.

  She had no air left. The man clicked his tongue chidingly, and shook his head. His shoe pressed harder. Catherine saw stars.

  Soon, she didn’t see anything at all.

  “Wake her up, or carry her to the boat. I do not care which you chose, Rami.”

  “Girl.”

  Catherine heard the voices echoing in the back of her ringing skull, and then felt a tap to her cheek. She blinked and tried to focus, but it wasn’t easy. The second tap to her cheek came harder than the first.

  “Up now,” the man said.

  Catherine found it was the same man who had dragged her into the plane. “Rami, that’s your name?”

  Her throat ached with every word, and her voice was hoarse. She supposed that was to be expected when you were choked unconscious again and again. It seemed her captor took great enjoyment out of trying to get her to converse, only to choke her back into a black oblivion when she did not respond, or worse, when she acted out against him.

  He lifted a single brow. “Name not important, girl. Up now.”

  Rami yanked her up from the seat of the plane by the rope keeping her wrists bound. Catherine wet her lips, and tasted dried blood on the corner of her mouth. She was sore in more places than one, likely from being dragged and tossed around, not to mention kicked and choked.

  “We go from plane to boat, girl,” Rami said. “You get seasick over side, not on deck.”

  Catherine glowered at the bright sunlight as she was pulled down the stairs from the private jet. Ahead of them, she could see the eight other men who had kidnapped her, and the big man who continued to antagonize her on the plane.

  The one they simply called their boss.

  The hot, humid air soaked into Catherine’s lungs, as did the taste of salt from the ocean. The private airstrip seemed to be right beside the damn water. Two black and red speedboats waited at a dock, and like she was a dog on a leash, Catherine followed Rami when he pulled her along.

  Her fight was not gone.

  She simply needed a recharge.

  “Rhys, sir, your drink,” a man on one of the speedboat said as the large man stepped onto the first speedboat.

  Rhys.

  Catherine filed that away for later.

  The man who handed Rhys a drink did not look like the others who had taken her. He was thinner, older, and dressed in a simple black suit. Like a fucking butler or something.

  But on a speedboat?

  “Thank you, Curtis,” Rhys said.

  Catherine was tugged past the first boat to the second. She was practically tossed from the deck onto the boat with little care, and her already sore wrists throbbed as she caught herself on a seat. Rami climbed in after her.

  “I fully expect them to make the drop on time,” she heard Rhys say from the other boat. “She’s quite precious to her father—to the other man, too. The gunrunner. They’ll make it.”

  “And when they do?” one of Rhys’ men asked.

  “When they do, I’ll have my guns. What else?”

  “Them, boss. What about them?”

  “They should not have played games with me,” Rhys said before taking a sip from his glass. “And so, I will make sure that they never play another game with anyone after the drop.”

  Catherine wasn’t sure how long the boats had been on the water. An hour, but more likely two. It was only when the sight of an island loomed in the distance did she finally lift her head to see what awaited her.

  She still had no idea where she was.

  She knew better than to ask, now.

  As the speedboats came to a stop, Catherine took in her surroundings as she was pulled onto a dock.

  The island was a good quarter of a mile long, but she couldn’t be sure how wide. For such a secluded place, it was well manicured with tress, tresses, and shrubs. A large, three-level Victorian-style home rested very close to the middle of the island, with a wide cobblestone pathway leading to the front steps. A smaller home, although not by much, sat on the far left side of the island. Two small buildings sat beside both homes, and Catherine could hear rumblings coming from inside the closest one.

  Generators, maybe?

  The place had to be powered somehow.

  It wasn’t so much the strange island, or the beautiful home set apart from the rest of the world that set Catherine on edge. No, she supposed anyone rich and introverted enough could have something like this.

  What bothered her the most?

  The men standing guard along the beach. Twenty, at least. Catherine tried to do a quick count, but it was hard when she was being moved along. All of the men were dressed in black, wearing full combat gear, and each carried an assault rifle with a chest band full of bullets. Knifes rested in sheaths on their right legs and left arms. None looked at her as she was shuffled past, nor did they give Rhys or his men any attention.

  “Walk,” Rami barked from behind her.

  Catherine stumbled over tired feet on the dock, and glowered at Rami when he yanked her up by the collar of her dress. “I’m fucking moving, asshole.”

  “Be nice,” Rhys said as he strolled on past. “Rami is your new best friend for the next few days.”

  Great.

  Catherine considered bolting for the ocean.

  Rhys chuckled as he eyed her over his shoulder, as though he could read her mind. “Pretty girl—you are a dumb thing, aren’t you?”

  Catherine resented that comment, but chose to stay quiet. She had managed to piss him off enough, and was not in the
mood to be choked unconscious again.

  “Don’t be stupid, Catherine Marcello,” Rhys said with a wicked gleam in his eye. “You’re on a private island in the Gulf of Mexico. Where are you possibly going to go? Keep in mind, if you do run, my men have orders to drown you … just not enough to kill you.”

  Catherine shivered.

  Who was this man?

  Rhys smiled coldly. “Be a good guest, darling. We don’t often have them when we’re out here, and if you tend to irritate me too much, I may let the men have a bit of fun with you.”

  She didn’t like what he implied.

  The defiant part of her brain stepped up to the plate again.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Catherine muttered.

  Maybe she was stupid, but goddamn, she was still going down swinging.

  It was the Marcello in her.

  Rhys sighed, and flicked his hand at Rami.

  “Spoiled girl,” Rami told her. “Quiet your mouth.”

  Catherine suddenly found herself being dragged back the way they had come—toward the water. Every inch of her wanted to fight, and the self-preserving part of her almost started begging. Terror filled her to the brim, and her chest hurt from how tight it became.

  She got one good gulp of air in before she was forced to her knees at the very edge of the beach. Rami grabbed a fistful of her hair, pushed forward without care, and her face hit water.

  One second … two.

  One heartbeat … two.

  The old, soothing mantra she had used during panic attacks filled her mind. Her lungs burned as she refused to cave to the need to breathe.

  Even if she survived this place, would they actually get away?

  Catherine peeked over her knees as the door to her prison was opened up. It wasn’t really a prison—more like a very fancy, large bedroom and attached bath. Still, she was locked inside, the windows were nailed shut, and she was not allowed to leave. Her door only opened when Rami came along to bring her food and water, or once, for a change of clothes that she refused to wear. They had been men’s clothes, after all, and she was not wearing some man’s shit.