by Bethany-Kris
“I mean, not really. It won’t happen again.”
Calisto blew out a harsh breath. “You’re goddamn right it’s not going to happen again. New rules, Cross, starting now. You follow whatever the hell that girl’s father wants regarding her, what she’s allowed to do, and what you can do when you’re even thinking about breathing in her direction.”
Cross didn’t like that at all, but whatever.
It was what it was.
“Cross,” Calisto said.
“Yeah?”
“Do you understand?”
“Yeah, Papa, I got it.”
Calisto finally let go of the doorjamb and straightened to his full height. “Please tell me you’re not having sex with that girl because I seriously don’t think her father could take that if he found out at this point. I know you messed around with one of the girls that hang around Zeke, but let me be very clear, Catherine is not like her, Cross. She is not.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“How the hell did we go from the beach thing to fucking?”
“Cross!”
“Relax, we’re not.”
And just because he messed around with someone before, as his step-father liked to say, didn’t mean he screwed everything that moved.
Calisto pursed his lips, and glanced upward. Cross swore he was sending up a silent prayer of thanks. He did that a lot.
“We’ve had that talk enough times,” Calisto said, a warning lingering heavily behind his words.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t knock someone up. Condoms every single time. Consent can’t be given by drunk or high people that don’t even know their own names. You don’t have to worry about that.”
“If you’re even trying to joke with me right now, I swear to God …”
“I was serious,” Cross said, plucking the pick back out to play. His fingers hovered over the strings of the guitar. “Was that all?”
“No, that’s not all.”
“What else is there?”
“This morning,” Calisto said, “you and your sister fought until your mother had to separate you. You’re old enough to know that’s unacceptable.”
“She won’t leave me alone,” Cross explained, “and I told her to get the hell out of my space.”
“Cross.”
“She instigated it, that’s all.”
“Cross.”
“Maybe if she had more siblings to bother, she’d leave me alone.”
Calisto quieted, and folded his arms over his chest as he stared Cross down from the other side of the room. “Sometimes I honestly believe you don’t think. You just speak, Cross, without even considering for a second what you’re saying. Because that’s just how you are, but you need to curb that, son. Do you even know how badly that would hurt your mother if you said something like that to her?”
Cross frowned. “What?”
“Camilla did have more siblings, Cross. So did you. A little brother that was born early and didn’t live long after his birth. And another baby—a very early miscarriage. You were early, too, but healthy enough. You’re still a miracle to your mother. And your sister? She’s a goddamn miracle, too, born even earlier than you, and she fought every day of her first months just to live, Cross. Every. Day. So please don’t ever tell your mother maybe if her miracle children that did live, had the babies she can’t have because they’re dead, they might actually get along.”
Well …
Fuck.
“Sorry,” Cross said quietly.
“Think,” Calisto replied harshly, “before you speak.”
“Yeah, all right.”
“And Jesus Christ, when your sister says jump, Cross, you ask that little girl how high, and don’t you even hesitate. She adores you. You are the only brother she is ever going to have—get fucking used to being her best friend, her hero, or whatever the hell else she wants you to be whether you like it or not, whether you want to be or not. Got it?”
“I got it, Papa.”
“Good. Don’t ever forget it.”
“Cross, did you hear anything I just said?” Emma asked.
Cross looked up from his phone screen to see his mother staring at him. “What, Ma?”
“What is up with you?”
“Nothing.”
Emma patted her son on his cheek with a gentle palm. “You’ve had a rough couple of weeks, haven’t you?”
Cross ran a hand through his hair, and stuffed his phone into his pocket. That was likely the only way he would stop checking the stupid thing. “Nah, everything is fine, Ma.”
His mother frowned, but didn’t press the issue further. Cross figured that was probably because she didn’t want to somehow put him in a bad mood when they were having a good day. Emma had wanted to shop, Camilla was having her day out with Calisto, and so Cross was left to be his mother’s companion while she did her thing.
Apparently, he needed clothes, too. Not because he actually did need them, but his mother liked to spend money. Cross didn’t much care, but his mother rarely bought him anything unless asking him if he liked it first. Especially clothes.
“You’re sure nothing is wrong,” Emma pressed as she moved to another rack of clothes.
Cross glanced down at his empty hand, almost expecting his phone to still be there. “I haven’t talked to Catherine in two weeks, Ma.”
Emma frowned. “Do you talk to her pretty often?”
Every day.
Multiple times a day.
Or he used to.
Cross wasn’t sure if his step-father had explained the beach incident to his mother, or not, but that was when Catherine suddenly went silent on her end. He didn’t like that at all—he didn’t like the heavy feeling in his chest, or the deadweight in his stomach.
“Usually,” Cross finally answered.
“You two got in some trouble, huh?”
So his mother did know.
“She did.”
Emma rolled her eyes. “You should have, too.”
“I just went to the beach, Ma.”
“You know I don’t like you running from one side of New York to the other without some kind of adult with you, Cross. And you do it all the time, even when you’re told not to.”
“Zeke was there.”
Emma scoffed. “He is not an adult, far from it.”
Cross shrugged. “Keeps me out of trouble, though.”
His mother’s gaze softened. “I suppose he does, huh?”
“I’m not sure what to do.”
“About Catherine?”
“Yeah,” Cross said.
Emma pursed her lips. “Well, give her some time, Cross. Let her figure out whatever she’s got going on. Maybe she got grounded and can’t answer your messages or calls. You do know that’s a real thing, right? Teens do actually get grounded when they disobey their parents. They don’t rebel more, destroy property, and jump out their bedroom windows, in case you were curious.”
“Nice, Ma.”
“Head out to the car. I don’t think these clothes are anything you’ll like, but there’s some cute stuff for your sister. I won’t be long.”
Cross didn’t need to be told a second time. He bolted out of the small Brooklyn clothing shop before his mother could think better of her suggestion. He waved two fingers at the enforcer who was never far behind whenever his mother left the house. Calisto rarely sent a guard with Cross because he was always with Zeke, or Wolf, but his mother’s enforcer was always present for her.
His mother called it a blessing and a curse. A blessing because she knew they were safe when they left their home. A curse because that was just their life; it was an unavoidable disruption that she could never be alone when she was without her husband, and she accepted it being she had married a mafia boss.
It didn’t take long before his mother came out of the store, a bag in both hands, and slid into the driver’s seat. Emma chattered on as she drove the thirty minutes it took to get home,
but didn’t seem bothered by Cross’s silence.
“Well, seems you’re going to get your answers,” his mother said.
“Huh?”
Cross looked up to find his mother had pulled into their driveway and parked in front of the large garage. He’d been so stuck inside his own head that he hadn’t even realized where they were. That wasn’t what caught his attention first, though.
Catherine sat on the large marble steps of the Donati home with what looked to be Cross’s leather jacket wrapped around her arms. He’d given it to her a month ago when he was at her house, and it started raining while they were walking through the back property.
He never asked for it back, because shit, it looked better on her.
“Marc can help me with my bags,” his mother said softly.
“Thanks, Ma.”
She waved him off, and Cross got out of the Mercedes without another word. He squinted up at the bright, early August sun as he headed in Catherine’s direction. She stood from the steps, still keeping hold of his jacket, as he came to a stop in front of her.
“Hey,” Catherine said.
“How did you get here?”
She waved at a black SUV parked across the road. “Johnathan—my cousin. Kind of messed up with the whole taking off thing and leaving him hanging like that. Marcellos don’t do wrong by family, or so my dad says. I’m supposed to be making it up to him by spending the day with him, I guess.”
“He just brought you over?”
“I asked, so. Apparently I should have just done that in the first place.”
Cross shifted from one foot to the other, that heavy pressure and deadweight feeling starting to grow in his chest and stomach all over again. Not to mention, for it being a warm day, he was terribly cold all of the sudden.
“You haven’t answered me back for two weeks.”
Catherine wouldn’t meet his gaze as she ran a hand through her loose waves of hair. “Lost my phone and stuff for a week.”
“That’s one. Not two, Catherine.”
They both quieted as his mother and her enforcer Marc headed past them up the stairs, both carrying bags. Catherine spoke first once the front door was closed again.
“I wanted to bring your jacket back,” she said.
Cross didn’t move to take the item when she tried to hand it over. “I don’t want it.”
“Well, it’s not mine, and I won’t be able to give it back after today, right? We won’t see each other very much at all once we’re back at the Academy. You’ll be in the upper Academy. I’ll still be in the lower. Kind of stupid to be with someone when you can’t really be with them, isn’t it?”
No.
“We’ll figure it out,” Cross said.
He planned to, anyway.
“No need,” Catherine replied with a shrug. “It’s better we figure it out now, not then. I think we both know how that’ll end.”
“I think I know how this is going to end.”
He didn’t like it at all.
“I’m sorry, Cross,” she said in a whisper.
She still wouldn’t look at him.
“Is this actually because of school, or something else?”
Catherine finally met his gaze. “What?”
“So you got in trouble for something you did because of me.”
“I never said it was because of you.”
“To them?” he asked.
Catherine glanced away. “I just—”
“So is it about school, and all that, or because your parents are pissed and you want to make them happy again?”
She didn’t answer him.
He didn’t need her to.
“You should take your jacket,” Catherine said, holding the item out again.
She still wore that leather wrap bracelet with the conch shell on her wrist.
It was still there.
She never took it off.
“Keep it—I don’t want it.”
“But …”
“Looks better on you,” he said.
Behind him, the SUV waiting on Catherine honked their horn. Her gaze darted over his shoulder, and then back to him just as fast.
“I am sorry, Cross,” she said.
He didn’t want to hear that again.
“Don’t keep your cousin waiting, Catherine. You should go.”
“But—”
“Just go,” Cross said, feeling numb in his fingertips.
That numbness kept spreading, too.
Catherine nodded once, and then darted to the walkway. Cross didn’t turn around until he heard the door shut and the tires of the SUV crunch on pavement. He sat down on the bottom front step of his home, and wondered why his chest hurt so fucking badly.
Why did it hurt to breathe?
Why couldn’t he unclench his fists?
Why were his eyes stinging?
Cross wasn’t quite sure how long he sat there, but his daze was finally interrupted by the front door opening and closing. A second later, Marc dropped down to sit beside him.
“Hey, principe.”
Cross didn’t say a thing.
He was too pissed.
Too numb.
Too everything.
“Yeah,” Marc said with a low chuckle, “that first one is a bitch, Cross.”
“First what?”
Marc smacked him on the back. “You’ll figure it out. So shit, why don’t you come chill with me for the rest of the day since your mother isn’t leaving the house again, and I’ll take you somewhere to get your mind off this, huh? I don’t think the boss would mind, considering.”
Calisto, he meant.
Cross cleared his throat. “Go where?”
Marc laughed. “A made man’s kind of place, principe. They’re good for distractions, and we all need one of those sometimes.”
13 months later …
“Catherine, I did not pay good money for that manicure for you to chew and pick it apart,” Catrina said sharply.
Catherine dropped her hands to her lap. “Sorry, Ma.”
Catrina eyed her daughter from the side, but quickly went back to paying attention to the road. “What is up with you this morning?”
“Nervous, I guess.”
“My God, why?”
Catherine made a noise under her breath, trying to sound dismissive.
She failed.
Miserably.
Catrina didn’t miss it. “Your friends are all still going to be there. It’s just tenth grade—you’re not actually going to a new, new school. It’s still the Academy. Bit of a shame you couldn’t have at least spent one year in high school with your brother at the same time, but it is what it is. I’m sure Michel might have made you more comfortable had he still been here.”
Except he wasn’t. Her brother had graduated at the end of the previous year. Michel was taking a year off before he headed to Detroit where he planned to live while he attended a university in Ann Arbor; he wanted to be a doctor.
Catherine almost found it ironic how two years after transferring into the Academy of Westforth, she was once again feeling like she had that first time around. Nervous, worried, and bothered. If she could just stay in ninth grade, where she was popular, then she wouldn’t have to prove her worth for a place at the table with the rest of the little trust fund bitches.
She had already done that for herself.
“Trust fund bitches?” Catrina asked.
Catherine made a face. “I said that out loud?”
“It was more like a mumble, but sì. That’s what you’re worried about, still being liked and popular?”
“It is high school, Ma. This isn’t like with you, or however you did your thing selling—”
“We don’t talk about that, Catherine.”
She rolled her eyes.
Sure.
They never talked about it, or mostly.
“Point is, high school is brutal. I feel like I’m starting over or something.”
“They�
�re just teenagers, like you. They’re not rabid or anything.”
Catherine begged to differ.
At least for some of the girls at the Academy.
And a few boys, too.
“You hold your own just fine,” Catrina said with a sly smile, “because you’re my daughter, Catherine. And for the record, you are also one of those little trust fund—”
“Are you going to call me a bitch?”
“Well, there is a reason why you go to that school, and it’s not because your father and I are poor, Catherine. You’re just as privileged and spoiled as any of them. You simply don’t show it off in the same way they do. So they wear diamonds and gold, and you wear flowers in your hair and prefer a Coachella style. Fact is, you still come from the same world they do, and you still dress up just the same in the end. Don’t put yourself on a pedestal; you’ll shatter the same way they would when you fall, sweetheart. And you will fall.” Then, Catrina barked out a laugh. “You should have heard your tone right then, though. Jesus, get ready to rip my throat out why don’t you? You’ll be fine, reginella.”
“Yeah, I know, Ma.”
Or, she hoped.
“But remember what I’ve always told you,” Catrina said as she pulled into the Academy’s drop-off lane for the upper grades. “Tell me what it is, Catherine.”
“I’m always a queen as long as I act like one.”
Catrina winked. “Precisely.”
“I’m being vain, aren’t I?”
“Be vain, Catherine. Absolutely. Care about how you appear to others, and what they see. But never ever bend or change who you are to suit what they want. Be vain, yes, care about your outer image and reputation, but do so because you are controlling what they see and think. Nothing else.”
Catherine nodded. “Okay.”
Catrina’s smile softened. “That, Catherine, is how I was so successful as a Queen Pin. No one was ever allowed to see me or think of me in any way but the ways I allowed them to see or think. No one knew the woman under her mask of makeup, designer dresses, and sky-high heels. They saw the Queen, she was who delivered. I made sure I always had that control—every single time.”
She wasn’t sure what shocked her more; that her mother had offered information about her past so freely, or that she smiled while she did it.
“Do you miss it?” Catherine dared to ask.