by Bethany-Kris
The Russians.
The meeting a week before still weighed heavily in his mind. It was every reason for his distraction lately. It wouldn’t leave. A bad taste lingered in his mouth. He hoped this was the right choice, and that his family wouldn’t be punished for it.
But was it?
Cross carefully pulled the afghan blanket over Cece’s sleeping form. The dinner had gone on longer than they expected, and Cece ended up falling asleep sometime between cheesecake and talk of an upcoming birthday for someone.
Once he was sure his girl was going to stay sleeping on the couch, he headed back the way he had come. To the dining room. He found it empty, but the echoing voices took him to the kitchen.
There, he found Catherine, Emma, and Catrina cleaning up the mess from the dinner. A perfectly fine dishwasher sat there, ready to be used, but the women opted to wash the dishes by hand. They always did that. He never understood why.
For a moment, he stayed and listened to their conversation.
Safe conversation, he noticed.
“Have you thought of any names?” Emma asked.
“Bit early for that,” Catherine said, “but I think Cross is set on a name for a boy.”
“Something like you did for Cece’s names?” Catrina asked.
Catherine nodded. “Something like that, yeah.”
It might have been safe conversation, but it was still conversation. Cross thanked God for small miracles. His wife was actually talking to her mother. After months of radio silence, avoiding, and silent stewing.
Sure, they played nice during family gatherings, but they still hadn’t actually talked.
Cross hoped this safe conversation would lead Catherine and Catrina into a chat about something else. Mostly, business. He figured Catherine was ready to woman up for stepping out of line with her mother, apologize, and get some real insight about where the hell she needed to go next regarding her issues.
Again, one could only hope.
Seemed he was doing that a lot lately.
“Where did Calisto and Dante go?” Cross asked, finally making his presence known.
None of the women turned around at his question.
His mother was the one to answer. “Upstairs. Dante’s office.”
All right.
He headed that way, seeing as how his presence wasn’t needed in the kitchen. He barely stepped foot inside Dante’s office, and already, his father had a glass of twenty-year-old bourbon ready for him.
Sipping from the drink, Cross let the nutty, spicy flavors wash over his palate as he took a seat next to his father. Across from them, Dante sat behind his desk.
“How’s it going downstairs?” Dante asked.
Cross shrugged. “Catherine is actually talking to her mother. Mostly safe conversation. I think it’s because Ma is down there. Not going to complain, though.”
“Good.”
“Something going on there?” Calisto asked.
Dante waved it off. “Stubborn women who are too alike for their own good.”
Cross pointed at his father-in-law. “Mostly true.”
“And Catrina is doing her thing again. Lessons, apparently.”
Calisto made a harsh noise in the back of his throat. “It’s not like being a made man, I suppose.”
“Not at all,” Cross agreed.
Dante’s gaze turned on Cross as he said, “I heard you’re having trouble with a man of yours, and some Russians.”
Cross scowled at his father, knowing that was likely where Dante learned that information.
Calisto wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Second and third opinions are good to hear.”
“Yes, but I don’t want this information getting out more than it already is. I am trying to handle it. I haven’t even brought it up to the rest of the Donati men yet, Papa.”
Dante rested back in his chair, and steepled his fingers. “That bad, huh?”
“Well, it isn’t real fucking good.”
“Yeah, it never is.”
Three days later, Cross stepped into one of the Donati family’s many warehouses. At his presence, the chattering men quieted instantly. Wary gazes drifted his way, and then behind him to see who had followed.
Only Rick entered behind him.
Cross knew who the men were looking for.
Zeke.
It was exactly why he had called this meeting, after all. Whispers had started to drift between the men about Zeke, Katya, and the Russian’s threats. Cross had expected that to happen after the meeting a couple of weeks earlier. For the most part, he had been able to keep Zeke’s impromptu marriage quiet until he could decide how to properly handle delivering the news to the rest of the family.
Now, he no longer had a choice.
Cross was not the type of boss who allowed rumors to circulate and percolate. It only made for bad situations, honestly. Rumors tended to only hold a small bit of truth, after all. Far more contained salacious nonsense intended to cause problems.
He planned to cut that off at the knees before it could go any further than it already had.
“Evening,” Cross said to the men.
Echoes of greetings answered him back.
He waved for Rick to join the rest of the men, and the underboss did as he was told. Cross waited until everyone was settled and quiet before he moved to the center of the floor.
“I hear there are some … questions floating around. I’m here to answer them.”
Silence replied.
Cross wasn’t surprised. His organization was accustomed to being held at arms’ length where he was concerned. Rarely did the Capos or their closest men get a close quarters meeting with their boss, unless something was very wrong.
Or unless it was tribute.
“Do you need me to repeat myself?” Cross asked.
“Did Zeke marry a Russian?”
The question came from the back. Cross didn’t even bother to look in the direction it came. He knew each of his Capos by their voice. He didn’t need to see their faces when he spoke.
“He did,” Cross said.
“Is it true she was arranged to marry someone else?” came another question.
Cross nodded. “That is also accurate.”
“The boss, right?”
“No, one of the boss’s men. She was intended to be a gift for his good behavior.”
Cross offered nothing else, and chose to allow his men to let their minds fill in the blanks he had not. It would work to both Zeke and Katya’s benefit if the rest of the men in their organization could pull forth sympathy for their situation. It was one thing for Cross to order the men to protect his consigliere and the man’s wife. It was another thing for them to want to willingly do so.
“He’s caused issues with the Russians,” someone said.
“He’s put this family in danger.”
Another asked, “How long before the Bratva comes down on us for this?”
“What will his punishment be?”
The discontent clung heavily in the air.
Cross could practically taste it.
He remembered what his father told him about being a good boss, and he thought perhaps his men needed a reminder, too.
After all, this wasn’t really about them. Or him, even.
This was about a man—a made man—who was only trying to protect the woman he loved. Sure, he had gone about it in the wrong way, and caused problems that left Cross in a bad situation and trying to clean it up.
It would likely bleed over to the rest of the men as well.
Still, respect was needed.
Always.
“We are a family first,” Cross said, making sure his voice carried over the concerns and demands shouting his way. “We will always be a family before anything else. We have always been this way. I understand that now we have to put more consideration into the safety of our families, and our streets. However, we’re doing that for the sake of family, so that one of us can be happy like the rest of
us are in our own lives.”
Cross lifted a single hand, and tipped it over to show his palm as he said, “Don’t you understand? Don’t any of you know? I would protect each one of you in the same way, and with the same persistence that I am protecting Zeke. It’s what a good boss does for his men—for men who have shown him loyalty, respect, and honor. You don’t have to like what he did, or approve, because I certainly don’t. But if you expect me, him, or anyone else in this family to protect you the same way I am doing for him, then you have to give the same thing back.”
Silence stretched on.
Cross was okay with that.
“I expect you to offer him the same thing he has offered you,” Cross said simply. “Nothing more, and nothing less. Be good made men. Especially to each other.”
There.
His piece was said.
The boss had spoken.
The rest would be on the men to work it out.
Catherine leaned in the doorway of the music room. Large bay windows overlooked the private back property. The Baby Grand piano sat in the very middle. A collection of guitars rested along one entire wall. Framed, collectable music compositions hung in a haphazard fashion above the guitars. Posters of long dead musicians rested safely in large frames where little hands could not reach.
Out of every room in their house, Catherine figured this was the one that Cross liked the most. More so than even his private office, or their bedroom. When their house was finally finished with renovations, he had little interest in picking things out to decorate. Unlike her, he didn’t have a vision for every single room.
Cross basically let her have full run of the place.
Except this room.
His music room.
In one of the two leather bucket chairs facing the bay windows, Cross sat staring blankly over the backyard. His one arm hung over the edge of the chair. His other rested on the arm, while he stroked his jaw with his hand. Still dressed in the sleep pants he had tossed on the night before when he climbed into bed with her, his torso was naked.
She didn’t miss how the longer bit of black hair on top of his head was messier than usual. As though he had been running his fingers through it.
Cross was like most men in the way that sometimes, he just needed his own time and space away from everyone and everything else. Actually, Catherine thought he had always been like that because he was far more introverted than he allowed people to think.
His alone time was sacred.
She hated to interrupt it.
Cross already knew she was there, apparently.
“Are you going to come in, or …?”
Catherine smiled. “I brought you coffee.”
He glanced over at her, his dark eyes drinking her in. The silk robe she had cinched to her waist fell to mid-thigh. She was only wearing it because the cotton panties and bralette underneath weren’t exactly appropriate for her to walk around in should visitors show up or something.
Not to mention, Cece.
“I smelled it,” Cross told her with a chuckle. “That’s how I knew you were there.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, babe. Come here.”
Catherine sipped from her mug of decaf coffee as she crossed the space. Easily, Cross slipped his still steaming cup from her hands, and tasted the bitter drink.
She was a cream and sugar kind of girl.
He was a black with a whisper of sweet kind of man.
“It’s good,” he murmured. His lips still touched the rim of the mug. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
Cross’s gaze drifted to the large, ornate brass clock on the wall, noting the time. “It’s a bit early for you to be up, isn’t it?”
“Something is bouncing on my bladder again.”
Wordlessly, Cross’s hand lifted from the arm of the chair, and came to rest on Catherine’s still flat stomach. If her pregnancy this time around was anything like Cece’s had been, she probably wouldn’t start showing until she was around twenty weeks or more. And even then, the small bump was easily hidden with the right dresses or blouses.
Cross seemed to read her mind. “What are you thinking this time, babe? That you’re going to work right up until you can’t keep it a secret anymore?”
“It’s only unsafe when it’s noticeable,” Catherine replied.
“I guess you’ll be able to get everything in order, anyway.”
“That’s the plan for now.”
His hand slid between the flaps of the silk robe. He only stopped once his palm was flat against her warm stomach. His thumb stroked back and forth in a rhythmic fashion. It was enough to make what was left of Catherine’s worries drift away for the moment.
“Love you, Catty,” he told her, never looking away from the windows.
“Love you, Cross.”
His hand snuck around her waist, and then to her back. His fingertips pressed into her skin as he held tight to keep her in place.
“When I got up, you weren’t in bed, so I thought I would come look for you,” she said.
Cross smiled faintly. “Found me.”
“I did.” Leaning down, Catherine kissed the corner of his mouth before standing straight once more. “What are you doing down here this early, anyway?”
“Thinking about some things.”
“When did you wake up?”
“Didn’t sleep,” he admitted.
Catherine stiffened. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“It’s just business and issues, Catherine.”
“Yeah, I’ve got those, too.”
“We don’t talk about it,” Cross said, looking up at her with a grin.
“No, we don’t step on each other’s toes, Cross. Discussing things isn’t exactly the same as trying to push our opinions or presence on the other. Right?”
“Mmm.”
“What was that?” she asked.
He laughed huskily. “Right, babe.”
Cross snatched the cup from Catherine’s hand, and set it to the small table between the bucket chairs. Without warning, the hand at her back pressed hard, pushing her forward. He caught her easily, and before she knew it, Catherine was on her back in Cross’s lap, and looking up at him.
He winked.
“Are you trying to give me motion sickness?”
“Is that a thing this time around?” he asked.
“I don’t want to test it out and see.”
“Fair enough.”
She resituated herself in his lap, so that her legs were tossed over the arm of the chair, and her head rested on Cross’s chest. It was far more comfortable, and she was able to stare out the windows, too.
Cross’s fingers drifted through her hair as he spoke. “You want to go first, or me?”
“You.”
“I figured. Always putting me on the spot, babe.”
“You handle it far better than I ever could.”
“Lies,” Cross said under his breath.
“Is not. How did that meeting go with your guys last night? You didn’t say a word about it when you got home.”
“Because it went over about as well as I expected, Catherine.”
She tipped her head back and peered up at him. “Tell me.”
Cross’s lips flattened into a grim line, but never once did he stop stroking his fingers through Catherine’s hair. “Mostly, they’re pissed off at Zeke for putting them in a position they have never put him in.”
“That’s fair.”
“It is.”
“Why do I hear a but in there, Cross?”
“But it could just as easily be any of them, you know? Cosa Nostra has a way of suffocating made men with all its rules and expectations. Nobody wants to admit it or say it out loud, but there are always times when rules are not the most important thing in life. A man can’t always be good and honorable to the life. Sometimes, shit happens.”
“Shit like love?”
Cross did grin a little at that. “Yeah, babe. T
hings like love, I guess.”
“It’s not that simple, though, is it?”
“Never.”
“Didn’t think so.”
Cross sighed heavily, and his hand dropped from her hair to toy with the edge of her silk robe. It had fallen open in the tumble to his lap, leaving her body on display and in reach for him to touch. He did just that, and Catherine got lost in the sensation of deft fingers gliding over her soft skin.
“He still put them in a bad position—me, too.”
“Sure.”
“So I have to let them be pissed, and have their … fucking feelings,” Cross muttered with a dark laugh.
“What about the rest?”
“Hmm?”
“The Russians,” she clarified.
“Vlad Sokolov is not a man who is easy to work with.”
Catherine made a face. “To be fair, neither are you.”
“No, but I’m not out there looking for a street war, either. He seems perfectly happy to jump right into one.”
“Oh.”
She twisted her hands together on her lap. A nervous tic that helped her to settle anxiety whenever it popped up.
Cross didn’t miss it.
“I wanted to work it out in a way that at least satisfied both sides,” he said quietly.
“You knew that was unlikely, though, considering everything.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“So what now?”
“Now … I just work on removing the problem.”
Catherine folded her arms over her chest, and ignored Cross’s fingertips edging along the waistband of her cotton panties. “What about the rest of us? What are we going to do while you remove the problem?”
“Stay safe.”
“How exactly—”
“You’re going to need to head out again for work soon, aren’t you?”
“Probably.”
Very soon, likely.
Catherine hadn’t brought up the subject of her needing to head back to L.A., pay an unsuspecting former client a visit, or that she might finally have a source who could get her into the Mexican cartel.