Chapter 2

“I swear to God, I am going to put a bullet in you one of these fucking days.”

Cross didn’t bother to look up from the gun he was dismantling at his step-father’s threat because he knew it wasn’t meant for him. Sure, Calisto probably sometimes wanted to put a bullet in Cross because he was, according to the man, mouthy, difficult, and stubborn as shit, but he never actually said it.

Wolf sighed across the table from Cross. “Come on, now, Cal.”

“What did I tell you?” Calisto came to stand by the table, picked up Cross’s drink of Seven Up, and sniffed it before setting it back down. “I told you one thing about today, so what was it, Wolf?”

“He was fine. He’s still fine.”

“In a strip club! He’s not even fifteen, for fuck’s sake!”

Cross tipped his head to the side, eyeing one of the girls dancing mostly naked on a stage with a pole just a few feet away from their table. All she had on was a G-string, but he had something better to pay attention to in his hands. His new gun.

“Jesus, look at him, Cal. He’s not even interested.”

“Oh, he’s interested. He’s—”

“Twenty-one seconds to dismantle,” Cross piped up.

“Where’s your kit I gave you? You should clean it while it’s opened up,” Wolf said as though he weren’t managing two conversations at once. Then, he went back to Calisto. “It’s not the first time he’s been in here, or a place like it, Cal. Relax. You said it, he’s almost fifteen. Let’s not pretend like he doesn’t have a stack of pussy mags hidden somewhere like we all did at that age. But if he doesn’t, well … Seriously, he’s not even interested in the girls. Kind of makes me wonder if he’s a little—”

“Not gay,” Cross interrupted.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Wolf replied.

Cross scowled. “Lies. You were. And I’m not.”

“I wasn’t going to say it loudly.”

Calisto grinded his teeth and glared up at the ceiling. “I want to ask if you are fucking with me right now, but I don’t even have to because I know you’re not. I’m not sure if that should piss me off more.”

“I’m not gay,” Cross said again.

“Yes, Cross,” Calisto muttered under his breath, “I do know that, son.”

“But you could be a little more interested in …” Wolf trailed off, and tipped his head in the direction of the dancing stripper. “I’m just putting that out there.”

“I see his phone history once a week,” Calisto groused. “It gets sent to me in a nice little email. Trust me, the kid is not gay. But that girl is not his preference, either. Too thin, too light, and way too blonde.”

Something that felt a lot like embarrassment filled Cross, but it was quickly replaced with another feeling that was foreign to him—anger. At least where his step-dad was concerned.

“How do you do that?” Cross asked.

Calisto looked down at him. “What?”

“Get stuff from my phone emailed to you.”

“I had my guy put an app on it after I bought it and—”

“You track my phone?”

“Cross.”

“You track my phone?” he demanded again.

Calisto pressed two fingers into his temple. “I have to monitor something when I can, don’t I? Have I ever brought it up to you? Have I ever spoke about the stuff you search or look up, or the people you text? No, because I don’t have to. Don’t give me a reason to, and I won’t.”

Cross stared at his step-father. “I want a new phone. Without a tracking app.”

“Buy one then.”

“But—”

“I bought this one. I do what I want with it. You buy one, do what you want, Cross.”

“Seems fair,” Wolf said more to himself than the table.

“And you,” Calisto said, turning back on his consigliere. “Stop bringing him into these goddamn strip joints. It’s not even about the girls. It’s the way the fools here act about the girls. Like pieces of ass, nothing more. Meat on display. It’s ridiculous, and I won’t have him getting those ideals in his head.”

“He’s going to see it one way or the other, man.”

“Not when I can help it, Wolf.”

“Whatever. Fine. You want a drink?”

Calisto waved as if to say, go for it. Wolf was gone from the table a second later, and then Calisto took the man’s vacant seat.

“You’re pissed at me now,” Calisto said.

It wasn’t even a question.

Cross shrugged as he pulled out a small vat of oil and a brush to clean the gun. “I follow the rules. Don’t see why you need to spy on me, Cal.”

Sometimes, he called his step-father his papa.

Sometimes, it was just Cal to Cross.

It all depended on his mood, and who was around to hear it. As he grew up, there were far too many men who liked to remind Cross that the man he loved as his father, wasn’t really his dad. They liked to point out as often as they could that Cross’s biological father was a bastard who had betrayed their thing—their Cosa Nostra—and left his young mother Emma with a baby and divorce papers before never being heard from again.

Like a coward.

They said those things like they were Cross’s stains to wear.

As though he was stained, too.

“Because you’re almost fifteen,” Calisto said quietly. “That means I don’t see you as much. I don’t get very much say, and there’s no leash short enough to keep you where I would like to have you, Cross. It means even though I have told you again and again what you should or shouldn’t do, where you should or shouldn’t go, and all the rest, I still need to sometimes make sure you’re still listening.”

Well …

“All right,” Cross said.

But he still wasn’t okay with it.

Not entirely.

“What did you mean about the other thing?” Cross asked.

“Pardon?”

“Ideals, you said.” Cross subtly nodded toward the girl that was leaving the stage in preparation for another girl to come and take her spot. “What did you mean?”

“Women aren’t property, Cross. Too many men who hang around these places, and too many in our business, like to believe women are something to be owned. They make a show out of their women; they display them like trophies. As though they’ve won them; it’s not a competition. You earn a good woman by being a good man, that’s it. You can’t do that by treating a woman like your personal toy because then she becomes that ideal to those around you who are watching.”

Calisto sighed, and rested back in his chair. “Make men wish they were you; make them wish they were lucky enough to be you. As for women? Make them want to be with you, or want to be the woman standing next to you. But you don’t do that by putting a woman on display like a trophy you didn’t earn. Got it?”

Cross nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”

“It’s just like Wolf said, huh? You’re not interested in the show here at all, are you?”

“The show?”

Calisto sat straighter in his chair. “The girls, Cross.”

“Not really. What’s to be interested in? They’re letting it all out, anyway. I’ve seen tits and ass before. It’s not new.” Cross went back to his gun on the table. “And like you said, they’re not my type.”

Calisto laughed under his breath. “True. How did football tryouts go yesterday? Ma took you, right?”

“I killed it.”

Calisto smirked. “Didn’t expect any different. First string?”

“Quarterback.”

His step-father whistled low. “Well done. You know they’re probably not going to put you on first string when you enter the upper Academy next year for tenth grade.”

His private school only went from grades sixth through ninth before the higher grades, tenth through twelfth, were separated into what the school called the upper Academy. The upper grades were in an entirely different section, with private grounds and wings from the lower grades, effectively cutting off the younger kids from the older. The school as a whole was just known as the Academy of Westforth.

“It’s just that most of the time, younger grades get placed on second string.” Calisto made a dismissive noise under his breath. “If they even get picked at all.”

Cross shrugged. “I hope they like losing, then.”

“Arrogance is unbecoming.”

“I don’t know, I think it works for me.”

Calisto shook his head. “You’re fucking terrible, Cross.”

Wolf came up to the table, and set the glass of what looked to be vodka down in front of Calisto. “Yeah, but that kind of works for the little shit, too.”