Cross balanced his back against the bedroom doorframe; one arm laid over his chest, while his other raked through his hair. Catherine slept in their bed, fitfully. She tossed and turned, she kicked blankets off, and then buried herself beneath them again. She mumbled, her lids flickered, and her hands balled into fists at the same time they reached for his side of the bed.
His heart ached.
Like his chest was splitting open.
How had he missed this?
How hadn’t he known?
How?
The knock on the penthouse’s front door sent Cross pushing away from the doorway. He didn’t know how to deal with what was happening to Catherine, never mind what was going to happen when she didn’t try to soothe the shakes or the sickness in her stomach.
Cross pulled the door open to find Zeke standing behind it. “Took you long enough, man.”
Zeke shrugged. “Busy. What’s up?”
With a tip of his head, Cross turned to go back into the penthouse. Zeke followed behind his friend, and kicked the door closed behind him.
Zeke froze at the scattered mess of pills, prescription bottles, and empty liquor bottles. The liquor, Cross had ended up doing himself just because he was pissed off, and he didn’t want to give Catherine something to chase when she woke up.
“Fuck,” Zeke drawled, stretching out the word. “That ain’t good.”
Cross fell into the leather couch. A goddamn six-thousand-dollar piece of furniture that Catherine died all over when they found it in that store. He scrubbed his hands down his face.
Exhausted.
Wary.
Silent.
“Is it all of it?” Zeke asked.
“What?”
“Is she using all of it, like mixing it all together, or does she just jump back and forth depending on what the day is like?”
“All.”
“That’s bad, Cross,” Zeke muttered. “Her come down is gonna be hard, man. Like paranoia, sick, tremors kind of bad. Fevers. Chills. Crawling out of her skin. And depending on how much liquor she’s been pumping into her system, she might need a fucking doctor to get her through it. That’s bad.”
“I get it, Zeke.”
“You’re not listening to me.”
“I am!”
Zeke grabbed an empty bottle of vodka. It had been in the freezer. Cross remembered it was three quarters full when he first left on his trip a while back. He never thought to ask why in the hell it only had an inch left in the bottom when he got back.
“Do you see this?”
“What about it?”
“Liquor,” Zeke said, “will kill her coming off it. That’s not a joke, Cross. Shit, it might have been better if she was shooting herself full of heroin, instead of guzzling goddamn liquor. She could die off a heroin withdrawal, sure, because she’d jump out a window to feel better. The fall would kill her, get it? Just getting sober from alcohol can kill her—she could seize, her heart could stop, so listen. Why is she here and not somewhere else?”
Because he was still trying to protect her.
Because he was still covering her ass.
Because he loved her stupid.
“I don’t know what to do,” Cross said faintly.
“Well, if you’re dumb enough to keep her here, then you need to lock her down,” Zeke replied. “It’s going to take a few days, and she’s gonna be real fucking sick, man.”
Cross nodded. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Just … fuck.”
“How did I miss this?”
Zeke eyed his friend from the side, and said, “Because they’re really good at hiding it, that’s how.”
“She’s good with me, though. Before I left the last time, she was good. She was dealing with some shit, but as long as I was around, she was fine.”
“You know you can’t be another pill or drink for her, right?”
Cross glanced up. “What?”
“You can’t be another high for her, Cross, or the drug of the moment she uses to stay sane. You can’t be the one thing that is responsible to make her happy, or to keep her sober. She’s got to do that shit on her own. She’ll never be healthy or happy, with or without you, if she can’t be healthy and happy with herself. That’s mental health one-oh-one.”
“I don’t need a lecture, Zeke.”
“No, but you need to listen. So this is the first time—”
“Second,” Cross admitted. “She had a bad spell when she was sixteen, too, after … some shit happened. It was almost a whole year of non-stop partying and acting out. I kind of had her under control, then, too. She got better, and she was fucking good.”
“And then she wasn’t,” his friend assumed.
Cross shook his head. “I shouldn’t have left.”
“All right, so this is the second time, but here’s the thing. There’s going to be a third and fourth and fifth time, Cross, if nothing changes. You can get her sober, clean her up, and maybe make her happy for a while. If she doesn’t deal with what makes her need to run for something to get her high or numb, then she’ll be triggered again. And again, and again. It’s a circle; it’s vicious.”
“I—”
“And if it doesn’t kill her, it’ll kill you trying to stop it.”
“How do I fix this?”
“Man, you don’t get it, do you? You can’t fix it, Cross. It’s not for you to fix.”
Cross’s eyes snapped open at the slightest movement or sound on a regular day. But when he was on day three of watching Catherine detox? She just needed to breathe a bit different and he was wide awake.
He sat on the bedroom floor, his back to the closed door, one leg stretched out, and his arm propped up on his bent knee to use his hand as a pillow. He couldn’t get in bed with his girl because she was going through some kind of hot spell, and he only made it worse. He couldn’t leave the damn room because she woke up in a paranoid hell, screaming for him.
She itched.
She was cold.
She burned.
She shook.
She raged.
She cried.
She hated.
He loved.
This time, it was simply the sound of Catherine gagging that had Cross’s eyes flying wide. He was up off the floor, and just managed to catch Catherine in time as she fell off the bed. He didn’t know how in the hell she could vomit any more than she already did for the last three days, but that’s exactly what she did once he got her into the bathroom.
She retched until spatters of red came up with her spit.
Catherine cried harder. Cross held tighter.
He didn’t know what else to do.
“I’m sorry,” he heard whispered beside him.
Cross tipped his head to the side on the pillow, seeing clearer, green eyes watching him in that way of hers. Her color was better, her voice was stronger, and she had smiled that morning. She still wasn’t eating, though.
“For what, babe?” he asked.
“This.”
Cross reached out and pulled her into him, tucking her into his embrace, hiding her face into his neck, and keeping her safe.
He was always keeping her safe. From day one.
“I didn’t want you to leave, I was getting bad, and I knew it was going to get worse,” he heard her say. “I should have told you not to leave.”
“Would it have helped?”
“Yes.”
“For how long, though?” he asked.
Catherine exhaled shakily. “I don’t know.”
That was the problem.
“I love you, Catherine.”
“I don’t know why.”
“Because I’m yours.”
“I’ll get her to call you when she gets in from classes,” Cross said into the phone.
“Why the hell didn’t she call last night?” Dante demanded.
“We went out.” Lies.
“You both missed church, too.”
“Work,” Cross said. Lies.
“Jesus. Just get her to call me or her mother,” Dante said, sighing.
“I will.” More lies.
He lied to everyone. So did she. He lied to protect her. She lied because she could. It was all bad.
Cross hung up the phone.
Catherine stared at him from her perch on the edge of the pool table, bathed in morning sunlight from the windows. She was sober. She was eating. She was alive.
She still wouldn’t call. She wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t let him go.
Zeke was right.
“Maybe we can meet up in a couple of days, Andino. Okay?”
Cross waited until Catherine hung up her phone call, and then made his presence known by clearing his throat loudly. It seemed it didn’t matter. Catherine barely reacted to his action, as though she already knew he was there.
“You need to stop dealing,” Cross said.
Catherine didn’t turn around. “Why?”
“Because you can’t handle it. None of it. You’ve proven that, haven’t you? Or do you think you need another round of the last two weeks to get a clearer picture?”
“Fuck off, Cross.”
“That can’t be your go-to phrase every time I piss you off, babe.”
“It works.”
“Obviously not. I’m still standing here.”
“It wasn’t the dealing that did this.”
“No,” he agreed, “maybe not. But it puts you in situations that could make you spiral into another round of depression. It puts you front row and center to drugs and alcohol. That’s shit you don’t need. You can’t do it, Catty.”
“I can. I can just choose not to.”
“Then that’s what you need to do.”
Catherine gave him a look over her shoulder, then headed for the front door, and grabbed her messenger bag as she went. “I’m already late for class, Cross. Let’s do this later.”
She would keep pushing later off. He already knew it.
“I got an interesting call,” Calisto said.
Cross looked up from the Guns and Ammo magazine. “What for?”
“You.”
“What did I fuck up now?”
Calisto chuckled. “Nothing, son. It was from Theo, actually. He says you’re … making him a lot of money.”
Cross shrugged. “Guess so.”
“He said you could make a lot more if you headed to Chicago full-time.”
“Likely.”
“Then why haven’t you jumped at that chance yet?”
Catherine.
“Not ready to make a choice yet,” Cross said, “between running guns or staying here.”
“Well, that’s bullshit.”
“Why is that?”
“Cross—”
“You know I’ve been doing it both for six months now, right?”
Calisto frowned. “I’m aware.”
“Yeah, so I’ve done exactly what you told me I wouldn’t be able to. Run guns, and work on getting my button. I did what you said would likely ruin me in one case or another. I think that should be enough to just say fuck it, and let me decide things on my own without input.”
“Then keep doing it,” Calisto replied, “but start paying dues to your boss for money you’re making while still acting as his man.”
“You want the full seventy percent, or do you want thirty since it’s coming out of another syndicate?”
Calisto blew out a harsh breath. “I don’t want any, Cross. I want you to understand that’s what it means, though, when you work as my man under another family.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cross said, laughing dryly. “We both know my button is coming up fast, right? I’ve been mentoring for years—Wolf is going to nominate my name. I saved Rick’s ass, because he’s a fuck up, and he’ll back the nomination. They’re just two men. They’re guarantees. I’ve already got my button whether I want it or not.”
“I’m giving you a chance to do something different, son.”
Because open seats were coming up. Because his button was close.
Didn’t his step-father already know?
“I was always going to be a made man, Papa. I was born for this.”
She danced. She smiled.
She laughed. She winked.
She joked. She talked.
She made them happy.
She was perfect. She was lying.
“Lucia looks so happy, doesn’t she?” Catrina asked.
“She does,” Catherine agreed.
The young girl danced on her father’s toes, sweet as could be.
Cross stood behind Catherine, always watching. He watched for the wine that was brought out, and how she side-stepped the server to stay away. He watched how she interacted with her family, and put her mask on again and again. She was too good at that, and they didn’t mind when she did slip up because she was there with them, and she hadn’t been with them for a long time.
He saw how her eyes lied when they needed to, and how her lips told more when she opened them.
She was happy, she said.
She was good. She promised them.
She was not those things.
Cross wasn’t sure why, but his girl was tired. Too quiet, sometimes. Cold when he wasn’t near. Restless when she sat too long. Snappy, difficult, and lonely, she sometimes told him. Alone, even in a crowded room.
Her head was a dark place. He still couldn’t get in there.
Cross was shouting to help her. Catherine was screaming to loud to hear him.
As soon as Catherine’s mother was gone from her side, she turned to him. “Do you think we could sneak out of here soon without them noticing?”
She was done. Done pretending. She still didn’t want them to know.
He couldn’t keep lying for her. He wasn’t ever going to be the thing to fix her now.
Not anymore. One last time …
“Yeah, Catherine, we can sneak out. Anytime.”
Saw her at the party last night, Zeke’s text read. She wasn’t drunk or anything, but she was definitely working, man.
Cross read the text again as he sat the one duffle bag in front of the elevator. The boxes—things of Catherine’s that he packed up while she was at school and thought he was working—would be waiting for someone to pick up.
This was killing him. He was dying already. It had to be done.
He flicked over to Catherine’s text that came in just a minute before.
Just got home, it read.
He heard the elevator coming up, but didn’t move. When it opened, her gaze widened to see him standing there, and then she saw the bag at his feet. She stepped out, and the door closed.
Cross didn’t say anything.
Not right away.
He heard the elevator drop back down, likely going to get someone else.
“Did you get a call to go to Chicago?” Catherine asked.
He heard her fear lingering in her words, though she didn’t show it in her expression. She was always wearing a mask for him now, too.
She put on such a good show.
It was bad for her health. It was bad for them.
“No,” Cross said, “it’s your stuff. Clothes, and things. It’ll do you for a bit, until you can get someone here to grab the rest.”
Catherine stiffened. “What?”
“Where were you last night?”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Out. You were working late, so I went out.”
“With Andino,” Cross pressed.
“So?”
“To work,” he said.
Catherine blinked, and wetness edged along the line of her lashes. “So what if I did?”
“That was my line, Catherine, and you knew it. I asked for very little—I didn’t push you to go to see somebody to talk to. I didn’t say shit, even though you need it. I only asked that you stopped doing that because you needed to.”
“I don’t—”
“This isn’t a fight,” Cross interjected. “This is the end of a fight, Catty. I’m so done fighting because I can’t even win what I’m fighting for. It took me too long to realize it, though.”
She sniffled, and the first tears fell.
Cross reached out and stroked her cheek, taking away the tear line with his thumb. “Don’t cry, babe.”
“So what, you’re just … making me leave?”
“No, it’s more than that.”
“What, then?”
“I can’t keep saving you, Catherine. I can’t make you happy if you’re not happy with yourself. I need you stand up on your own—learn to own who you are. Grow up. I’m always going to be here, waiting, because I don’t know anything different. I only know you.”
“Cross, please don’t do this.”
The tears streaked more heavy lines down her cheeks.
Falling from clear eyes. Sober eyes.
He got her to there. She needed to do the rest.
“It’s always been you, you know?” he murmured. “You’ve always been the one breaking my fucking heart again and again, but I loved you through that shit. It’s my turn this time. It’s my choice this time. I love you today, Catherine, and when this is done and over with, I’m still going to love you tomorrow.”
He pressed the elevator button, and picked up her bag to hand it over. She sobbed; her fists tightened around the bag in her shaking hands.
“You need to start learning to save yourself, Catherine.”
“Cross.”
The elevator dinged, and the door opened. Catherine’s gaze darted to it. He kept watching her.
“You need to learn to love yourself because I can’t be the only one doing it. I’m still going to be here when you learn how to do that,” he told her. “But I can’t keep doing it for you; I’m going to kill myself trying to fix something in you that’s not for me to fix, or you’re going to die while I’m still trying. I’m a Band-Aid; you need stitches. At least this gives us both a chance to get it right next time, babe.”
Catherine wiped the wetness from her cheeks, but more kept falling.
“You’re killing me now,” she whispered.
“I’m hurting you a little bit,” he replied quietly, “because I love you enough to do this. You’re going to see that someday. Not today, I know, but someday.”
“But …”
“This is supposed to be our thing, Catty. Remember? I tell you that I love you, you make me promise, and—”
Catherine’s gaze dashed up to his, so clear and full of tears. “That’s not fair.”
“Love you,” he said, urging her into the elevator.
She trembled there. “Cross.”
“Love you.”
“Cross.”
“Come on. This is what we do, babe.”
She breathed deep, tears falling, and heart breaking.
They could get it right the next time. Someday, it would be them again.
And, God …
He knew it was going to be worth it. It just hurt a lot right now.
Cross needed to save his heart one more time. She was his heart, after all. He might be telling her to save herself, but he was putting his hands into the fire, too. Just in case.
“Please don’t make me do that with you; don’t ruin that for me with this,” she cried.
“Love you,” he said.
One last time.
Catherine stared down at the floor, and the door started to close. “Promise?”
“Always.”