Page 35 of Always: A Legacy Novel

“What do you have for me?” Wolf asked. “It better be good for me to make the trip to Chicago, Adriano.”

“It is, no worries.”

The file was flipped open, exposing photos of what looked to be … a shipment of some kind. Adriano turned over more photographs, showcasing what was inside the shipment. Drugs. A lot of it. Cocaine, by the looks of it.

“I certainly like what I’m looking at, but why exactly am I looking at it?”

Adriano closed the file back up. “Better to have this conversation face to face, given the circumstances and all. Our ports are hot as shit right now—three cargos were picked up by officials in as many months. We need access to a safe port until things calm down. I don’t know how long that’s going to be; a year, maybe less, but maybe more.”

Wolf rested back in his chair, nodding. “A New York port, then?”

“You have access to one, don’t you?”

“Two, actually, but the fee is going to kill you.”

Adriano laughed. “Yeah, I figured it would.”

“Why not go to the Marcellos? They’ve got far more ports than us, and could probably afford to drop one for a cheaper fee.”

“The Marcellos may have forgiven us for the incident way back when, but they still won’t work with us, especially at the ports.”

“Ah,” Wolf murmured, “I see.”

Cross took a drink of soda the waitress brought over without even taking his attention from the table. He wondered in that moment, how strange his life would probably seem to someone watching from the outside. How many fifteen-year-olds spent their weekends like this? How many people could look at a photograph of drugs, and just know what kind they were?

Not very many.

Cross had known from a very young age what he wanted to be—a made man. His whole life was going to be this very thing; the mafia was their thing, after all.

He didn’t know anything different.

He didn’t care to.

“Cross, come back to my office, please.”

Cross didn’t know what exactly it was, but something in the tone of his step-father’s voice said Calisto wasn’t pleased as it echoed from the back of the house. He dropped his school bag at the door, and headed down the hallway to the office. The whole way, he ran through shit he might have done over the last week that would warrant his step-father getting pissed at him. He’d come home from Chicago, and went to school every day without skipping. He didn’t torture the shit out of Camilla, and he’d made an effort to not get suspended since that first day.

For the most part, Cross had been … good.

As good as he could be.

It was a fine line.

Cross leaned in the office doorway, only to find Calisto sitting behind his large desk. “Yeah?”

Calisto glanced up from whatever he was typing on his laptop. “How was school?”

“Boring.”

“Anything happen today?”

“Football practice and a test I probably failed.”

Calisto rubbed at his temples with two fingers on either side. “You hit your ten write-ups today, and I got a call about it.”

“Okay.”

That wasn’t new.