Page 97 of Cross + Catherine: The Companion

“Yeah, really. Are you up for it?”

Naz didn’t even have to think about it, really. He had spent years thinking about it leading up to this moment. “Fuck yes, I am up for a gun run.”

His first run.

“Like I said,” Cross told him, putting his hands up, “it’s a small run, and the buyer is a regular.”

Naz nodded as he scanned the details for the buyer, and the fifty firearms he specifically requested.

“He likes them flown in, huh?” Naz asked.

“Well, he likes them flown into the first spot. Beyond that, though, they have to be driven a ways. Far safer once they’ve been flown in first.”

“Okay.”

Cross pushed away from the wall to stand straight. “So, look everything over. Sketch out all the details for your plan on this run—I will then look it all over, and decide to sign off on it or not. I’ll give you about a week to get that back to me.”

Naz laughed. “I’ll have it back to you by tomorrow night, Dad.”

Cross smirked. “Yeah, I figured.”

As Naz promised, he was ready by the next night to bring his run plans back to his father.

“Dad?”

“Hmm?”

Cross peered up from the laptop screen, and Naz stepped further into his father’s office. His ma sat on the window bench seat with a paperback novel in her hands.

It never failed to amaze Naz how even when his parents weren’t working together, they were still together.

Always together.

Never apart for long.

The two could be entirely silent, yet Naz could tell they enjoyed that, too. Simply being together even in their quiet moments.

He wondered if he would ever find love like that.

A love that strong.

That fulfilling.

That amazing.

“Let me guess,” his father said, “you’ve already got the plans for the run ready for me?”

Naz grinned. “I told you I would.”

Cross put a hand out, and gestured with his fingers. “Give me what you’ve got, son.”

Coming further inside the office, Naz passed over the folder detailing the plans for the gun run. He didn’t feel particularly nervous as his father silently scanned through the details.

Naz wouldn’t be offended either should his father find something wrong—unlikely—or a plan that needed changing for whatever reason. That one was far more likely only because Cross might find something that he thought could work better, or safer, in another way.

This—being a damn good gunrunner—was what his father did.

Cross Donati was the best of the best.