A hand settled on his shoulder from behind. Cross turned. A man he knew leaned toward him with a polite smile.
“Congratulations, Cross. Excellent results. Park Avenue already! And I hear you’re doing business on quite a scale.”
Cross smiled politely and nodded.
“Thank you. We’re expanding.”
The man gave his shoulder a friendly pat and moved on. Cross took a slow sip of whiskey and nodded to someone at the other end of the room.
Just then, a young woman sat down beside him on the sofa. A bare back, a confident gaze. She moved closer, almost touching him, and leaned right up to his ear. Cross went still, listening. The dark amber whiskey barely stirred in his motionless hand, and a heavy ice cube gently split in two.
She whispered something, then drew back, bit her lip, and looked him straight in the eye. The pause lingered. Cross gave the faintest smile, took another slow sip, set his glass on the table, and rose without hurry, heading toward the glass doors to the terrace. The girl remained seated, watching him go.
Later, when it was completely dark and the sky had finally become an inky bowl flecked with golden drops, someone switched on the outdoor lamps. Candles were lit around the edges, and the entire villa, from the terrace to the pool, began to look like an advertisement for the life dreamers bought. Only it wasn’t an advertisement. It was real.
Cross stepped onto the terrace and stopped at the railing. Below, the pool glowed with soft light around its edges. His face remained calm, his gaze assured. At that moment, no one could have told whether he was thinking about the morning that would come again tomorrow, bringing more numbers, faces, challenges, and the business that was always with him.
And the night… The night was merely a setting in which, for an hour, you could feel immortal.
“By the way, Cross, when are you going to Bosnia?” Danny asked as he aimed at the eight ball, leaning slightly over the pool table.
His tone was casual, almost offhand, but there was warmth and understanding in his voice, a gentle reminder that each of them still had roots somewhere.
Cross slowly looked up from his glass, leaned against the table, tapped his fingers against the side of his cue, and narrowed his eyes a little.
“Maybe closer to Christmas… I can’t yet. I’ve got deals pending. I need to see everything through. Then I’ll take a break. A couple of weeks, at least.”
He set his glass aside and struck the ball. The white projectile shot forward, rolled swiftly across the table, and collided hard with another ball, which gave an obedient shudder and nudged a third. The last ball glided over the green felt and disappeared into a pocket with a dull click. In an instant, the sound of the shot filled the silence with a note of victory.
A minute later, Lance cut in.
“We’ve been to your place, remember?” he said with a smirk. “What was it… seven years ago? When you dragged us out to your parents’ house in the middle of nowhere.”
“Visoko. Not the middle of nowhere,” Cross corrected him with a grin. He straightened and picked up his glass. “And the air is like champagne.”
“And a boxing ring in the basement!” Toby thumped his chest. “We came home covered in bruises. Remember sparring with Lance? We thought you were going to knock him the hell out.”
“I went easy on him,” Cross said lazily, laughing under his breath. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made the flight home.”
