After My Four Childhood Friends Abandoned Me, I Inherited a Mafia Empire novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Paying Debts

Nunzio came back at dawn.

He was sitting on the club step when Ilario unlocked the door, with his tie loose and a fresh bruise on his cheekbone.

I had sat up all night at the table inside, and I said the words I'd practiced.

"Ilario. The order is over. Go where you like."

He went to Nunzio first.

"You walked into his car," Ilario said.

"I told him you didn't trust me." Nunzio's mouth shook. "I said I'd cry and carry bread for Marta, and report every word to him. He liked it."

"He believed that?"

"He wants to believe I'm stupid. Everyone does."

I sat down on the step beside him.

"What did you hear?"

"The containers." He looked at his hands. "A week from Thursday. Eleven of them, out through the east berth, before anyone can count. He said it twice because he wanted me to repeat it to you."

"To scare me."

"To make you chase it."

I thought about that for a long time, with the sun coming up over Ferry Street.

Then I said, "No. We won't chase it."

That is how the next two weeks began.

On the first Monday I put the cash from the green safe on the long table in bank-wrapped bricks, where every captain who walked in could see it.

I sent for the man with the gold watch.

He came in with his chin up and his eyes on the money.

"Page forty-one," I said. "Two hundred thousand to the Pagano yard, borrowed in January. Ettore holds the note."

"Marta, I can explain."

"I don't need an explanation. I need you to take this to the yard today and pay it, in front of me, and bring back the paper."

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