He Left His Pregnant Bride at the Altar novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Order

Ruggero was awake when I came back.

He sat on the edge of my bed in his trousers with Rosa asleep against his bare chest, and he looked up at the sound of the door.

He saw what was in my hand.

He didn't say a word.

I set the blue shoe on the dresser, and the photograph beside it.

"My brother told me about the highway," I said.

"Mari."

"Don't. I'm going to ask you three things, and I want a plain answer to each one."

He nodded.

He lowered Rosa into the crib with a gentleness that made my chest hurt, and he turned and stood facing me with his hands open at his sides.

"Did you drive the black car?"

"Yes."

"Did you pull her out?"

"Yes."

"Did you know whose name was on the order?"

He closed his eyes.

"Yes."

The room went very quiet.

I could hear the lake wind in the window, and Rosa's small breath.

"Say it," I said.

"Your father."

I had known.

I had known since Tiberio said somebody was owed a favor, and my father burned something in the stove.

But there is a difference between knowing and hearing it in a quiet room.

"My father signed it," I said.

"He sent the word through mine. He wanted the accountant gone, and he wanted it done on a road, so it looked like an accident. My father agreed because he owed him for the Brooklyn docks."

"And you did it."

"I did what I was told. I was twenty-two, and I thought it was the job."

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