I Locked Two Rival Mob Heirs In, So Neither Lets Me Go novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Open Books

Dean's POV

My father's lawyers were waiting at the top of the wharf stairs at five on Monday morning.

There were two of them, in gray suits, with their briefcases held in front of their knees.

I walked past them.

They called my name, and I went down to the auction floor anyway.

The tuna were laid out in rows under the lights, and the buyers had come in from the dark in their rubber boots.

Every man there knew what had happened at the Hongwanji.

They stood in clusters and watched me, and the room was quiet in a way I had never heard it.

I told the loan club clerk to bring down the ledgers.

He brought six of them, one for each decade of my family's club, and set them open on the long auction table.

I stood on a crate.

"These are the books of the club," I said.

"Each of you can read your own page, and nobody else's."

A buyer near the front took half a step toward the table and stopped.

"Every dollar of interest my family charged you since the first loan is written off as of this morning," I said.

"The principal stays, because it was an honest debt, and I mean to be paid honestly from now on."

Nobody moved.

Then an old boat captain at the back took off his cap and held it to his chest.

One of the lawyers said, "Mr. Higa, this is beyond your authority."

"The pot belongs to the members," I said.

"It always did."

I got down off the crate and went to find Manny.

He was sitting on a piling at the end of the wharf with his boots hanging over the water.

He had a thermos and two paper cups, and he had been up as long as I had.

He held one out.

"Whiskey," he said.

"It's five in the morning."

"It's the best time," Manny said.

I sat down on the next piling.

The harbor was gray and the light was coming up pink behind the Coconut Island bridge.

A fishing boat went by, low in the water, and the man at the wheel raised a hand to us both.

Manny raised his back.

"I signed the plant over," he said.

"I wrote off the interest," I said.

"All of it?"

"All of it."

"Higa," Manny said, "you just lost more money than I'll ever see."

"Yes."

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