Chapter 8: The Photograph

Rocco's POV

I went to Pier Nine at midnight because the one thing I could not do was go home to an empty bed.

The Corsetti office sits at the end of the dock, a squat brick building with one light on over the door.

I had not been invited.

Nobody stopped me.

That was the first thing I noticed.

Two of Aldo's men stood by the gate.

They looked at my car and looked away, and I knew someone had told them I would come.

I took the stairs two at a time.

The office was empty, with a green-shaded lamp on the desk and a coat on the rack.

I stood in the middle of the room and made myself think.

In March, three days before the council voted, Sandro had brought me an envelope.

Inside it were eleven photographs, taken with a long lens.

Livia unlocking her shop at eight in the morning.

Livia buying bread.

Livia at the window of her flat, in a gray sweater, with her hair up.

There was no note.

There did not need to be one.

I had understood what Aldo was telling me.

I could say no to his daughter, and the docks would go.

My wife would keep walking to work every morning on a street he could reach.

So in the council room I said, the council decides.

Seven months I had let her think I was a coward, because it was better than letting her know why.

I went to the desk.

It was a mistake and I knew it was a mistake, but I opened the top drawer.

Invoices, a pen set, a rosary.

The second drawer was locked.

I have been opening locks since I was fourteen.

It took me less than a minute.

Inside lay a plain brown folder tied with string.

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