She Took the Rags, I Took the Empire novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Study

Elias's POV

Two men from my own detail took me out of my apartment at nine, and neither would meet my eyes.

I knew both of them.

I had trained one and hired the other, and the one I trained said, "Mr. Ellingham wants you, boss," and put a hand on my elbow.

I went, because the other hand was on his holster.

Leopold's study was the room I had watched on camera for three years.

It was smaller in person.

He sat behind the desk with a lamp on and his reading glasses pushed up into his silver hair, and he did not look angry.

He looked patient.

"Sit down, Elias."

I stayed standing.

"Please." He nodded at the chair. "You'll want to be sitting for this."

I sat.

He opened a drawer and laid a cardboard folder on the blotter, thin and gray, tied with string.

I knew it before he turned it around.

It had my father's name on the tab in my father's handwriting.

"Eighteen years ago a young trooper thought he saw a cut brake line," Leopold said. "A good man. Honest. I had him moved to the records room, because I'd rather not have ruined him outright."

"That was kind."

"It was practical. Men with desks are quiet."

"He drank himself to death at that desk."

"I'm told that was sad," Leopold said, and turned a page.

I had imagined a hundred times what I would do when I finally stood in front of this man.

In none of them had I sat very still with my hands on my knees while he turned my father's pages.

"Do you know what I thought when you applied to my company?" he said. "I thought, here is his boy. I read your résumé twice. Your father's rank was in it. I kept you because I wanted to see what you'd do."

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