Chapter 11: The Ledger

I got to Merrow Boatyard at six in the morning, when the first shift was still coming in through the gate.

Darian had driven me as far as the end of the road, and he had stayed in the car with the blinds down because the sun was already rising.

I went the rest of the way alone.

Thirty men and women in work boots stood around the yard office with coffee cups, talking about the weather.

Every one of them had known me since I was in diapers.

"Morning, Rosie," said the foreman, a big man with a gray beard. "Heard you made quite a party."

"I did."

"You okay?"

"Not yet."

I went up the steps and into the office.

My father sat at his desk with his head in his hands.

Perry was at the filing cabinet, hunched over an open drawer.

Neither of them looked up.

"I want the paper," I said.

"Rosalind, please. Not today."

"I want the paper you signed when I was twenty-four. The one that says you were paid for me."

My father's head came up.

His eyes were red.

"Nobody was paid for you."

"Hugh said it in front of a vampire lord, and I believe Hugh."

"Your brother talks too much."

"Show me."

"No."

I looked at Perry.

"Perry?"

He swallowed.

He shut the drawer with the flat of his hand, and I knew that was where it was.

"Don't," he said. "Ro, if you read it out loud, the workers..."

"The workers what?"

"They'll hear what we did."

"Good."

The office door opened behind me.

Hugh stood in the doorway with a brass key in his fist.

He looked as though he had not slept.

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