They Left Me to Die, So I Came Home Undefeated novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Played at the Table
Nobody moved.
A piece of glass slid off the sideboard and fell on the floor, and the small sound went through the whole room.
Cosima stood with her empty hand still raised.
"Who put it there?" the woman in green said again, very quietly.
"I don't know what you mean," Cosima said. "I was a child. I don't remember."
"You remember what dress you wore to the tea," the woman said.
Teo stood up.
His chair did not scrape, because he held it back with one hand.
He had the black phone in the other, and he walked slowly down the table with his swollen eye and his bloody collar, through the silence, to the head.
He put it down on the cloth in front of the old man.
It lay between the tag and the green book, cracked and scratched, with a strip of yellow tape on the back.
"What is that?" the oldest head said.
"The phone," Teo said. "The one that was in her school bag."
My father's face did not change.
But for the first time that night, he looked afraid.
"That phone was sent to the police years ago," he said.
"It was in a toolbox in the garage," Teo said. "Under a rag. Under Mirella's bed. I took it out this afternoon, while two of your guards were breaking my ribs."
A gasp went along the wives.
"This is a theft," my father said. "Take that boy out of here."
Nobody took Teo anywhere.
The scarred guard by the door looked at the big one.
The big one looked at the floor.
Teo pressed the button on the side.
The cracked screen lit, pale and blue, and the whole table leaned in.
There was a folder of one video.
He touched it.
The video began to play on the white cloth, small and tinny, with the sound turned all the way up.
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