Chapter 8: M. DeMarco

Ruggiero Freight still had its offices on the third floor of the old brick warehouse in Fort Point.

Francesca had done her homework at the long table by the windows every Thursday of her childhood.

The elevator still stuck between two and three.

She took the stairs.

The outer office was full.

Dispatchers on headsets. A woman at the front desk Francesca didn't know. Two of Michael's men by the coffee machine.

Everybody looked up when she came in.

At the end of the room was her father's door.

Frosted glass, with gold letters.

Except the letters didn't say B. RUGGIERO anymore.

They said M. DEMARCO.

If she tilted her head, she could still see her father's name under the new gold.

Somebody had scraped it off with a razor.

"Can I help you?" the woman at the desk asked.

Francesca walked past her.

She opened Michael's door without knocking.

He was behind her father's desk with three men in front of him and a shipping map spread out between them.

All four looked up.

Michael's face didn't change.

But his hand slid sideways and pushed the top drawer of the desk shut.

It didn't quite close.

"Francesca," he said.

"I need to ask you something."

"I'm in a meeting."

"It's a short question."

The three men looked at each other.

One of them started to stand.

"Sit down," Francesca said. "You can hear it. Everybody can hear it."

She took the page from her father's notebook out of her pocket and laid it on the shipping map in front of Michael.

"My father wrote this. Read it."

Michael looked down.

She watched him read the single line.

She watched his jaw go tight.

"Where did you get this?" he said quietly.

"Answer the question. What did you promise my father?"

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