Chapter 4: Three Sets of Books

After dinner, I asked for the books.

Luca's mother looked at her son, and her son looked at the man with the gold ring.

"Tonight?" the cousin said. "She's been here four hours."

"She's an accountant," Luca said. "It's what she does when she's nervous."

I had not told him I was nervous.

I had not been, until the whole table turned to look at me.

The cousin sighed through his nose and sent a boy for the boxes.

They came up in three loads.

The study was on the second floor, a long room with a desk the size of a bed and a green lamp.

Luca carried the last box up the stairs himself.

It was a heavy file box, full to the lid, and he took the steps two at a time with it on his hip.

He did not stop for breath.

Behind us on the landing, the cousin cleared his throat.

Luca stopped on the top step, put the box down, and coughed into his handkerchief for a long time.

The cousin looked away, satisfied.

I looked at Luca's back.

When the cousin had gone down again, Luca straightened and picked up the box.

"Where do you want it?"

"On the desk," I said. "Luca."

"Yes?"

"You carried that up without a breath."

"It's lighter than it looks," he said, and set it down.

He did not meet my eyes.

I let it go.

I had a rule of my own now, one I had learned the hard way: ask the question only when you can hold the answer.

I opened the first ledger.

It took me forty minutes to find the first lie.

It was small, a line of freight charges for a boat the Amadoris had sold in March, still billed monthly.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Let My Sister Have the Man Who Broke My Heart from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.