Seven Days to Disappear from My Mafia Stepbrother novel · Chapter 23 of 32

Chapter 23: The Golden Comet

Bunny looked at the pen.

She didn't take it.

She didn't wave it away either.

Her hand just hung there on the porch rail with the coffee going cold in the other one.

I came down the shed ladder in yesterday's jeans with tar on my knees.

"Morning," I said.

The bank man glanced at me.

He had the kind of face that had never been sunburned in his life.

"And you are?"

"The one who bent the tail."

"Then you know it's six tubes short of a miracle." He turned back to Bunny. "Ms. LaRue, if the sign fails tonight, the owners don't pay. If they don't pay, we foreclose on Monday. If you sign now, we do it quietly. Nobody watches you lose the yard."

"I've been watched losing things my whole life, sugar," Bunny said. "I used to get paid for it."

The trailer door opened behind her.

Lucio stepped out barefoot in his jeans and white shirt.

He looked at the folder.

He looked at the man.

His hand went to his back pocket, where he kept his checkbook.

I looked at him.

He stopped.

He took his hand back out, empty, and leaned on the door frame.

He didn't say a word.

I walked up to the foot of the porch steps and stood beside the bank man.

"The gala starts at eight," I said. "The switch gets thrown at nine. Come."

"I'm sorry?"

"Put on a better tie and come. Bring the papers. If it doesn't light, she'll sign them on the casino steps in front of five hundred people."

Bunny made a sound.

I didn't look at her.

"And if it lights," I said, "you tear them up. Right there. In front of her."

He smiled at me.

It was a nice, thin, careful smile.

"I'll bring two pens," he said.

He walked back to his car and drove off with his folder on the seat beside him.

Bunny set her cup down on the rail so hard the coffee jumped.

"Five hundred people."

"You said you used to get paid for it."

"I was thirty-seven and I had legs." She looked at me a long time over her sunglasses. "All right, kid. All right. Then you'd better look like somebody tonight."

She went into the trailer.

She came back out with a garment bag that smelled like mothballs and old perfume.

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