The Hacker Heiress Strikes Back novel · Chapter 28 of 32
Chapter 28: What Marlena Owes
"It's out," I said. "It's been out for ten days."
Marlena stepped over the threshold.
Behind me the dining room went silent.
Luther rose so fast that his chair fell over, and his apron got caught on the table.
"Marlena," he said.
"Don't, Dad," she said, and she did not look at him. "Please. Not yet."
Raylan's grandmother pulled out the empty chair at the corner with her own hands.
"Sit down, child," she said. "You are all bones."
Marlena sat.
She put the clutch in her lap and folded her hands on it.
She looked at the good plate, the folded napkin and the glass of tea gone warm.
Her shoulders began to shake, with no sound at all.
Maybelle did not get up.
She sat across the table from her daughter with her hands flat on the cloth, and her face was working, and she let it.
"I didn't come to be forgiven," Marlena said at last, in a voice scraped down to the grain. "I came to say what I owe."
"All right."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of The Hacker Heiress Strikes Back are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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