The Mob Boss Said My Father Owed Him a Life, So He Took Mine to Keep novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Lane
I had my jeans on and one boot laced when the first car door opened in the lane.
"Down the ladder," Rocco said.
He was already dressed.
I had not seen him move.
He stood at the loft window with his coat on and his hand inside it, and the dawn lit one side of his face gray.
"My father," I said.
"Your father is awake," he said.
"He's been awake since the first car."
I went down the ladder with my heart slamming.
My father stood in the middle of the kitchen in his pajamas and his cardigan, with his glasses crooked on his nose and the biggest knife from the drawer in both hands.
It was a bread knife.
It was about as long as his forearm, and it shook.
"Dad," I said.
"Put that down."
"No," he said.
His voice was high and thin and he didn't look at me.
"I've had eight months of being afraid.
"I'm going to be afraid with a knife."
I looked out the window.
Two cars had stopped across the lane, nose to tail.
One was the gray sedan.
The other was black and long.
Men were getting out, five of them, with their collars up against the wind off the water.
The last to climb out of the black car was a man in a charcoal overcoat with his silver hair blown flat.
Vincent stood on the crushed shell in good leather shoes.
He had brought the whole company across.
"The first boat," Rocco said, behind me, flat.
"They found a fisherman at Galilee who'd take a bribe in a gale."
"Then they're wet and tired," I said.
"They're armed," Rocco said.
He opened the door and went down the three steps.
I followed.
Behind me my father said, in a whisper, "Gracie, no," and I heard him come, the little scrape of his slippers, with the knife.
Rocco walked to the middle of the path and stopped.
The hedge stood on one side of him and the woodpile on the other.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Mob Boss Said My Father Owed Him a Life, So He Took Mine to Keep are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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