The Mob Boss Said My Father Owed Him a Life, So He Took Mine to Keep novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: The Slip

Grace's POV

"That's my boat," I said.

I was sitting up in bed with the yellow page in my hand and the sheet wrapped under my arms, and Rocco was watching me from the pillow.

The gray morning light had gone gold.

"It's the number painted on the bow," I said.

"I wrote it at the bottom because it's the last line of every log page.

"My father taught me that, too.

"He said, 'Always end with the hull.' I never knew why."

"What does the rest say?"

"The tide tables and the dock numbers," I said.

"And a lot of columns of sums I can't make sense of.

"I copy them out the way he showed me.

"It's like writing a prayer in Latin."

I stopped.

"Rocco," I said.

"What?"

"Why would a man teach his twelve-year-old daughter a private code for the ferry log?"

He sat up slowly.

"Because he planned to put something in it," he said.

"Or already had."

We looked at each other.

Neither of us said the thing out loud.

It was too big and too stupid and too possible.

He took the page from my hand and folded it, and tucked it carefully inside his shirt.

"Get dressed," he said.

"Tonight, I'll take you to the slip."

We didn't go to the boat that night.

We went to the dock where she tied up, a hundred yards of black water and cold light, but the last ferry had run and the gangway was drawn up.

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