Chapter 17: The Kid at the Door

At midnight before the final, the doorbell rang once and stopped.

My father was asleep in his chair with the loan letter on his chest, and Paolo was in the garage taping his stick.

I opened the door on the chain.

Lev Vasko stood on our porch in a grey hooded sweatshirt with no phone in his hand.

It was the first time I had ever seen his hands empty.

"Go home," I said.

"Two minutes."

"You've had two minutes for a year."

"Please."

I looked at his face under the porch light.

He had not slept, and the skin under his eyes was dark.

He looked behind him at the street and back at me.

"I came alone," he said. "I walked from the corner."

I took the chain off.

I did not ask him in.

I stepped out and shut the door behind me, and the cold hit my bare arms.

"Say it," I said.

"My father told me to do it," Lev said.

My stomach went tight, and I kept my face still.

"Do what?"

"Luca. The stairs."

The porch was very quiet.

"He said Luca was the engine of your team, and without him you'd fold by December," Lev said. "He said it was one fall, and everyone falls."

"And you did it."

"I waited in the stairwell for an hour."

His voice broke on the word.

"Luca came down with his groceries at eleven. I came up behind him and I put my hand on his back."

He held up the hand and looked at it.

"He didn't even yell. He just went."

I wanted to hit him.

I wanted it so badly that my shoulders hurt.

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