After He Watched Me Drown, I Built My Empire novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: On the Dock

In front of the patrol crew, Silvia says what Cesare did; he calls it a joke and a fever, Remo says the dock camera was running, and the old Don sends for her.

I went down the outside stair in Remo's sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled to my knuckles.

Six people from the lake patrol had come out onto the dock with their coffee.

They were deckhands and mechanics, and every one of them was pretending to look at the boats.

Cesare came forward with his arms open.

"Baby, thank God. You had us sick with worry."

I stopped three steps from him.

"Yesterday you stood on this dock and watched me go under."

His smile stayed in place.

"Del, you're feverish. You slipped and fell in, you panicked, and you've turned it into something else."

"Fiora pushed me. I had no life jacket and you knew I can't swim."

"We were messing around."

"You said, 'Climb out yourself.' Then you took her inside so she wouldn't be near an accident."

One of the deckhands set down his cup.

Cesare glanced at the crew and lowered his voice.

"Come home. We'll get you a doctor, and nobody has to hear this again."

"Everyone here has heard it already."

"They're not going to repeat it." He turned to the dock at large. "Right? She's not well."

Nobody answered.

The wind moved the boats against their ropes.

Behind my shoulder, Remo spoke for the first time.

"The camera on the east dock pole was running yesterday."

Cesare's head turned slowly.

"It records to the drive in my office," Remo said. "It records every day, and it records everyone."

"Delete it."

"It's your father's system. I don't delete your father's system."

"I'm telling you to."

"You can tell your father to tell me."

The crew looked at their boots.

I felt Remo standing very close without touching me.

Two minutes ago I'd have said I could not feel it.

I could feel it.

Cesare's face finally changed.

The soft look slid off, and what was under it was cold and tight.

"You're making a mistake, Del."

"Probably."

"After everything my family did for you."

"Your family took me in when I was nine," I said. "I've said thank you for fourteen years. Yesterday I stopped."

"Fiora's crying. She says you won't answer her."

"Tell her the lake's shallow."

One of the guards behind Cesare coughed into his fist, and I realized he was holding in a laugh.

It was the big one with the shaved head, the one who stood at our cottage door every night.

He stepped around his boss and held something out to me.

A folded hundred-dollar bill.

"Miss," he said. "I took your side of that bet yesterday. The cousin who bet against you paid me this morning."

"You bet on me?" Cesare said.

"I bet on her," the guard said.

I took the bill.

It was ridiculous, and I almost cried, standing there with a hundred dollars from a man who had stood by while I was shoved into the lake.

He had also, apparently, never doubted I would go.

"Thank you," I said.

He nodded once and looked at the water again.

Cesare stared at the bill.

"My father will hear about this."

"I'm counting on it."

He stood another moment, waiting for someone to blink.

No one did.

He turned, and his guards followed him back to the SUVs.

The doors shut, and the engines pulled away up the pine road.

My knees went at last, and I sat down hard on a bollard.

Remo crouched in front of me, not too close.

"You can say what you want to say," he said.

"You said the camera was running."

"It was."

"Why didn't you say so in the first minute?"

"Because if I'd said it to him alone, he'd have had a reason to burn the boathouse."

"And in front of six witnesses?"

"Then he can't."

I looked at him.

For a moment something moved in his face and was put away.

"You planned that," I said.

"I hoped," he said. "You did the rest."

A black car came down the road slowly, with its headlights on in the daylight.

I knew the car.

Don Brancato's driver stopped at the end of the dock and got out with his cap in his hand.

"Miss Arcuri," he said. "The Don asks if you'll take tea with him this morning."

He cleared his throat.

"And he says to tell you Saturday's dinner is set, and your father's chair is waiting."

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