He Took His Childhood Friend Away, So I Came Back a Mafia Heiress novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Boy at the Window

I went to Water Street alone, at dusk, with the iron key in one hand and the three keys from the courier in the other.

The house stood at the end of a row of narrow brick homes, its windows boarded, its front steps cracked.

The east wing was gone.

Where it had been there was a square of black beams and weeds, with a chain-link fence around it.

I stood on the front lawn and let myself look at it.

I texted Rocco only the address.

He came fast, on foot, with his coat flapping open, and stopped at the gate when he saw where I was standing.

"Gemma," he said. "Not here."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you here."

"Come inside."

I unlocked the front door with the second key.

The hall smelled of damp plaster and cold ash.

A staircase went up into the dark, and half of it was gone.

I took the photograph from my coat and held it out to him.

He didn't take it.

He looked at the jacket on the grass, and the little white tape in the collar, and I watched his face do nothing at all.

It was the stillest I had ever seen it.

"Say it," I said.

"Gemma."

"You told me you wanted to hear what you did, and I told you. Now you tell me."

He took one slow breath.

"I was fifteen," he said. "My father came here that night to see yours, and I sat in the car with the driver. Papa told me to stay in the car."

"You didn't."

"The driver fell asleep. I saw the glow in the upstairs window."

"Mine."

"Yours." His voice was rough. "The back door was locked, and I couldn't get it open, and I could hear someone screaming. I climbed the trellis. I broke your window with my elbow."

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