My Father's Test Turns Lovers Into Killers novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: The Slab
Teo's POV
Paolo sat in the passenger seat of my truck with his hands between his knees and told me where my brother was.
He said it once, in a flat voice, looking at the windshield.
"A warehouse lot off Barnum Avenue. Corrado's company poured the slab that week. They'd dug the footing the night before."
"How many men did it take?"
"Three. I held the light."
I had both hands on the wheel.
For two years I had pictured a river, a ditch, the trunk of a car.
I had never pictured a concrete floor with forklifts driving over it.
"Drive there," I said.
We stood in front of the building at ten in the morning, and a delivery truck backed into a bay door, beeping.
It was a dull gray box with a blue sign.
Paolo stood three feet from me and looked at his shoes.
"I'm not going to say it's all right," I said.
"I know."
"I can't say it."
"I know that too."
"I'm not saying never."
He lifted his eyes.
They were the eyes of a man who had been punched in the stomach and was still waiting to fall.
"I can hold it," I said. "That's all I've got. I'll hold it until you stand up in front of Corrado and say it with your own mouth. Then ask me again."
He nodded slowly.
"That's fair," he said.
"It isn't fair. It's what I've got."
He got back into the truck.
He didn't speak for the whole drive, and neither did I.
At the first red light, he said, "She's a good woman, Lanza."
"I know."
"I loved her. I'm not saying that to hurt you. I'm saying she's the only one in that family who ever looked at me like I wasn't a tool."
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