Of All the Fake Heiresses I've Met, You're the Stupidest novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: The Barge List

The man in the navy jacket sat on a cot in the cellar with his hands between his knees.

His gray crewcut was damp with sweat.

Ronan stayed by the stairs. I took the stool.

"I was nine," the man said. "I was the little one in the hold, the one who could fit through the vent."

"On the Alder?"

"Chester's man pulled me out of the vent that dawn and gave me a job instead of the water. I carried it nineteen years."

He looked at me and did not look away.

"I saw your man in the brown coat get to the hatch," he said. "He had the bar in both hands. He got it a quarter open. Then the shot came, and the bar fell on the deck, and every one of us in the dark heard it."

My hands were flat on my knees.

"I killed him," I said.

"A kid did," said the man. "I have been a bad man for nineteen years, miss. I will say all of it in front of anyone you like. Just don't let the pilot put me back on his barge."

"Nobody is putting you anywhere," said Ronan.

He said it from the stairs, and it was the first thing he had said to me in hours.

I stood up and went out past him without a word.

That night I could not sleep, and I did not try.

I sat at the window of the room Sean had given me, with the ledger on the desk and the lamp off.

At midnight there was one knock.

I opened the door.

Ronan stood in the hall with a sheet of paper and no jacket.

"The terms ended at noon," he said. "The vote's done. I'm not on the clock."

"Come in."

He came in and shut the door.

He held out the paper without a word.

It was a list, in his handwriting, of thirty-one lines.

Twenty-two had a line drawn through them and a date beside it.

Nine did not.

"The Alder," he said. "Everyone who was in the hold. I have been looking for them for two years. Nine are alive. Four will stand up in front of the Compact tomorrow if I ask them. The man in the cellar is the ninth."

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend