The Tideflats King Claimed the Surveyor Who Trusts No One, and My Signature Was His Brother's Alibi novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: Between
Niko's POV
I put myself in the doorway and did not turn my back on either of them.
Lena sat on the bucket behind me with the cold light on her face.
Her uncle stood forty feet away in the gravel, in a fleece vest, with one boot on the ground and one still in the truck.
I held the green ledger against my thigh, where he could not see the cover.
"Mr. Matkovic," Teuvo Rautio called.
He said it kindly.
He came across the yard with his hands open and a little stoop in his shoulders, a heavy man out of breath from a short walk.
"I wanted to see my niece.
"The girl at the office said she was out here at six in the morning, and I thought, she's not eating."
"Stop there," I said.
He stopped nine feet from me, at the edge of the shed's light.
I saw him look at my face and then at my hand.
His eyes were the same pale blue as hers.
I had not expected that.
I had expected a stranger, and he had her eyes.
"I don't want trouble," Teuvo said.
"Nobody here wants trouble.
"Lena, honey, come on out of there.
"You've had a long night."
She did not answer.
I did not turn my head to look at her.
I heard the bucket creak once as she shifted her weight.
"She is working," I said.
"She is on my boat, under my contract, and she has a rule about daylight and who stands where.
"You are standing where she cannot see you.
"Move to my left."
He looked at me for a long moment, weighing what the sentence cost him.
Then he moved to my left, three steps, into the open.
I heard her breathe behind my shoulder, in the dark of the doorway.
"You've got a hard way of looking after people," Teuvo said gently.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Tideflats King Claimed the Surveyor Who Trusts No One, and My Signature Was His Brother's Alibi are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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