Condemned by My Sister novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Witness

The front desk of the hotel called my room at seven the next morning and told me two people were waiting in the lobby.

I knew who they were before I took the elevator down.

Marianne stood by the revolving door with her car keys in her fist.

Corbin sat on a leather couch with his cane across his knees.

"I've been thinking," Marianne said, without saying good morning. "You told me something at dinner. About the other men in there."

"I didn't."

"Your face did."

She looked at the yellow bruises along my jaw, and then at my left side.

"Who did it?"

"Vince Garner. He runs my block. He's done it every week for five years, and somebody has been paying him to."

"Eli," Corbin said, soft and sorry. "You can't just say a name."

"Then ask him," I said to Marianne. "Ask Garner to his face. If I'm lying, he'll say so."

She didn't answer for a long moment.

"We'll go now," she said. "And if he says you made it up, you will drop this, and you will stop telling me you're sick."

I took the back seat.

Nobody spoke for the whole drive.

The warden let us into a bare room with a steel table and four chairs bolted to the floor.

A guard brought Garner in with his hands cuffed in front of him.

He sat down and looked at me with flat, bored eyes.

Then he looked at Corbin, and the boredom went out of his face.

"Mr. Garner," Marianne said. "My brother says you've beaten him for five years. Is that true?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start Condemned by My Sister from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.