Chapter 12: Overlock

The law gave Unit 114 a grace period, and Wilma counted every hour of it.

When it ran out, she took the overlock from the cabinet behind the counter.

It was a red steel cylinder lock with KITT stamped on the side. Daddy bought a box of them in 1994.

"You want to do it?" she asked me.

"It's your job. It's always been your job."

She nodded.

We rode the freight elevator up together, the two of us and the whole day crew, because nobody wanted to miss it.

Wilma fitted the red lock through the latch beside Brantley's brass one and snapped it shut.

Now the door had two locks.

His kept us out. Ours kept him out.

She hung the yellow tag on the handle. LIEN. DO NOT REMOVE.

"There," she said. "Now nobody gets in. Not even him."

The youngest of my movers took a picture of it on his phone.

"For the group chat," he said.

The crew stayed late that night building racks for the hospital move.

At ten, the floodlights were on and the bay doors were up, and Jubal's flatbed was parked at the gate with a load of lumber.

The gate stood open for the lumber.

That was when Brantley drove through it.

His Range Rover crunched across the gravel and stopped crooked by the loading dock.

He got out without a jacket. His tie was loose. He hadn't shaved.

I had never seen him unshaved in six years.

He walked straight past me into the front office, where Wilma was closing out the day.

"I'm paying for 114," he said. "All of it. The back rent, the late fees, six months ahead."

He threw a stack of hundred-dollar bills on the counter.

They slid across and fanned out.

The crew had followed him in. They stood along the wall with drills still in their hands.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Chose Mistress, I Chose Empire from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.