He Lost His Place Protecting Me, So I Took the Whole Family novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: Whose Bride
He was sitting at the kitchen table in the gray light when I came in with the egg burning in my pocket.
He had his trousers on and nothing else, and the tire iron lay across the table in front of him.
"You took my keys," he said.
"I did."
"I woke up and the bed was cold and the truck was gone," he said.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Tell me where you were."
I took the red egg out of my pocket and set it on the table between his hands.
He looked at it.
"Lule's," he said.
"Sit still and let me say all of it. Don't talk until I'm finished."
His jaw moved once.
"All right."
I stayed on my feet.
"In January, two years ago, you went to Lule and said there was a girl at the register with a braid, and you wanted to ask Zef for her."
His whole body went quiet.
The color left his face from the top down.
"Ardian asked the same week," I said. "Zef gave me to his son. In March he called you into his study and told you I had said no."
"Drita."
"I'm not finished."
He shut his mouth.
"I never said it," I said. "Nobody asked me. Nobody asked me one thing."
I heard my voice crack and I let it.
"At my engagement dinner Zef told me you were promised to a girl in Tirana."
"There's no girl in Tirana," he said. His voice came out cracked.
"I know. Lule says there never was a girl anywhere."
He put his hands over his face.
I had seen him take a knife scar and an alley and eighty people on a Saturday without moving a muscle.
His shoulders shook now, once, and went still.
When he lowered his hands his eyes were wet and furious.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of He Lost His Place Protecting Me, So I Took the Whole Family are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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