I Stripped to Keep My Boyfriend in School, and He Sold Me to the Man My Brother Died Owing novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Löyly
He had the driver off the property by hand before I reached the end of the hall, and I did not see how he did it.
I saw the aftermath.
The man in the gray flat cap sat in the snow beside his black car with his hat in his lap and a split lip.
Toby stood over him with his coat open and his breath smoking.
The two men from the porch stood behind Toby, not touching anyone.
Nobody raised a voice.
"Tell him I was careful," Toby said. "Tell him the cellar's mine. Tell him Iris is mine to keep safe, and if his car comes up my drive again, I'll keep it."
The driver got up and left, and I watched the taillights go.
"Mine to keep safe," I said from the porch.
Toby turned, and his face did something complicated.
"It's what he understands," he said.
"I understand it too," I said. "I just didn't like it."
"I know."
He came up the steps slowly, with blood on his knuckles that was not his, and stopped one step below me.
"You came to get me," he said.
"The housekeeper told me to."
"You ran."
"I ran," I said, and my voice shook, because I had.
He stood looking up at me, a big man in a black coat in the blue snow light, with his hands open at his sides.
I had never wanted anything so much.
"Sauna," I said.
"What?" he said.
"There's a sauna on the shore. Is it hot?"
"It's always hot," Toby said, very carefully. "She fires it at four."
"Then take me."
"Iris."
"I'm asking," I said.
I went down the path ahead of him in the borrowed parka and a pair of wool socks and nothing else I couldn't take off fast.
The snow squeaked under my boots, and my pulse went slow and heavy.
I did not look back to see if he followed.
I heard him.
The sauna stood on the shore below the bluff, a small log building with a tin chimney trailing blue smoke.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of I Stripped to Keep My Boyfriend in School, and He Sold Me to the Man My Brother Died Owing are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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