Chapter 19: The Question

At six on Wednesday morning the river warehouse smelled of diesel and wet cardboard, and the first crew was already unloading a truck.

Alessia walked down the center aisle between the pallet stacks in her school blazer and her brace.

Dario's men had gone around the building to the loading dock.

Dario himself stood inside the big door, with his hands in his pockets, and I stood behind a stack of boxes ten feet from him.

I had promised her the back, and I kept it.

The men on the floor stopped one at a time.

A forklift driver turned off his engine.

"Miss Alessia?" a foreman said, and took off his cap.

"Good morning," Alessia said. "I need to go up."

The office sat over the loading dock behind a long glass wall, and anyone on the floor could see in.

Jared stood at his desk with two cardboard boxes of ledgers at his feet.

Eli stood behind him, near the door, with his collar in his hand.

Jared saw her through the glass, and his whole body went rigid.

She climbed the metal stairs one at a time because of her rib, and the crews gathered at the bottom of them without being asked.

By the time she reached the office door, thirty people were looking up.

"Alessia." Jared opened the door himself. His voice was gentle. "You shouldn't be here. You're hurt."

"I know I'm hurt."

"Does Mom know you're here?"

"She's at the back," Alessia said, without turning. "She said I could ask you one thing."

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