The Cyber Twins novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Seat at the Table

I tore the paper off the box with forty people watching.

Inside lay a brass key on a faded ribbon, and a folded card in Ottavio's heavy hand.

*The library. Every ledger in it is yours to keep. The chair you sit in is yours as long as there is a table.*

I looked up.

"The books in that room are four generations old," Ottavio said. "I want them kept by someone who can read them."

My eyes stung.

"Thank you, Ottavio."

"Don't thank me. Work."

The captains laughed, and he raised a hand for quiet.

"Now. Tonight, someone speaks first, and it is not the man who signs my checks."

He looked at me.

"Wynne. The floor is yours."

I had sat at that table for fourteen months and never once been given it.

I stood slowly, and I found Nico's eyes.

"The hole in the dock manifests," I said. "The one from that Tuesday."

His mouth twitched.

"The one from the toast."

"The very one."

"Nico, how did you close it?"

I said it exactly as I had said it the first night.

He put down his fork and turned all the way in his chair.

"I didn't," he said. "You did. You closed it from a back door nobody had checked."

"And?"

"And I spent two days looking for your patch."

The table was silent.

"Tell me how you found it," I said.

"I found it by accident," he said. "It was beautiful. It was the neatest work I've ever seen."

He leaned forward, with his elbows on the cloth, and began to explain.

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