The Famous Mafioso Hired Me to Hear Him, and the Man in the Cell Is Not Who They Convicted novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: His Belt

I went to him after midnight, with the guards asleep in front of the television and the whole house ticking as it cooled.

I carried his belt in my hand.

It was a plain black leather belt from the dresser in his room, the one thing in the house that was his.

He sat on the edge of the bed in his shirtsleeves, and he watched me come in and lock the door.

I had made a decision in the bath that afternoon with the water running, and I had not told him.

I was angry.

I had been angry for two days, and I had been polite about it.

I stood in front of him with the belt coiled in my fist.

"I have something to say," I said.

I said it aloud, and then I signed it, so he would have both.

WHEN YOU PUT YOUR HAND ON MY KNEE THE FIRST DAY, YOU DIDN'T ASK.

His face did not move.

YOU MADE ME LIE TO A LAWYER WITH A CAMERA ON MY FACE.

I WAS NOT YOURS TO USE.

He looked at me for a long time.

I had thought he would sign an apology, or an explanation.

He lifted his hands, and then he stopped and lowered them again, and he said it aloud.

"No."

It was his own voice, rough and flat, with no tune in it.

"I was not asking," he said.

"I did not know how."

I stared at him.

He sat with his hands open on his knees and his eyes on mine, and I saw what it cost him.

"I am sorry," he said.

He said it badly, with the wrong weight on the vowels, and it was the most honest thing anyone had said to me in a year.

My anger did not go away.

It turned over.

It became something warmer and much more dangerous, and I felt it in my wrists and the backs of my knees.

"Give me your hands," I said.

He gave them.

I wound the belt around both wrists, three times, and pulled the end through the buckle.

I did not tie it hard.

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