The Mob Boss Said My Father Owed Him a Life, So He Took Mine to Keep novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Name on the Hull
In April the ice went out of the Bay, and my father sat at the Sunday table in the chair next to Rosaria's.
He wore a new gray cardigan with all its buttons, and he had put on eleven pounds.
He was explaining a balance sheet to the old man with the white mustache.
The old man, who had once called my father's blood a thief's in front of forty people, listened with his head tilted and a forkful of gnocchi halfway to his mouth.
I had rolled the gnocchi myself.
At the foot of the table, Dario's place was laid with a glass and a plate, as it had been every Sunday.
When the meal was over, Rocco stood up and carried the glass of red wine from that place to his own.
He drank it in two swallows and set the glass down.
Nobody spoke.
Rosaria reached across the cloth and patted his hand.
"There," she said.
"It's drunk.
"Now he can rest."
She rapped her cane on the floor, and the place at the foot of the table was cleared and not laid again.
Then she looked down the cloth at me.
"Grace," she said.
"I have something for you.
"Don't be proud."
She took a long envelope out of the pocket of her black dress.
Inside was a state commercial fishing license for a thirty-six-foot lobster boat, with an owner's name typed on the line.
The name was mine.
I read it twice.
"It is not from the family," Rosaria said, before I could open my mouth.
"The captain's brother is leaving the water, and he is selling you his boat.
"He would take money from nobody but you.
"The captain wrote the bill of sale with his own two hands, and the price is what you have in the bank.
"Not one dollar more."
Across the table my father had put down his fork, and his lips were pressed together hard.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Mob Boss Said My Father Owed Him a Life, So He Took Mine to Keep are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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