They Gave Me a Monthly Allowance, So I Took Back My Building novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Both Ledgers

Donata came to the hill house at nine that night, on foot, up the drive in the dark.

She carried two green cloth ledgers against her chest and nothing else.

I let her into the kitchen. It was the one room the club's crew hadn't touched, because it still had my father's long oak table.

She put the ledgers down and didn't sit.

"The first one is the real set of books," she said. "Every transfer Ruggero made, with the dates. I started copying them in April, when he asked me to sign a stamp I'd never seen."

"You knew in April."

"I knew something was wrong in April. I didn't let myself know what."

She said it to the table, not to me.

I opened the first ledger. The handwriting was hers, small and upright, every column ruled by hand.

It matched the bank's list, line for line.

"And the second one?"

She waited so long I thought she wouldn't answer.

"Open it."

The second ledger was older. The cloth cover was worn at the corners, and the pages inside were yellow at the edges.

Each page held one year.

Each year had a short column of figures at the bottom, headed with a single initial. D.

"Management fee," I read.

"That's what I called it."

"There's no management fee in the company's books."

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