After He Watched Me Drown, I Built My Empire novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Forty Seconds

The recording ran on, and I watched a clock in its corner count the seconds.

The water where I had gone in grew still.

A few bubbles broke the surface and stopped.

"Come on," Remo said on the recording, very low. "Come on, Cesare. Kneel. Reach. Do one thing."

Cesare turned and walked away with Fiora under his arm.

"Hold," Remo said again, and his voice cracked on it.

The clock kept counting.

Under the water, where the camera could not see, I was going down.

At last the picture swung wildly, the phone hit a seat, and the boat's engine roared.

A white splash filled the frame, and the screen went black.

The counter in the corner read forty seconds from the moment I went in to the moment he did.

I closed the laptop.

I sat in the dark and heard the dock boards creak as he came back.

The key turned, and the door opened on the damp night.

"It was a cut cable," Remo said. "Two of Delmonte's men were at the breaker box. I let them see me and they left."

He stopped.

I was sitting very still with the laptop on my knees.

"Silvia."

"It's called boat cam," I said.

He did not move.

He did not say that I shouldn't have looked.

"Forty seconds," I said.

"Yes."

"You counted."

"I didn't need to," he said. "I knew."

My voice came out thin and steady.

"I need you to tell me why."

He shut the door behind him.

Water ran off his jacket and pooled at his boots.

"Three weeks ago," he said, "the old man called me up to the study and told me he was dying. He said if his son ever broke the first law, the table would never turn on the heir without proof that the table would believe. A Don can't punish his own boy on a rumor. He needs it on tape."

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