He Protected My Baby's Killer, So I Left Him novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Hope Street

Wednesday after the hearing, I took the card out of my pocket and walked to Hope Street.

It was a long block of chain-link and salvage lots, with the bay air coming up it cold.

Caprio & Sons Towing had a gate, a trailer office, and six trucks parked in a row with their yellow lights switched off.

Elio was under the hood of one, wiping his hands on a rag.

He saw me at the gate and stopped.

He didn't say anything clever. He came across the gravel and unlocked the padlock himself.

"I'll make coffee," he said. "It's bad."

The office was a desk, a space heater, a calendar from a parts supplier and a photo of an older man holding up a trout.

"My father," Elio said. "He died last winter. That's why I came home."

I sat on the visitor's chair and kept my coat on.

"Carina told me something after the hearing."

His face didn't change, but he set the coffee pot down.

"What did she say?"

"Ask them what they did the last time they had to choose."

He was silent for a while.

"She would say that," he said. "Because the answer is me."

I waited.

"Twelve years ago I stood outside Saint Bartholomew's after her brother's funeral," he said. "Carina was on the steps with her mother. I told her I didn't think her brother had died the way they said."

"What did they say he did?"

"Pulled the four of them out of a car that went off the boat ramp. Went back in. Didn't come out."

"I know the story. Everyone does."

"Dominic stood up beside her and called me a liar in front of the whole parish. Then Paolo said I'd always been jealous. Emilio said I'd stolen from Dominic's father. The youngest one cried and didn't say anything, which was worse."

← Chapter 4 · All chapters · Chapter 6 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend