Chapter 5: Four in the Morning

"Where do you go when you leave me?" I said.

It was the end of the second week, ten minutes to midnight, and I had closed the book on my finger.

Lucio opened his eyes.

"To work," he said.

"At midnight?"

"Produce arrives at four. Somebody has to be standing at the dock when it does."

I looked at him. "Show me."

He sat up slowly.

"That's not in your terms," he said.

"I know what's in my terms. I wrote them." I put the book in my bag. "I'm breaking one. You can decide whether it counts."

He looked at me for a while.

Then he picked up his coat.

The Castaldi produce terminal sat on the Flats, in the bend of the Cuyahoga, under lights that made the frozen river look yellow.

It was a long concrete building with twenty loading bays.

At four in the morning every bay was open and a truck was backing into it.

Forklifts ran up and down the dock, beeping.

Men in thermal coats and knit caps hauled crates of lettuce and onions and Florida oranges.

Every one of them nodded when Lucio went by.

"Mr. Castaldi," said one.

"Mr. Castaldi," said the next.

A third lifted his cap. "Morning, boss."

One of them, an old man with a missing finger, took one look at me and said, "That the librarian?"

"That's Miss Dobrzyn," Lucio said.

"Good," said the old man, and went back to his pallet.

The air smelled of cold and citrus and diesel.

Lucio took a clementine from a split crate, peeled it in one move, and held out half.

"Eat."

I ate it standing on the dock with my gloves in my pocket.

It was cold and sweet and the juice ran down my wrist.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Hid a Mob Boss in the Stacks, So He Claimed My Nights from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.