I Hid a Mob Boss in the Stacks, So He Claimed My Nights novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Note

The letter came on Monday, in a bank envelope, and my father read it twice before he handed it to me.

"They sold the note on the house," Tata said. "To a company."

I read the name at the top of the page.

Castaldi Produce Holdings.

My father went out to the garage.

The pegboard on the wall still had the outline of every tool he used to own, drawn in marker.

I drove across the city with the letter on the passenger seat and my hands cold on the wheel.

The house on Murray Hill Road was brick, with a lamp lit over the door.

Lucio opened it himself, in shirtsleeves, with a glass of water in one hand.

"Miss Dobrzyn."

"You bought my father's mortgage."

He looked at the paper in my fist. He did not look surprised.

"Yes."

"You walked into my branch half dead and took my name, my street and my father's name. You put them all in your head before I could say a word." My voice shook. "You never once asked me what I wanted. And now you own my father's house."

"I bought the note so nobody else could." He set the glass down on the hall table. "A man from Parma Heights was circling it. Your father has sold every tool he owns to cover three payments."

"That was for him to tell me," I said.

"He didn't."

"And you didn't ask me."

"I'm asking now." His voice stayed low and even. "Tell me what you want me to do with it."

"Tear it up."

"It's yours."

He took the letter out of my hand and gave it back to me, gently, folded the way it had been.

"This isn't the library, Miss Dobrzyn," he said.

It was the taunt I had given him, thrown back at me with perfect courtesy.

I looked at him, and I tore the letter in half and then in half again, and let the pieces fall on his floor.

Then I took hold of his shirt and kissed him.

He made a sound against my mouth that went through my whole body.

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