My Ex's Father Is the Mafia King I Am Court-Ordered to Evaluate, and I Am the Reason He Is in the Cell novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Cottage

I did not throw the key in the river.

I drove out on Saturday in the old Subaru, down Eastern Avenue and past the long gray cranes of the port.

The road ran along the Patapsco with the key on the seat beside me.

The cottage sat at the end of a gravel road with trees on both sides.

It was a low weathered house with a porch and a dock that went out into the water.

There was a county car at the gate, empty.

The supervisor had come and gone, as Marguerite had told me he would.

I parked behind the cottage and sat with the engine off.

I was not his evaluator.

I had written the letter, and the court had stamped it, and nothing in any file said I could not walk up those steps.

I was thirty-three years old, and I had never done anything like this in my life.

I got out.

I went up the porch steps in my own coat and my own boots, and I did not knock.

The kitchen was warm.

A wood stove burned in the corner, and a long pine table stood in the middle of the floor.

Kostas Drakos stood at the far end of it, in a gray sweater and dark trousers, barefoot.

The ankle monitor was a black band above his left foot.

He had shaved, and his hair was wet.

He looked like a man I had never met.

He did not say anything.

His eyes went over me and stopped on my face and stayed.

"I'm not here as your doctor," I said.

"No," he said.

"I wrote the letter," I said.

"I read it. Marguerite brought me the copy," he said.

"And you don't have anything to say about it?" I said.

"I have a great deal to say," he said. "I will not say it until you tell me to."

I put the key on the table.

It made a small hard sound against the wood.

"Come here," I said.

He came.

He stopped in front of me, a little more than an arm's length away, and let his hands hang open at his sides.

I took his right hand and then his left, the scarred one, and turned them over.

← Chapter 7 · All chapters · Chapter 9 →

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