Sacrificed To The Don They Now Regret novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Visiting Hours
The county jail smelled of bleach and old coffee.
They put me in a booth with a thick pane of glass and a black phone on a short cord.
Lorenzo waited in the car.
I had asked him to.
My brother came in with a guard at his elbow, in an orange jumpsuit two sizes too big.
He had not shaved.
He sat down across from me and picked up the phone with both hands.
"Liv," he said.
"Pao."
"You came."
"You asked."
He swallowed, and his eyes were red and swollen.
"I didn't sleep," he said. "I keep seeing the kitchen. I see it every time I close my eyes. His shirt, the sugar bowl on the counter, the clock."
I said nothing.
"I wanted to say sorry." His voice broke. "That isn't enough. There isn't a word that's enough. But I wanted you to see my face when I said it."
"I'm looking at it."
"I'm sorry, Liv. I'm so sorry."
He began to cry, quietly, with his forehead against the glass.
He cried for a long time.
I let him.
I thought of the boy who had cried when we put the dog down.
I thought of the man who had been promised "one shot," had fired twice, and carried it for two years and sat across from me at Sunday dinner every week, passing the bread.
"You could have told me," I said.
"She'd have killed you."
"You could have told me anyway."
"I was scared."
"You were always scared."
"I know."
"Papa knew it too," I said. "He picked me to run the docks, because you'd have run from the first threat."
He flinched.
He lifted his head.
"Do you hate me?" he asked.
It was the question I had known he would ask.
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