Sold to the Bratva King novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: Page Three

I read Parker's sticky note four times.

On Monday morning I put on my black jacket and my good jeans and drove the van to the South Boston waterfront.

Atwater Marine looked smaller than I remembered.

Three blue cranes. Two berths. A rusted sign over the gate with my name on it, missing the second T.

The office was a two-story brick box at the edge of the yard, with dockworkers smoking on the steps.

They watched me walk up. Some of them were Zorin men. I recognized the one with the fire hydrant neck from the bloody floor.

He nodded at me. I nodded back.

Kent was at the top of the stairs, in front of the boardroom door, in his camel coat.

"Board only," he said.

"I'm on the board."

"You're on the floor. Where you belong."

"Move, Kent, or I'll tell everybody on these stairs what's in my coffee can."

His eyes went flat.

The men on the steps had stopped talking.

After a second he stepped aside. He made sure his shoulder hit mine on the way past.

Five people sat at the long table. Four old men and a woman with silver hair. My father's board.

Parker sat at the head, in my father's seat, with his lawyer beside him.

Matvei Zorin sat at the other end of the table, as the buyer. His hands were folded on a closed folder.

Parker looked at me and smiled with half his face.

"My sister. What a nice surprise. Halle, this is a business meeting."

"I know. You sent me the notice."

I laid my state ID on the table. Then the will.

"I'm Halle Atwater. I own half of this company. I'm here to vote my shares."

The silver-haired woman put her reading glasses on and looked at me hard.

"You're the Atwater girl," she said. "The little one. We were told you were in a home."

"I was in a home," I said. "His. Cleaning it."

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