The Tideflats King Claimed the Surveyor Who Trusts No One, and My Signature Was His Brother's Alibi novel · Chapter 15 of 24
Chapter 15: Sunday Dinner
I told Niko I was going to Sunday dinner, and he said, "No."
He said it in my kitchen on Saturday night, in the voice he used for tugs.
I put down my coffee.
"That's the first time you've said that to me."
"It will be the last," he said.
"I will say it once, and you will do what you decide.
"No.
"Do not go to his house."
"I'm going."
"I know," Niko said.
"I wanted it on the record."
I almost smiled.
He stood by the window with his hands in his pockets, in a clean shirt from the spare drawer I had given him.
The Saturday light lay flat and pale on the bay.
He had slept on my sofa for two nights, under the lamp, with the bedroom door open.
He had not come into the bed again, and I had not asked.
"He texted," I said.
"Bring the case.
"He wants it in his house.
"He can't know I've opened it, so he can't know why he wants it."
"He knows something," Niko said.
"He knows you came to the yard," I said.
"He knows he offered forty thousand dollars and was told no.
"He's been careful for twenty-one years.
"He'll want his own eyes on that lining."
"Then take it empty."
"I'm taking it exactly as it is," I said.
"The ledger stays here, in the safe behind the wall panel.
"The case goes with the lining glued back down.
"I did it last night while you slept."
He turned his head.
I had not told him.
I had sat on the kitchen floor at three in the morning with a razor and a tube of contact cement.
I had put my mother's brown paper back where it lived and rubbed the corners flat with a spoon.
It was the first thing I had done in a week that felt like mine.
"You will be alone in a house with him," Niko said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Tideflats King Claimed the Surveyor Who Trusts No One, and My Signature Was His Brother's Alibi are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →
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