They Left Me to Die, So I Came Home Undefeated novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Price of a Pen

I did not sit down.

"Say it here," I said. "Say it in front of the desk."

My father looked at the sergeant, who was typing, and then at me.

"Very well," he said, in the same quiet voice. "The captain of this precinct is an old friend of mine."

"I'm sure he is."

"One call, and the charge against your friend becomes a misunderstanding. He walks out before lunch with his property." He turned the paper cup a quarter turn on the chair. "The lawyer is in the library at home. You sign, and I make the call."

"You made the other call."

"I have no idea what you mean."

"A woman phoned in the floor plan of a basement only I and my brothers could have told her about."

"Cosima has a kind heart," he said. "She worries about you in that place."

"She worries about the dock company."

His eyes did not change.

But for the first time since I was thirteen, he took a moment before he answered.

"Sign," he said, "or he stays in a cell until Monday, and by Monday his warehouse is sold to pay the fines."

"No."

"He will lose everything he owns."

"He told me he would," I said. "He said it before he knew you'd arrange it."

My father stood up.

He was a head taller than I was, and he had been the tallest thing in my life.

"You have been cold and clever all week," he said. "I admire it. But this is the last offer. When I walk out of here, it is gone."

"Then walk out."

He picked up his coat from the chair.

The station door opened behind him.

A small, old man in a gray suit came in with a leather case under his arm.

He had white eyebrows, and he walked with the care of a man who had stood in a great many corridors like this one.

He looked at my father, and he did not bow.

"Gaspare," he said.

"Counselor. This is not the place."

"I think it is."

He went to the desk and took a folded paper out of his case.

"I'm the Montanari family's counsel," he said to the sergeant. "I have bail for Tancredi Ruggiero from the company account, and a letter on file from its head."

The sergeant looked at the paper.

He looked at the signature at the bottom, and then he picked up his phone.

"Whose signature is that?" my father said.

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