CHAPTER 9: Rosalia

I’d learned early that the walls in our house didn’t keep sound out. Today, the hallway carried my father’s voice to me like darkness curling under a door.

“They’ve kept me in clerical servitude until the matter is closed,” his tone was stripped bare of anything but fact. He never raised his voice nor wasted words. “Every shipment that passes through the southern port is my responsibility. They found discrepancies with dates altered and cargo unlisted.” He paused, his chest rising and falling unsteadily. “The manifests matched a route flagged in a trafficking sting.”

The words gripped my chest even though I didn't understand all that he said.

Marco’s reply was honed enough to cut through the tensed air around them. “Well, you are saying Andrés claims your signature was the last one before they moved. I'm certain someone put those papers in front of you knowing they’d pin you for signing them.”

Uncle Marco was suddenly worried about my father's affairs. That was new.

“Speculation won’