Chapter 20: Aunt Mira
Aunt Mira opened the passenger door for
herself, which I felt embarrassed about, and made
get in before she walked around to the driver’s side.
The interior slled like leather and her perfu, sothing soft and expensive. The seats hugged
like they’d been asured to my body. The dashboard had more screens than my apartnt.
Why was I even comparing anything to my apartnt?
Mira slid in beside , started the engine and it didn’t roar like the usual ones, it humd, a low confident sound, then pulled smoothly into the road.
"Buckle up, sweetheart. Tell
everything you’ve been eating in the last week. And I’ll know if you lie."
...
The restaurant was called Nera, on the forty-second floor of one of the towers downtown. Floor-to-ceiling glass with a perfect view of the river that made
forget for a second that I had a list of problems waiting for .
The host took one look at Mira, straightened so fast he nearly cracked his spine, and walked us to a private table by the window without asking if we had a reservation.
Two staff mbers appeared, took her coat, pulled out her chair, and vanished. A bottle of sparkling water arrived without being ordered. Then a small plate of olives I hadn’t asked for.
"Aunt," I said, looking around, "this is a lot."
"Mm."
"Like, this is a lot."
"Eat your olives, sweetheart."
I ate my olives.
The nu didn’t have prices on it, which I knew was a thing rich people’s nus did but had never actually witnessed in person. I scanned the dishes and tried to find the cheapest-looking one, which was a coward move, and Mira watched
do it for about thirty seconds before reaching across the table and gently closing my nu.
"I’ll order. You’ll like everything."
She didn’t even open her own nu.
"Lamb chops, the way I like them. The mushroom risotto, extra parsan. The seabass for . The chocolate do at the end, two of them. And bread, all the bread."
The waiter wrote nothing down. He just nodded and left.
I stared at her. "You rembered the lamb chops."
"Of course I rembered the lamb chops."
"I told you that once when I was like thirteen maybe."
She put her chin on her palm. "You told
when you were thirteen that lamb chops were the only food worth dying for. You then ate four of them and threw up in the car. I rember everything, Lukas. That’s my whole job."
"Your job is rembering people’s food orders? I don’t think you work here, Aunt."
She chuckled. "Among other things."
Sothing about the way she said it sat in the air for a second too long. I let it pass.
The food ca in waves. It was, without exaggeration, the best al I had eaten in three years. The lamb chops were perfect. The risotto was perfect. Mira watched
eat with the kind of quiet satisfaction that mothers and aunts did, refilling my water without being asked, pushing extra bread toward my plate when she thought I wasn’t looking.
She didn’t push
to talk about why I’d called, for which I was very grateful. She let
eat and made small conversation, asked about my writing, laughed at the things I said.
She told
a story about a colleague of hers who had recently had a "very dramatic divorce" and described it in a way that was clearly leaving out about ninety percent of the actual events.
By the ti the chocolate dos arrived, I was full and warm and a little less terrified than I had been an hour ago.
She tapped her spoon against the side of her do and looked at
over it.
"Alright, sweetheart. Now tell
about the thing."
I set down my spoon. "Yeah, about that."
"Take your ti."
I took a breath. "I’ve found sothing by accident. A lot of sothing, actually. Gold, so silver, gemstones, jewellery and stuff."
She didn’t react, at least not visibly. She just folded her hands on the table and kept looking at .
So I continued.
"I can’t tell you where it ca from. I’m sorry. That part’s not because I don’t trust you. It’s because... it’s complicated, and it’s not just my secret to tell. Maybe one day. Not today."
She nodded slowly. "Alright."
"I didn’t steal it from a person. I want to say that first. I didn’t take anything that belonged to anyone who’s still alive to miss it. Nobody’s looking for it. Nobody’s hurt by it. I want you to believe that."
Her eyes searched mine, then her jaw tightened, just a flicker, and her voice dropped a touch.
"Lukas. Tell
you didn’t do sothing dangerous because you were running out of money."
"I didn’t."
"Honey, if you needed money—"
"Aunt, I didn’t. I swear on... on the lamb chops. I didn’t."
A small startled laugh escaped her. She covered her mouth with her hand, shook her head once, and let out a long breath.
"You swore on the lamb chops."
"It was the most sacred thing I could think of."
"...Alright. I trust you."
The words hit differently than I expected. Quiet and final. Like a door closing on a question she wasn’t going to ask again.
"I want to sell it," I continued. "But I’m not stupid. I know I can’t just walk into a dealer with kilo bars and walk out clean. The serial numbers, the reporting thresholds, the tiara, it’s all... it’s a ss. I’m a complete amateur. I’d be in handcuffs by the end of the week if I tried this myself."
"You would," she agreed evenly.
"I want to sell it slowly and quietly. The right way. And I don’t know anyone else who could help
with that. Just you."
She tilted her head slightly.
"Just ."
"Just you."
A long silence followed, then a slow, soft smile that was almost shy on her face, which was wild because I had never seen Aunt Mira look shy in my entire life.
"You’re trusting
with this."
"Yes."
"You, Lukas. You are trusting ."
"Yes, Aunt."
She closed her eyes for one second, and I saw her swallow. When she opened them again, the businesswoman was back, but warr.
"Show
a piece. A small one. So I can see what we’re working with."
I had thought about this on the drive over. I couldn’t pull anything out of inventory in front of her, the system was the line I wasn’t willing to cross today, maybe ever.
So I had pald one of the small bars before leaving the apartnt, tucked into my inner jacket pocket. A real, concrete object she could see
retrieve.
I felt a small twinge of guilt as I made a show of reaching into my pocket.
Sorry, Aunt. Not yet.
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