The Underboss Voted No So I Chose A New Life Chapter 14
A week later, the Texas railway feature our bureau produced went live to a strong response.
Head office decided to spin the Austin route off into its own publication, with me formally appointed to lead it.
At the celebration dinner, Cameron raised his glass.
“Which photo do you want for the cover?”
I flipped to the last page of the mock-up.
The old platform stretched forward through the morning mist, a train just pulling in in the distance.
“That one.”
“And the title?”
“No Return Ticket.”
Cameron looked at me and just said, “Okay.”
Hadrian saw the magazine in an airport bookstore.
He bought the last copy and sat in his car, turning the pages from beginning to end.
On the last page was a single line of text.
*A ticket only proves you once set out. It doesn’t guarantee anyone will be waiting at the destination.*
He traced the sentence over and over with his finger.
On the passenger seat sat a tin keepsake box that had just been found.
The realtor had discovered it on the top shelf of the storage room while showing the apartment.
Inside were six old tickets. The last one was missing.
On the back of each one, I had written a date.
The first: *Waited forty-three days.*
The second: *He came.*
The third: *He said he’d come every month from now on.*
The sixth: *He said this was the last long-distance trip.*
Pressed into the bottom of the box was a debt repayment receipt.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
The note detailed, line by line, the payments I’d made after selling my mother’s gold bracelet to clear his debt.
Hadrian gripped the paper, his fingers trembling.