Chapter 9 · They Bought the Debt

"I don't just own the walls, Ethan." Cassian didn't raise his voice. He never did. "I own the paper under your father's signature too."

Ethan's jaw went tight enough to crack teeth. "That's a lie."

"Check your inbox." Cassian slid his phone across the counter, screen still lit. "Regional Trust called it in an hour ago. Your dad's loan on this building? The one he used to lean on you? Sold. Quietly. To a fund with my name on the letterhead."

I stared at the screen upside down and still understood it. A wire confirmation. A loan number I recognized from six months of watching Ethan's father wave it over my head like a leash.

"You bought his debt," I said. My voice came out flatter than I meant it to. "Not the building. The debt."

"Both," Cassian said. "The building's yours. The debt's mine. Which means your father" — he looked at Ethan now, and something in his eyes went colder than the rain still dripping off his coat —