Chapter 21 · He Shakes

"You filed it under my real name." I dropped the copy on the counter between us, hard enough that the glass rattled. "Not the alias. Not the one we agreed on. My real name, Nico."

He didn't look up from the drink he was pouring. "I know what I filed."

"Then explain it. Because a stand-in marriage with my actual legal name on a county record isn't a job anymore. That's a real marriage. That's my whole life tied to yours in a database some clerk can pull up in five minutes."

"I'm aware of how filing works." His voice stayed flat, but his hand wasn't. The bottle clinked twice against the rim of the glass before he set it down.

I caught that. "Your hand's shaking."

"It's not."

"Nico. I watched you take apart a man's kneecap without blinking. Your hand doesn't shake pouring bourbon."

He finally looked at me, and something in his face had gone thin, stretched, like a wire pulled past what it was built for. "Drop it, Eli."

"No." I stepped around the counter so there was nothing between us but eighteen inches of air and whatever he wasn't saying. "You had one job.