Chapter 36 · No Decoy Line

Nico's pen hits the table so hard the ink spatters my knuckles.

"Move your hand," he says.

I don't. My palm's flat over the line at the bottom of the page, the one with DECOY SIGNATURE printed in gray under it, and I'm not letting him near it.

"You want a name here," I say, "you already got one. I gave you Eli Tan on the marriage license. Real one. Not the alias you paid the courthouse clerk to file."

"That was a job." He leans over the table, both hands flat on the wood, close enough I can smell the leather off his jacket, the cold he brought in from outside. "This isn't a job. This is my family's ledger. My father's people read this. My cousins read this. And there's a line on it that says decoy, like you're a placeholder I can swap out when I'm done with you."

"Aren't I?"

He doesn't answer that. His jaw does something instead, a tight little flex, like he bit down on the actual words before they got out.

"Cross it out," he says. "The decoy line. Cross it out and sign under your own name. Yours.