Chapter 38 · Crowned in Shadows

The folder landed on the desk between us with a sound like a gavel.

"Sterling Holdings. Forty-two percent, clean transfer, effective this morning." Marcus didn't sit down. He never sits when he's about to lose something. "Last page."

I didn't touch it. On his desk, the baby monitor crackled, and my daughter made a noise like a small furious animal. Seven weeks old and already better in a negotiation than her father.

"Page thirty-one," I said.

His jaw moved. That's all. One muscle.

"Page thirty-one says the shares revert to the trust if I leave the state, marry someone else, or give up my license. So they're not mine." I opened the folder with one finger. "They're a leash with a bow on it."

"Read the second half."

"I did. You keep proxy until the trust dissolves. Which happens when I die, or when you feel like it." I let the cover fall shut. "That's not a gift, Marcus. That's a mortgage on my whole life."

Outside the glass, the city was doing its five o'clock bleed — orange skyline, horns, a helicopter stuttering low over the river.

Then he did the thing that still knocks me sideways. He smiled.