Chapter 29 · The Hold Doesn't Open

"Sign here, Mrs. Black, and none of this touches you again."

The man holding the clipboard wasn't wearing a coat. He'd taken it off in the pump room like he owned the heat in it, like the frost climbing the pipes behind him was somebody else's problem. His name tag said NOTARY — not a name, a title, like he'd printed it that morning specifically for this.

"Touches me again," I said. "That's a strange way to describe my own marriage."

"Your appendix." He flipped the clipboard around so I could see it. My name, typed. A line under it, blank, waiting. "We're striking it. New trustee, clean structure, no wife of record complicating the collateral. You walk out of this building tonight with your name off every filing that put you in a penalty box in the first place."

Torin's hand was still flat against my sternum, the same place he'd put it thirty seconds ago when the second collector reached for me. He hadn't moved it.