Chapter 38 · The Vote That Kills Itself

"Finish the sentence," I said.

Petrie's mouth was still shaped around the word he'd frozen on. Torin's hand stayed flat on my father's letter, knuckles gone bone-white against the yellowed paper, and neither of them moved, like the whole tunnel was holding its breath along with us.

"Mr. Black," Petrie said carefully, "I need the document to explain the release terms."

"You'll explain it with your mouth." Torin didn't look up. "Not with a paper I haven't finished reading."

His shoulder was an inch from mine. Close enough that I could feel the heat coming off him through his shirt, could smell rink chill and coffee and something underneath that was just him, and I hated that I noticed it now, of all the moments to notice it.

"Fine," I snapped. "Talk. We've got—" I checked my phone. "Forty-eight minutes."

Petrie exhaled through his nose. "The escrow releases only with joint authorization. Both original signers, or their direct heirs, physically present at the vault door in the pump room. Biometric and key, together, at the same moment. Not sequential. Simultaneous."