Chapter 40 · The Seventh Ice Takes Them Both

"Falls to who?" My voice cracked over the pump hum, bouncing off wet concrete.

Petri didn't look up from the appendix page. "Emergency signatory reverts to the spouse of record. That's you, Mrs. Calder-Black. Effective the moment title transferred." He tapped the clause like it was nothing. Like it hadn't just chained my name to a fifty-year lock.

"I'm not signing a release under a clock you set."

"Nobody set the clock. Marnie's vote did. Midnight's midnight." He looked up, no apology in it at all. "Sign, the trust owns clean. Don't, and it locks anyway — just messier, with collectors in the building by morning."

Torin hadn't said a word. He stood by the manifold, keys fisted so tight the ring bit into his palm, and I knew that face. That was the face right before he did something nobody asked him to.

"You want her name on paper with a gun to her head," he said. "That's not a signature, Rick. That's a hostage note with a notary stamp."

"It's the contract you two wrote.