Chapter 11 · Slot Nine

"Sign it here, and the tape never leaves my pocket." Marco's thumb pinned the ninth line flat against the crate lid so the pen wouldn't skid.

"Sole holder. Tonight. Before they get a warrant for the hold."

"You want me to sign my name onto a slot I've never seen opened." I didn't reach for the pen. My breath came out white and hung there, thick, refusing to disappear in air this cold.

"That's not a signature, Marco. That's a confession with my handwriting on it."

"It's the only thing standing between you and a federal card with your husband's initials on it." He tipped his phone so the screen lit the frost between us. A waveform. A recorded voice — not mine, not his, someone flatter, older.

"This is the man who put Crowe's die in slot eight. He names you next if I let it run past the tenth second." The cold room hummed, compressor coils ticking against a power line that had already died twice tonight. Two federal sedans sat outside the loading bay, engines running, headlights cutting white slats through the seams of the steel door. Eleven tides down.