"Sign it," Ellis said, sliding the divorce papers across the marble table.
I picked up the pen and turned it in my fingers.
"You wrote this in coffee and threats," I said. "You didn't even hire someone who cares about grammar."
Ellis's jaw tightened. "Don't make jokes."
"I prefer to be paid in honesty," I said. "Not hush money."
He smiled as if pity were currency. "Laney, this will end the public spectacle. You get a settlement, you get protection, you disappear."
I set the pen down without ink marks on the dotted line. "And let you keep the story? Let Valentina keep the stage?"
Ellis looked at the window and measured his words like a budget. "You know how reputations work. We cut losses. We close the window."
"Close the window?" I echoed. "You think erasing me is a new idea? People disappear all the time in Harbor City. You hand out checks and people vanish from the headlines, then you applaud yourself for stability."
"You don't get to lecture me on stability," he said. "You married into this world. You choseā"
"Stop." My voice was a blade. "I didn't choose to be treated like an asset."
He leaned forward. "This is an asset you can liquidate. Think of it as a promotion."
I laughed once, short and precise. "Don't be ridiculous."
"Laney." His tone dropped. "If you sign, we arrange for new documents, new identities. You live in a place people don
