The Signature

Lyra

By lunch the next day, Adami has taped a red notice over the first one like lipstick on a bruise. PAY IN FULL BY FRIDAY. He underlines Friday twice, in case the day needed bullying.

Maya doesn’t cry. She goes small around the kettle and says she can pick up an extra night, and I picture her at three a.m. convincing her bones that tips are a fair trade for a spine. The math is easy: there isn’t enough month left to bargain with.

I text Rhoades. We’ll proceed.

He replies like a butler in a spy movie. 4:00 today. Conference B. Counsel confirmed.

I pick my dress like armor—black, not to be clever, just to be invisible. On the way, I swing by Maya’s work and press Cassandra’s spare key and bus fare into her palm. “If he tries anything, go to Cass’s and text me,” I say, light as I can make it, like a balloon that doesn’t know about gravity.

Conference B has the decorum of a wedding nobody is allowed to call a wedding. Two stacks of paper. Two pens that look like they grew up wanting to be swords. A square of felt with a ring box sitting on it like a beacon of look at me look at me!

My lawyer is a woman named Raina who wears low heels and a bulldog expression. She reads fast and talks faster. “You got them to include the autonomy clauses,” she says, satisfied. “Security limits. Work stays yours. Consent language is clear; I improved it.” She taps a page. “Aftercare stays as you defined it.”

“Good,” I say, pretending my throat isn’t a fist.

Dante is already there when we enter, because of course he is. He stands when I step in and the air does that weather trick: pressure hums, the windows turn into a listening thing. He’s in charcoal, tie undone by the smallest permissible degree. He looks at my face first, then at my hands. When his gaze hits the file in mine, it warms by half a degree. That is apparently what passes for pleased on him.

“Ms. Quinn,” he says. “Counsel.”

“Mr. Marcellus,” Raina says, not charmed. “We’ll need five minutes alone with the final draft.”

“You have them,” he says, and gestures toward the glass—another room waiting, another guard with shoulders.

We read. We initial. Raina makes a noise like a surgeon approves of the suture. “If you’re doing this,” she says, low, “you’re doing it on paper that won’t spit you back into the street.”

“That’s the goal,” I say.

“Then I’ll stay for the signing.” Her eyes flick to the ring box. “And that.”

When we come back, Rhoades and a notary have materialized as if politely grown out of the table. There’s water for me now; I drink it, because apparently I give good advice I never take.

Dante stays back until the last possible second, like a tide behaving itself. “Everything acceptable?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say. “As written.”

Something like relief glances off his face and hides in his mouth. He nods to the notary. Pages get turned. The boring ballet of legality begins: names spelled out in full, dates declared, places that never mattered suddenly mattering. I sign where Raina points. LQ. LQ. LQ. Each initial a small marched step toward quiet.

When it’s his turn, Dante signs like a verdict. Dante A. Marcellus. His hand is steady and ugly-beautiful, the signature of a man who has never had to prove his existence to a clerk.

On the last page, there’s a pause where a vow would go if this were that kind of room. Instead, there’s only paper. I look down at my name married to his in twelve places and make a vow to myself where no one can notarize it.

Play the part. Keep the power. Don’t go soft because someone handed you soft things.

The notary stamps with a decisive clack that sounds like it believes in God. Rhoades collects everything as if the papers are newborns: gentle, but with purpose. He slips a copy into a slim folder and places it in front of me like a plate.

“And now,” Dante says, and the room rearranges itself around the felt square again.

He opens the ring box. The piece inside is vintage the way a grand piano is vintage—old world, but it shuts you up. Platinum band, milgrain edges, an oval center stone that’s too pure to be polite flanked by slender baguettes—ostentatious, yes, but with the restraint of someone raised by gallery walls. It’s not dainty. It’s not trying to be.

“I chose it at an auction years ago thinking someday I’d-,” he says, cutting himself off before finishing the thought. “We can choose another if you don’t like—”

“It’s beautiful,” I say, before he can ruin it with options. The truth lands in his eyes like a pebble in still water; the circles go outward, not down.

“May I?” he asks.

The room remembers to breathe. I hold out my hand, shaking a little.. He takes it lightly at first, as if it might bolt, then steadier when it doesn’t. My pulse is throbbing in my hands, an uneven tattooing beat. He feels it; I know he does; his eyes flicker because he’s human under the architecture.

The metal is cool against my skin as he slips it onto my ring finger. The band finds its way over my knuckle and settles like an answer I’m not ready to read. He doesn’t let go when he should. He lifts my hand and kisses the ridge where bone becomes fingers—a knuckle kiss, old-fashioned and devastating. It’s slow enough to be a choice, not a habit. His breath warms my skin an instant before his mouth does.

I don’t gasp. I don’t soften. I record the information: Dante knows what restraint feels like. So do I.

“Congratulations,” the notary says to the papers. Raina says, “Well, then.” Rhoades says nothing out loud, but I catch the way his eyes flick back and forth between Dante and myself.

Dante releases my hand slowly, almost regretfully. He straightens, the tie somehow more civilized than it was a moment ago. “We’ll go public shortly,” he says. “A small announcement. Photos that don’t make you hate me.”

“I already hate you,” I say, and his mouth does that half-thing that means I’m not wrong but I’m not boring, either.

Raina gathers her bag. “I’ll email you copies,” she tells me. To Dante: “My invoice will be ruinous.”

“I’ll enjoy paying it,” he says. She snorts like a benediction and leaves.

It’s just us then, and Rhoades, which is the same as saying it’s us in a room with a very polite wall. Dante nudges the water toward me. I drink. He watches my throat in a way that isn’t rude, just present. I set the glass down carefully so I don’t make a noise that betrays anything.

“Logistics,” he says, business rolling back in like tide after a moment of weather. “Your landlord will receive a wire by close of business.”

“Don’t say his name,” I reply, lighter than I feel. “It summons him.” He doesn’t get the joke, but it’s okay.

“The wire will arrive anonymously,” he amends. “You’ll have a separate account for the stipend—Rhoades will text you access details. Keys—” He glances at Rhoades, who produces a small and expensive ring of them. “—for the penthouse, the service elevator, and the garage.”

“The penthouse, the garage?” I repeat.

“Move-in is tonight,” he says. “Seven—after the building’s shift change and before the lobby gets busy. It’ll be quiet. I have several vehicles in the garage, you can pick what you’d like to drive and Rhoades will get you added to the paperwork, transfer it into your name and all.”

Of course it is. The ring on my finger tightens and loosens at the same time, like it’s breathing on its own. I think about our apartment with its chipped blue key and its fridge that tries its best. I think about Maya and the fact that I can tell her to sleep without pretending it’s a prayer.

“Seven,” I say. Not an order. A schedule.

He steps closer, not enough to touch, enough to let the air between us shimmer with a slight tension. Up close, I can hear his breathing and know he can hear mine. The charge is there again—this stupid, undeniable power line we keep finding under the floorboards.

“I’m just here as a display, a power move,” I tell him quietly, eyes on his tie so I don’t look braver than I am. “And I’m not going to disappear, if that’s why we’re moving so quickly…if you’re worried.”

“I know,” he says. “I chose you because you won’t.”

I don’t have anything to say at that.

“Consider your message recieved,” he comtinues, softer, and I can feel heat at my knuckles where his mouth was like my hand remembers better than my head.

Rhoades clears his throat, breaking the tension. The world shuffles its papers and pretends it wasn’t listening.

“Seven,” I say again, to fix the choice in the air.

“Seven,” Dante confirms.

On the way out, I look at the ring once more. It’s a small sun on my hand, lighting up veins I didn’t know wanted to be seen. Play the part. Keep the power. Some promises burn slower than others.

I text Maya: We’re safe. Pack a bag. You’re staying with Cass for a few days. Don’t argue.

She texts back a heart, then three question marks, then are you okay?

I’m good, I lie cheerfully. I’ll explain later.

The elevator doors close. My face blurs in the chrome, then sharpens again. The city is waiting downstairs, pretending not to be impressed by the idea of me moving into the sky.

I tuck my hand into my pocket so I don’t keep touching the ring like a tell, so no one sees it yet. Tonight, a driver will open a door, and I will cross a lobby like someone who belongs there. Tonight, the glass tower will decide if it can hold a girl who didn’t flinch.

Tonight, I move in.